Bishapur
It was a very long hot drive across a desert reminiscent of Gila Bend, AZ from Ahvaz to the old city of Bishapur.
This city has the dual function of going down in Roman history as a place of infamy while in Iranian a place of honor. It was supposedly built by Roman Emperor Valerian’s defeated soldiers and has an area called “Valerian’s Prison.” The ceremonial hall built in the form of a cross had 64 niches and was apparently quite fancy when it was built by the captive Romans. The builders left their mark through mosaics that graced the floor of a large hall used by Sassianid Shapur’s wives. These mosaics are now in the National Museum. There is an Anahita Temple by the royal complex and a city for the local residents about a ¼ mile from the royal palace. During the Middle Ages an Islamic Madressa was constructed off to the side between the old residential city and the royal palace. In a gorge across what is now the highway, Shapur I also placed five high reliefs, four on the north shore of the river, one on the south commemorating his victory over the Romans. The reliefs depict him in various ways receiving blessings from Ahura Mazda, while Emperor Gordion III lies dead under his horses’ hoofs, and Valerian is bound to Shapur while Phillip the Arab, who owed his rule to Shapur, is on his knees pleading for his life holding a Roman sword. The reliefs are for the most part in fairly good shape, but the city is in definite ruins. Nothing but a pile of rocks indicates Valerian’s last residence and there is no evidence of any place the captive Roman soldiers actually lived. How long this site was used as a royal residence is up for debate, but it was clearly a major site in its heyday. It is located right on a river at the entrance to a gorge, after a long plain, so it would have access to sufficient water and food supplies. There are a couple of walls left from a Fire Temple behind the residential area. Sheep still graze peacefully with their shepherd by the stream behind the former sacred site.
Bishapur is especially interesting for its Anahita Temple, which is the best preserved structure in the area. It is 14x14 m in diameter, and 6m underground. It was inspired by Achaemenidian designs and uses large whiteish rectangular stone in 2 layers without mortar, but with iron clamps and molten lead to bind the stones together. There are larger stones for the inner sanctum and smaller, but still quite big sized brick shaped stones on the outer corridor. It had a pointed rather than flat roof, which was adorned with two calf heads far over the entrance doors on the north and south sides. As it is from the Shapur I’s Sassanian period it is the second oldest of the three main Anahita temples, with Kangavar built by the Achaemenid Artaxerxes II/Ardashir II the oldest, ca. mid 4thC BCE, Bishapur from Sassanid Shapur I second, ca. 260 CE and Takthi-e Soliemann, built by Peroz I the last, mid 500s C.. In Bishapur there are arches in the circumference corridor and two canals on either side of the pathway in the corridor for water from the Shapur River to flow from the corridors into the main temple in the middle. The central area has a one stepped down basin which takes up the majority of the temple space. The four directional entries into the inner sanctum are placed in the middle of their respective walls with a post and lintel construction, although above the lintel there are also three stones creating a mini arch.
Anahita’s temple has only the water element and her totem is the calf/cow/bull. Fascinatingly the word for all three in Ancient Persian is gav, which can lead to lots of confusion, The word for cow in Hindi is gao. There is some indication that she was also associated early on with Adita from the Vedic tradition, who is also referred to as a life-giving cow in the Rig Veda.
This site is unique from both an architectural as well as water use perspective.
There is a small pool in the courtyard outside the temple (there is a set of stairs that goes to the underground structure, although about half of the walls are above ground) that is said to have been the place where the local people could come and worship her.
The women’s chambers with the large mosaic that had images of women and plants, looks north and slightly east on the Anahita Temple, which like all three of them remaining in Iran, faces south.
It is unfortunate that nothing remains of what would likely have been the first real architecturally stunning Anahita Temple, that at Pasargadae. Unfortunately, there has been little excavation at that site and while it is known she had a temple there, not much is now identifiable. On the other hand, she has passed into folk legend and in Abyaneh there is a cave temple outside of town on a hill with a small water fall that is labeled by the locals as an Anahita Temple.
From Bishapur we made our way onto Shiraz, where we spent the following day visiting the museums and bazaar. Then it was on to the truly amazing city of Persepolis
