BOZPAR, a valley situated about 100 km southwest of Kāzerūn, and 11 km by donkey path through the mountains from Sar Mašhad, Fārs [see Comment]. Since 1970, the valley has been accessible via the oil-company road from Ḥosaynābād. It is the site of many old ruins, mostly from Sasanian times, when there was a town in this valley; two important buildings, Kūšk-e Bālā and Kūšk-e Pāʾīn, are preserved from this town.
The most important ruin in the Bozpar valley is the building known locally as Gūr-e Doḵtar (Plate XX). R. N. Frye was the first to report its existence after he visited Sar Mašhad in 1948, and W. B. Henning and M. T. Moṣṭafawī during their epigraphic survey of the Sar Mašhad region in 1950 were informed about this monument by local tribesmen.
L. Vanden Berghe then visited it (winter 1960) and described it (1962, 1964). In 1962 D. Stronach also went to Bozpar and studied the tomb. Gūr-e Doḵtar is built of well-cut stone blocks of varying sizes. It consists of a small gable-roofed chamber on a base of three receding tiers, each about 35 cm high. The rectangular chamber is not very large. The low door opening (67 cm high, 80 cm wide) is on the north side and is just large enough to admit a sarcophagus. On the exterior a rectangular niche, like a blind window, is located below the gable on each short wall. The flat roof of the tomb chamber is covered with a long concave stone slab like a vault’s which was originally hidden from view on the exterior by tall gable stones at either end and by various smaller stones forming the pitched roof on the long sides. Places where metal clamps joined the covering slabs are visible. This tomb appears remarkably similar to the tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae, with its stepped substructure, rectangular room, gabled roof and vaulted stone slab. The Bozpar tomb is smaller, however: only 4.45 m high, 5.10 m long, and 4.40 m wide. Cyrus’ tomb measures 10.60 m high, 13.20 m long, and 12.20 m wide. The funerary chamber at Bozpar is 2.05 m high, 2.20 m long, and 1.55 m wide; that at Pasargadae is 2.10 m high, 3.20 m long, and 2.20 m wide.
In 1962 Vanden Berghe suggested that the tomb had been built in the 7th century B.C. and tentatively attributed it to Cyrus the Great’s grandfather Cyrus I. Stronach at first agreed with this early date (1964, pp. 28-30), but afterward accepted the conclusion of C. Nylander, who showed, on the basis of careful examination of the shapes of the clamp holes and the advanced techniques used to join the stone surfaces, that the building could not have been erected earlier than the 5th century B.C. (1966a). This later dating led A. Sh. Shahbazi to attribute the tomb to Cyrus the Younger, who was killed at the battle of Cunaxa in 401 B.C., and to propose that it had been erected by his mother, Queen Parysatis (pp. 54-56).
Bibliography:
M.-T. Moṣṭafawī, Eqlīm-e Pārs: Āṯār-e tārīḵī wa amāken-e bāstānī-e Fārs, Tehran, 1343 Š./1964.
Idem, The Land of Fars: The Historical Monuments and the Archaeological Sites of the Province of Fars, Chippenham, 1978.
C. Nylander, “Zur Moortgat-Festschrift. Troja-Philister-Achämeniden,” Berliner Jahrbuch für Vor- und Frühgeschichte 6, 1966b, p. 215.
Idem, “Clamps and Chronology (Achaemenian Problems II),” Iranica Antiqua 6, 1966a, pp. 130-46.
Idem, Ionians in Pasargadae, Uppsala, 1970, pp. 93, 97.
A. Sh. Shahbazi, “The Achaemenid Tomb in Buzpar (Gur-i Dukhtar),” Bāstānšenāsī wa honar-e Īrān 9/10, 1972, pp. 54-56.
D. Stronach, “Excavations at Pasargadae, Second Preliminary Report,” Iran 2, 1964, pp. 21-39. Idem, Pasargadae, Oxford, 1978.
L. Vanden Berghe, “Neuentdeckte archäeologische Denkmäler in Süd-Iran,” ZDMG 111, 1962, p. 412.
Idem, “Le tombeau achéménide de Buzpar,” Vorderasiatische Archäologie. Studien und Aufsätze. Festschrift A. Moortgat, Berlin, 1964, pp. 243-57.
Search terms:
بزپار | bozpaar | bozpar | bouzpaar |
(Louis Vanden Berghe)
Originally Published: December 15, 1989
Last Updated: September 30, 2016
This article is available in print.
Vol. IV, Fasc. 4, pp. 429-430