Firouzabad

Map of Iran and surrounding countries, showing location of Firouzabad.

Gōr city. The circular plan of cities was a so called trademark of Parthian architecture and planning.

Firouzabad (Sassanid Middle Persian Gōr, post-Arab invasion Fīrūzābād) is a city in Iran. It is located in Fars Province south of Shiraz. It is one of the most attractive yet least known of Iranian tourist attractions.

Alexander of Macedonia destroyed the original city of Gōr. Centuries later, Ardashir I, founder of the Sassanid Dynasty, revived the city before it was ransacked in the Arab invasion of the seventh century.

Firuzabad is situated in a low-lying area of the region, so Alexander was able to drown the city by directing the flow of a river into the city. The lake he created remained until Ardashir I built a tunnel to drain it. He founded his new capital city on this site.

Ardeshir's new city was known as Kūh Ardeshīr, Ardeshīr Khurah and Shāhr-ī Gōr. It had a circular plan so precise in measurement that the Persian historian Ibn Balkhi wrote it to be "devised using a compass". It was protected by a trench 50 meters in width, and was 2 kilometers in diameter. The city had four gates; to the north was the Hormoz Gate, to the south the Ardeshir Gate, to the east the Mithra Gate and to the west the Bahram Gate. The royal capital's compounds were constructed at the center of a circle 450m in radius. At the center point of the city was a Zoroastrian fire temple 30m high and spiral in design, which is thought to have been the architectural predecessor of the great Samarra Mosque of Iraq.

At the center of the circular city was the spiral fire temple tower, the architectural precedent of the great spiral of the Samarrah Mosque in Iraq.

The city was destroyed in the Arab invasion before it was revived again in the reign of Azdoddoleh of the Deylamid dynasty, who overpowered the Arab caliphs and began developing areas left in ruin by the Arab soldiers. Since then, the city has been called Firuzabad (Middle Persian Fīrūzābād).

Among the attractions of the city are the Ghal'eh Dokhtar, the Palace of Ardeshir, and the fire temple tower among the remains of Gōr.

The people of modern Firuzabad are mostly descendents of the Qashqai. They used to live along the Amu Darya River before fleeing before Genghiz Khan to Fars.

Firouzabad

See also