علی هژبری

Due to its specific location, the Persian Gulf has been at the center of attention throughout Iran’s history. Apart from commercial ships that passed through this strategic waterway, the Persian Gulf turned into a major point for the emergence and export of various thoughts and religions from one place to another in the region and beyond. In addition to historical texts, burial practices and rites seem important enough to evaluate and assess religious tendencies of the people who lived in this area. Among these rituals, those belonging to Zoroastrians on the edge of the Persian Gulf are of immense importance, which include some known samples found in Khark Island, Siraf Port, and Bushehr’s Shoghab. Man-made caves located on the Persian Gulf shores near the Parsian (=Gavbandi) next to cultural remnants of Islamic periods called “Javad Al-Aemeh Fishing Port” near the Bostanu Village help us know this kind of architecture. It seems that Bostanu caves served as rock-cut tombs and were included in the burial tradition of the Sassanian period that was also used in the Islamic period. Also, the location of Bostanu can be matched with the ancient Apsaneh and take its history back to the era of Alexander of Macedonia.  

The Sasanian, the last Iranian dynasty before the Arab invasion of Iran, overthrew the Parthians and ruled the region for more than four centuries between 224-651 AD. One of the structural characteristics of the Sasanian state was the establishment of an official religion and the concentration of political and religious sovereignty. The official recognition of the Zoroastrian religion led the Sasanian kings and priests to build numerous fire temples in various parts of Iran, and many archaeological evidences of Sasanian era burials have been found, which are intertwined with art. The kings enriched the art of this period by creating rock carvings to display various matters. A rock carving in the Sasanian style was accidentally discovered a few years ago at a local airport in England. When this discovery was reported in the early days of 2023, the main question was whether it was an independent rock carving that had been detached from the mountain or whether it belonged to a structure? Based on the library studies and comparisons made with other works in this article, it seems that the newly discovered Sasanian rock carving from Stansted Airport in London was likely part of a stone structure similar to a fire altar or a Astōdān (one type of Ossuary), and it most probably dates back to the early Sasanian period.

Dari apparently began to spread in Greater Khorasan only in the aftermath of the Arab invasions of Iran. As the official language of the Sasanian court, it would experience a substantial proliferation following the shift in power from Ctesiphon and Fars to eastern Iran, particularly Khorasan, which appeared as a safe haven for the king and the prominent court families during the first two decades of the invasions. The question then arises as to the relation between the spread of Dari in Khorasan and the resettlement of western and southern Iranian populations in the eastern part of the collapsing empire. Our inquiry into the Sasanian-Islamic transition in quest of the fire temples that persisted in the early Islamic centuries led to the conclusion in view of the fluctuating numbers of coeval sites that the earlier harsh attacks had apparently forced inhabitants of southern Iran in particular Fars and Ctesiphon to take refuge in Khorasan, the land of Adur Burzen-Mihr Fire. In their new home, these refugees would adopt two different modes of subsistence, thereby settlement, systems: sedentary rural life, and nomadic lifestyle involving periodic moves within a certain area. This dichotomous approach would guarantee their survival. Among the manifold results of the late Sasanian peace treaties between the dehgâns and the Arabs was the preservation of Iranian culture and language in Khorasan, where it contributed to several advances. Several years of efforts by Iranian immigrants to revive architectural and poetic styles in Khorasan proved that they were triumphant in the cultural battleground despite of losing the actual battle.