Tomb of Cyrus the Great

🕰️When was it built?

The tomb survives from the Achaemenid era and was probably built before Cyrus died, on his own order. Under the Atabegs of Fars, a mosque was built around it with stones and columns from the palaces of Pasargadae. In 2004 it was inscribed as World Heritage together with the Pasargadae complex.

🏛️What was it built for?

The building was made as the tomb of Cyrus, and in the Achaemenid era a group of Magi were in charge of looking after it. It has two separate parts: a stone platform of six steps and a chamber with thick walls on top of it. The whole building is a little over eleven metres high.

👀What you will see

• White to yellowish limestone forms the body of the tomb and the platforms beneath it.
• The three lower steps of the platform are taller than the three upper ones.
• From outside the roof is pitched on both sides, but the ceiling inside the chamber is flat.
• The chamber's entrance is narrow, about 78 centimetres wide and 140 centimetres high.
• The chamber walls are up to about one and a half metres thick and built of dressed stone.

💡Something interesting

In the Islamic era people attributed the building to the mother of the prophet Solomon and called it Mashhad-e Madar-e Soleyman. This was an old belief and does not show who was really buried here. Later, by comparing the building with ancient writings, the tomb was identified again as that of Cyrus.