On the Idea of the Sassanid Hunting Pavilions

The archaeological remains pertaining to hunting tradition and Destagerd, i.e. royal hunting grounds, thus far discovered and published from ancient Iran may be divided into two groups of Parthian and Sassanid. The main argument in the present work is that the architecture of royal hunting ground palaces or hunting pavilions is essentially a Sassanid phenomenon, and that there is currently no definitive evidence on analogous complexes from the Parthian or Achaemenian periods. While there are archaeological data attesting to the popularity of hunting practice among the Parthian aristocracy, nothing can currently be said of the presence of hunting ground pavilions with certainty in this time.
However, the monumental tetrapylon known as the pavilion of Qala Zah’hak in Azerbaijan may be construed as a sort of Destagerd, though of course the hypothesis needs to be examined by conducting further excavations at the site. In the wake of the Parthian period, representing hunting scenes becomes more common in the Sassanid art, though it in reality had its roots in the representation of boar chasing in the Parthian traditions. However, apart from the artworks relevant to hunting tradition from the Sassanid era, archaeological finds from the Kermanshahan region highlight the existence there of royal hunting grounds and hunting pavilions in line with the hunting tradition of the Sassanid court. Here, the three archaeological sites of Taq-e Bostan, Kangavar and Farhad Tarash of Bisotun are theorized to represent potential Sassanid palaces in royal hunting grounds.