Pasargade, a City or an Achaemenid Garden-City? Recreating the Prototype of the Persian Garden

The recognition and perception of the whole Pasargade complex as the first capital of Achaemenes is not that simple, due to the dispersion of the ruins in the whole plain. Archeological findings were mainly concentrated on components and buildings without providing a general structure for Pasargade. This research, firstly, attempts to prove the existence of a garden as a connecting factor in Pasargade area by studying historical documents along recent archeological findings. Secondly, by analyzing the remained components, based on Persian landscaping traditions such as the existence of the main axis and symmetry, tends to find the geometry of the garden and its pattern. The results indicate that all of the buildings in Pasargade plain are constructed based on a spatial structure and that a large garden surrounded all the elements. “The royal garden” was only a small component of this large compound. In fact, it seems that the first governmental-ritual Achaemenid center was being constructed under the form of a garden-city with an ordered and integrated structure.