Mozaffari, Ali (ed). 2014. World heritage in Iran: Perspectives on Pasargadae. Heritage, Culture and Identity. Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate.Pasargadae is the location of the tomb of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Through the ages it was Islamised and the tomb was ascribed to the Mother of Solomon. It was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that archaeological evidence demonstrated the relationship between the site and Cyrus and it was appropriated into conflicting political discourses on nationalism and Islamism while concurrently acknowledged as a national and then a World Heritages site. However, Pasargadae is neither an isolated World Heritage site, nor purely a symbol of abstract state politics. Pasargadae and its immediate vicinity constitute a living landscape occupied by villagers, nomads and tourists.This edited volume presents for the first time a broad, multi-disciplinary examination of Pasargadae by experts from both outside and within Iran. It specifically focuses on those disciplines that are absent from existing studies, such as ethnography, tourism and museum studies providing valuable insights into this fascinating place. In its totality, the book argues that to understand World Heritage sites and their problems fully, a holistic approach should be adopted, which considers the manifold of perspectives and issues. It also puts forward a novel approach to the question of heritage, representation and construction of collective identity from the framework of place.
- Ali Mozaffari: “Conceptualising a World Heritage Site”
- Rémy Boucharlat: “Archaeological approaches and their future directions in Pasargadae”
- Mohammad-Hassan Talebian: “The current state of heritage management at Pasargadae: problems and prospects”
- William M. Taylor: “Archaeology and useful knowledge: Pasargadae and the rationalities of digging ‘real’ places”
- Riccardo Baldissone: “The costs of Paradise: temporalisations of place in Pasargadae”
- Soheila Shahshahani: “Pasargadae, Mâdar Soleimân and Leilâ: placing Pasargadae within its present rural context”
- Tod Jones and Mohammad-Hassan Talebian: “Perspectives and prospects for cultural tourism in the Pasargadae region”
- Jennifer Harris: “The past in the present: using poetics as an interpretative strategy at Pasargadae”
- Ali Mozaffari and Nigel Westbrook: “The (unfinished) museum at Pasargadae”
- Elham Shamoradi and Ebrahim Abdollahzadeh: “Antinomies of development: heritage, media and the Sivand dam controversy”