TEHRAN – A cultural heritage researcher has stumbled upon a stone column base, estimated to date from the Sassanid era (224–651).

The stone artifact was found accidentally in the village of Faruq, Marvdasht county, Fars province, southern Iran.

“I was taking pictures of historical monuments in the village of Faruq when a piece of stone attracted my attention. Further, I came closer and realized that is a historical column base,” cultural heritage researcher Siavash Aria told Mehr news agency on Sunday.

“After examining it carefully and taking photos, I informed the head of the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Marvdasht about the matter and I requested them to move the column base.”

He believes the column base had been brought to the village from its original place due to unknown reseasons. “Without doubt, there was not the original place of this column base and it was brought here by unknown people for an unknown reason, while this column base was located near agricultural lands and village houses and was in danger of being destroyed."

“Native and regional people don't know about a piece of stone as a historical artifact and they think of it as an ordinary stone…. This column base might be lost or broken and destroyed.”

Two Iranian archaeologists, Alireza Jafari Zand, and Afshin Yazdani have agreed that the column base dates back to the Sassanid era, Aria said.

The object has been surrendered to the museum of the UNESCO-registered Persepolis, the researcher added.  

Persian columns are a distinctive form of columns developed in the Achaemenid architecture of ancient Persia, probably beginning shortly before 500 BC. They are mainly known from Persepolis, where the massive main columns have a base, fluted shaft, and a double-animal capital, mostly with bulls.

The Sassanid era is of very high importance in the history of Iran. Under the Sassanids, Persian architecture and the arts experienced a general renaissance. Architecture often took grandiose proportions, such as palaces at Ctesiphon, Firuzabad, and Sarvestan, which are amongst the highlights of the ensemble.

Generally, a Sassanid archaeological landscape represents a highly efficient system of land use and strategic usage of natural topography in the creation of the earliest cultural centers of the Sassanid civilization.

In 2018, an ensemble of Sassanian historical cities in southern Iran, titled “Sassanid Archaeological Landscape of Fars Region,” was named a UNESCO site. The ensemble comprises eight archaeological sites situated in three geographical parts of Firuzabad, Bishapur, and Sarvestan.

The World Heritage reflects the optimized usage of natural topography and bears witness to the influence of Achaemenid and Parthian cultural traditions and of Roman art, which later had a significant impact on the architecture and artistic styles of the Islamic era.

Apart from architecture, crafts such as metalwork and gem-engraving grew highly sophisticated, yet scholarship was encouraged by the state. In those years, works from both the East and West were translated into Pahlavi, the language of the Sassanians.

AFM