Qasr-e Abu Nasr

🕰️When was it built?

Finds from excavations show that a walled building stood here in the Parthian era and was still used under the Sasanians. Achaemenid pottery and a stone vessel have also been found, but the age of a single object should not be taken as the date of every building on the site.

🏛️What was it built for?

This was a fortified, inhabited complex, and it probably played a part on the trade routes of southern Iran. Chinese and Greek coins and seals are among the finds, and they matter for understanding the place's links with the wider world.

👀What you will see

• Remains of the stone wall on the hill mark the defended area of the complex, separate from the walls of the buildings inside.
• Brick walls are part of the architectural remains that survive next to the stone materials of the site.
• Traces of mud-brick buildings show another way of building, beside the stone wall and the stone thresholds.
• Fallen stone thresholds remain from old entrances; these stones no longer form standing doorways.

💡Something interesting

Excavations in the 1930s found coins and seals bearing the name of Shiraz. Seals from the late Sasanian and early Islamic periods are among the evidence used to trace the city's name back to before today's Shiraz took shape.

🎒Good to know before you go

• Wear shoes for uneven ground when walking on the hill and among the ruins; this is an open hillside, not an indoor museum.