Morteza Djamali, Elnaz Rashidian, Alireza Askari-Chaverdi, Cyril Aubert, Elodie Brisset, François Demory, Nicolas Faucherre, Emmanuel Gandouin, Hamid Lahijani, Nick Marriner, Abdolmajid Naderi-Beni, Andrew Parnell. “Early Sasanian landscape modification: New geoarchaeological evidence from the Ardashir Pond in southwest Iran (Palace of Ardashir, third century CE)”
Morteza Djamali, Elnaz Rashidian, Alireza Askari-Chaverdi, Cyril Aubert, Elodie Brisset, François Demory, Nicolas Faucherre, Emmanuel Gandouin, Hamid Lahijani, Nick Marriner, Abdolmajid Naderi-Beni, Andrew Parnell. “Early Sasanian landscape modification: New geoarchaeological evidence from the Ardashir Pond in southwest Iran (Palace of Ardashir, third century CE)”, Geoarchaeology 36(6), 2021, p. 925-942.
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1The Authors disseminate the outcomes of a multi-disciplinary study of the pond facing the entrance to the outstanding Palace of Ardashir I at the north-western margin of the Firuzabad Plain in Fars. Archaeological researches and recent geoarchaeological analyses have clarified the architectural and hydro-sedimentary evolution of the pond: a natural spring-fed water body at origin, manipulated and integrated into a royal monumental architecture in the frame of a wider early Sasanian programme turning the entire surrounding area into an institutional landscape.
2Relying on the sedimentary logs of eight cores collected from the pond in 2016, and taking into account the calibrated radiocarbon dates of 57 samples from the sediments, the Authors track down three phases in the evolution of the pond, from c. 4500 BP until the return to a semi-natural state following the abandonment of the palace at the end of the Sasanian period. Major anthropogenic interventions (e.g., large-scale dredging and reshaping, shrinking of the catchment basin, etc.) are dated to the early Sasanian period, when the pond was monumentalised and entrusted with several different functions (practical/hydraulic, ornamental/architectural, and ideological) related to the royal seat of the first Sasanian king.
References
Electronic reference
Giulio Maresca, “Morteza Djamali, Elnaz Rashidian, Alireza Askari-Chaverdi, Cyril Aubert, Elodie Brisset, François Demory, Nicolas Faucherre, Emmanuel Gandouin, Hamid Lahijani, Nick Marriner, Abdolmajid Naderi-Beni, Andrew Parnell. “Early Sasanian landscape modification: New geoarchaeological evidence from the Ardashir Pond in southwest Iran (Palace of Ardashir, third century CE)””, Abstracta Iranica [Online], Volume 44 | 2022, document 5, Online since 30 November 2022, connection on 04 December 2023. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/abstractairanica/55102; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/abstractairanica.55102
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