The Position of Gour City in Sassanian Era and the Essence and Function of its Central Monuments

The first capital of Sassanian Empire was Gour city located in Firuz Abad region. Passing the time, changing governments, and human’s interferences there only some ruins have remained. Two great ruins have still existed in the city, one of them is similar to a tower and the other has been built of dressed stone. Some historians have indicated them briefly and some researcher studied their function shortly. Nevertheless, their essence and function are not clear and no one has done comprehensive survey about them. Therefore, the main purpose of this essay is to reach sensible narration about the quality of living in these monuments in Sassanian era. Thus, the research method is historical – interpretative. The main questions are on the importance of Gour city and Firuz Abad region in early Sassanian period, the essence and names of the monuments, their functions, and the main aim of the establishment of the city and its buildings. Getting that, first, we will study the status of Pars province and Firuz Abad in early Sassanian period in order to reach the perspective of Gour’s status in that time. Next, in second part of the essay, we will study the texts of historians and geographers in Islamic period, between 9th and 19th century, about the city and its monuments to know the city’s structure and the monuments conditions in various periods and their famous names. At the end of this part, we analyzed their narrations and compare them together, because in some texts, we can see some vagueness and repetition. In the most important part of the essay, we study the functions of two central buildings of the city. Achieving this, we studied the contemporary researchers’ and travelers’ attitudes on these monuments and compare them together and analyze their reasoning. We want to get believable narrations about the story of living in these monuments in Sassanian era. To sum up, we found out some results. Gour or Ardeshir Khovarrah might have been the political and religious capital of Iran by the early Sassanian era. Islamic historians have named these ruined Terbal, Eyvan, Kiakhoreh, and Minaret. Maybe they wanted to suggest royal and religious function for these monuments, although it seems that they indicate a palace. According to archaeological and historical evidences, researchers’ attitudes, and sensible reasoning we can reach some narrations about living in these ruins when they were habitable. One of them is the monuments belonged to royal complex and the tower was the symbol of Sassanian kingdom and the other has been built of dressed stone was the space for royal or ritual ceremony. The other alternative for dressed stone building is the open space for ritual washing or even might have been Anahita temple. The last suggestion for this ruin is a place for ossuaries, because these places have not been recognized precisely yet. Finally, we think that these monuments were parts of the royal complex of the city. In this research, we used three main references; first group is historical and geographical texts. When we use these references, face some issues. If we do not investigate them carefully, we might make mistakes in our deductions. The first issue is the editors might have made mistakes in rewriting some words; second, the vague narrations which we don’t know the writer talks about which building; third, repetition of earlier historians’ word in later historians’ word .the other group of references is contemporary researches and diaries which is the source of third part of the essay. Moreover, knowing correct meaning of some words, we used encyclopedias and literary texts which have been mentioned in footnotes and references’ part.