Bīšāpūr and its Territory (Fars, Iran)

The field project at Bishapur is aimed at analyzing in which this urban area such was firstly planned, designed and built, in consideration of the particular: 1) historical importance of the city (built and founded by the Sasanian king Šahpūr I in the 3rd century AD and living at least until the 10th century AD in Islamic period)3; 2) geo-morphological and landscape complexity of the territory where the city is located [a plain, a river (Šahpūr), water sources: Sarāb-e Ardašīr (Sarābšir) at North, Češmeh-ye Sāsān at East and Sarāb-e Dokhtarān at South, the cave (Šahpūr Cave)] in the geographic context of the Kazerun Karstic Aquifer; 3) rich artistic, epigraphic and iconographic documentation distributed inside and outside the city, along the river with six different rock-reliefs [the I, the earliest (celebrating victories of Šapūr I), the II and the III (commemorating the defeat of Valerian), the IV (portraying an Arab embassy to Bahrām II), the V (Dedication of Bahrām I) and the VI (Victory of Šapūr II)], the famous statue of the king Šahpūr I in a cave and the inscription in middle Persian and Parthian on one of the celebrative columns in the city; 4) unique and impressive architectonic and urban evidences among which the castles (Qal‘e-ye Dokhtār, Qal‘e-ye Pesar), the city (Bīšāpūr), where a palace, a religious building interpreted as dedicated to the female Sasanian divinity Anāhīta6, a Mosque and a Madrasa of the early Islamic time have been identified.