page_title: Bishapur
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bishapur / History
caption_attribution_description: Picture taken by Pentocelo in Bishapour, Iran, April 2006 The palace of Shapur Ist
context_page_description: Bishapur was an ancient city in Sasanid Persia on the ancient road between Persis and Elam. The road linked the Sassanid capitals Estakhr and Ctesiphon. It is located south of modern Faliyan in the Kazerun County of Pars Province, Iran.
  Bishapur was built near a river crossing and at the same site there is also a fort with rock-cut reservoirs and a river valley with six Sassanid rock reliefs.
  The most important point about this city, is the combination of Persian and Roman art and architecture that hadn't been seen before Bishapur construction. Before Bishapour was built, almost all the main cities in Persia/Iran had a circular shape like the old city in Firuzabad or Darab. Bishapour is the first Persian city with vertical and horizontal streets. Also in the city, especially in interior design, we can see tile work that's adapted from Roman Art
context_section_description: The name Bishapur derives from Bay-Šāpūr, which means Lord Shapur.
  According to an inscription, the city itself was founded in 266 AD by Shapur I (241-272), who was the second Sassanid king and inflicted a triple defeat on the Romans, having killed Gordian III, captured Valerian and forced Philip the Arab to surrender. In his native province of Fars, he built a new capital that would measure up to his ambitions: Bishapur, Shapur's City. Outside the city, Shapur decorated the sides of the Bishapur River gorge with huge historical relief commemorating his triple triumph over Rome. One of these reliefs, in a semicircular shape, has rows of registers with files of soldiers and horses, in a deliberate imitation of the narrative scenes on the Trajan column in Rome.
  At Bishapur the king also inaugurated the Sassanid imagery of the king's investiture, which would be copied by his successors: the king and the god are face to face, often on horseback, and the god - usually Ahura Mazda - is holding the royal diadem out to the sovereign.
  The city, has the remarkable dam bridge in Shushtar, built by Roman soldiers who had been captured after Valerian's defeat in 260. However, it was not a completely new settlement: archaeologists have found remains from the Parthian and Elamite ages.
  The city remained important until the Arab conquest of Persia the rise of Islam in the second quarter of the 7th century AD. There were still people living there in the 10th century.
  The city has a rectangular plan with a grid pattern of regular intra urban streets, resembling Roman city design. This design was never repeated in the architecture of Iran.
caption: Ruins of Shapour Palace in Bishapur
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