page_title: Sari, Iran
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Sari, Iran / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: Iran, sari, coppa, x-xi sec.
context_page_description: Sari, also known as Shahr-e-Tajan and Shari-e-Tajan, is the provincial capital of Mazandaran and former capital of Iran, located in the north of Iran, between the northern slopes of the Alborz Mountains and southern coast of the Caspian Sea. Sari is the largest and most populous city of Mazandaran.
context_section_description: Excavations in the Hutto cave present evidence for the existence of settlements around Sari as far back as the 70th millennium BCE.
  The Muslim historian Hamdollah Mostowfi attributes the foundation of Sari to king Tahmoures Divband of the Pishdadian Dynasty. Ferdowsi mentions the name of the city in Shahnameh, at the time of Fereydun and Manuchehr, when Manuchehr is returning to Fereydun's capital, Tamisheh in Mazandaran, after the victory over Salm and Tur:
  ز دریای گیلان (مازندران) چون ابر سیاه / دمادم به ساری رسید آن سپاه / چو آمد به نزدیک شاه آن سپاه / فریدون پذیره بیامد به راه 
  the city's name was also Zadracarta in 658 B.C to 225 A.D.
  Coming from this and other similar evidence in the Shahnameh, native people of Sari have a folklore that the city was populated when the blacksmith Kaveh (a native of the city) revolted against the tyranny of Zahak. After that success, Fereydun of Pishdadi (from Tamishan) feeling indebted to Kaveh, chose this city so as to live near him until his death. For this reason, when Touraj and Salam murdered Iraj (son of Fereydun), they buried him here.
  Espahbod Tous-e Nouzar (great-grandson of Fereydun) systematically founded it to remain as family monument. Sari may be synonymous with the city of Zadracarta (Persian: Sadrakarta) mentioned by Ancient Greek sources as early as the 6th century BCE (Achaemenid dynasty). However, other sources suggest that modern Gorgan is located closer to, or on, the site of Zadracarta.
  According to Arrian, this was the largest city of Hyrcania. The term means "the yellow city" and it was given to it because of the great number of orange, lemon, and other fruit trees that grew in the outskirts of that city. Hence it is by D'Anville, Rochette, and other geographers, identified Saru, which Pietro Della Valle says in his "Travels" means "the yellow city". It is probable that Zadracarta and Saru are the same with the Syringis of Polybius, taken from Arsaces II by Antiochus the Great, in his vain attempt to reunite the revolted provinces of Hyrcania and Parthia to the Syrian crown. Han Way, who visited Saru in 1734, makes mention of four ancient Magian temples as still standing then, built in the form of several rotundas, each thirty feet in diameter, and about 120 in height. However Sir William Ouseley, who had travelled to the site in 1811, has speculated that these to be masses of brick masonry of the Mohammedan age. Out of four, one of the rotunda is still standing since the rest were overturned by an earthquake. This and other remains of similar buildings, bear the names of Fereydun, Salm, Tur, and other mythical figures, whose celebrity had been established about 2000 years prior to their erection. One of them Avas called the tomb of Kaus, and was supposed to contain the ashes of Cyrus the Great. Sir William Ouseley thinks it was that of Kabus, or Kaus, the son of Washmakin, who governed Mazanderan in the fourth century of the Hejira. It was at Saru that the ashes of the youthful hero, Sohraub, were deposited by his father, Roostum, after he had unwittingly slayed Sohrab in a hand-to-hand battle. Saru is celebrated for its abundance of gardens, which emit a pleasing fragrance in the vernal and summer months. An oriental proverb declares that the "gates of paradise derive sweetness from the air of Sari and the flowers of Eden receive their fragrance from its soil". The city was again a regional capital in the Sassanid dynasty era.
caption: Ancient dish found in Sari
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