The Palace of Ardashir

Apr 29

Palace of Ardashir Pāpakan | کاخ اردشير پاپکان | Kākh-e Ardashir-e Pāpakān | Atash-kadeh-e Ardashir آتشکده اردشير | Firouzabad Palace

-by Xašāyār Pāzōki

Overview
The palace is located in the city of Firuzabad, which is situated 120 kilometers southeast of Shiraz and 5 kilometers south of Qal'eh-ye Dokhtar. It was constructed by Ardeshir I of the Sasanian dynasty. The ancient name of the city was Gur, which is located 3 kilometers northwest of the current city of Firuzabad. According to Abu Sa'eed Iskari's account, Ardeshir built the city of Gur in a region with stagnant water, and he pledged to build a city and a fire temple in the area where he had won over his enemy, thus fulfilling his pledge.

Ardeshir Papakan, the last king of the Parthian Arsacid dynasty, defeated Artabanus IV (216-224 CE) and established the Sasanian Empire in 224 CE. Ardeshir erected several grand buildings, including the Palace of Ardeshir (Huff 1986). The Palace of Ardeshir, also known as the "Fire Temple," is the second most substantial commemorative monument of the Sasanian era after the first historical fortified complex in Qaleh Dokhtar and displays noteworthy architectural innovations (Huff 2014). This structure is situated on the northwestern outskirts of the Firuzabad plain (Askari-Chaverdi and Dr. Jamali 2020). The construction of the palace dates back to the second half of the 3rd century CE (Jamali et al. 2017).

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Detailed Architectural Document (Farsi)

Century Built: 3rd Century CE
Builder: Ardashir I
Stewards: House of Sāsān
Use: Uncertain. Ceremonial or Religious. Possibly a fire temple.
Location: Fars, Iran | exact location

*Sectional Plan of Ardashir’s palace by Flandin Rawlinson*

Exterior Structure of the Castle

A) The Plan
The first plan depicts the sections and façade of the palace. Three vaulted chambers with centrally aligned semi-circular lines compose the ceiling. The cross-sectional surface of the dome is enclosed within a square and converges on each side to a point in the inner walls of the chambers. Several scholars later utilized these illustrations in their studies. For example, Pop accepted this design in his book "Persian Architecture: The Triumph of Form and Color" (Pop, 1965, p. 55).

B) Building Materials
The palace is constructed using rubble stone, which is held together with a mixture of sand, lime, and cement. The walls of the domed halls are 4.7 meters thick. The walls are covered with gypsum and the ceiling of the first floor is covered with wooden beams.

Interior of the Castle

Gypsum plasterwork in the palace of Ardeshir has been confirmed and emphasized its architectural dependence on the frame of doors and windows in the Parsian palaces of the Achaemenid era. D'olafvoua attributed this building to the Achaemenid era. In fact, the differences, apart from the arcuate conformal architecture and the changed division of the lip bands, are only in the freer development of the decorative elements of the Gilouyis in terms of art. The height of the three rows of leaves increases orderly from bottom to top instead of being equal or decreasing as in Takht-e Jamshid. The lateral precession is wider and the leaves are more orderly. Thus, the difference in the leaves is rarely continuous towards the middle, and instead, there is usually a notch-like gap that has been cut with short ribs or filled with thin bars.

A) The Columns
The columns are made of stone and plaster. The semi-circular columns were continuously connected to the wall, which also served as the facade of the building. The side and back walls, of which remnants of the western facade are still evident, were adorned with vertical recesses that most likely encompassed the entire height of the building. The protruding rectangular columns, which were separated from each other by deep cavities, were used to create a sense of separation. These recesses reached the circular frame, similar to the niche facades that can still be seen on the fragments of the inner courtyard facade. The only discernable decorative and design element of the structure, to the extent possible to evaluate today, is the column arrangement.

B) The Innovation of Squinches in the Domes

According to John Manzoni, the Iranians were the first to construct round domes atop a four-cornered base. The section of the dome is tangent to the four walls of the square space in the small chambers. The left image shows the squinches in the corners and the Firouzabad Palace is on the right. Hans Hoger's Plan shows the building with oval-shaped sections of the domes in the three halls. Although this is only a design that shows the domes have an oval-shaped section.

C) Color Evidence
It is almost certain that a structure of this era would have been painted on top of the plain white plaster, but the conditions of the structure now is such, that there is no traceable evidence of any colored plaster to confirm this assumption.

References:
- Askari Chaverdi, Alireza - Djamali, Morteza: Sasanian Palaces of Persis According to the Absolute Chronology: Qal'a-ye Doxtar and Palace of Ardašir I (Ataškada) at Firūzābād, and the so Called Palace of Sarvestan, Iran, Archaeology. Journal of the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research 3 (2020) 4. 23-32.
- Choisy, Auguste: Histoire de l'architecture. Tome 1 (in French). Hachette Livre BNF, 1899.
- Creswell, Keppel Archibald Cameron: The History and Evolution of the Dome in Persia. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 46 (1914) 3. 681-701.
- Dieulafoy, Marcel: L'Art antique de la Perse: Achéménides, Parthes, Sassanides (in French). Bibliothèque de l'Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, collections Jacques Doucet, 1885.
- Elkhateeb, Ahmed Ali: Domes in the Islamic Architecture of Cairo City: A Mathematical Approach.
- Architecture, Systems Research and Computational Sciences. Nexus Network Journal 14 (2012) 1. 151-
176.
- Flandin, Eugène - Coste, Pascal-Xavier: Voyage en Perse de MM (in French). Bibliothèque de l'Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, Collections Jacques Doucet, 1851.

تاریخ ایران جلد سوم قسمت دوم، پژوهش دانشگاه کمبریج، ۵۶۰،_۵۶۳

ساسانیان، گروه مؤلفان، ویراستاران وستا سرخوش کرتیس و سارا استوارت، ترجمه‌ی کاظم فیروزمند، تهران، نشر مرکز، چاپ اول ۱۳۹۲؛ مقاله‌ی: شکل‌گیری و ایدئولوژی دولت ساسانی از روی شواهد باستان‌شناختی، دیتریش هوف، ص ۶۱.