Alumni

Archaeological Landscapes of Ancient Persia: Architecture and Landscapes of Fars Chahartaqs and their Relation to Sasanian Fire Temples

The PhD project is on architecture and landscapes of Chahartaq monuments in south of Iran, more specifically in Fars province. Chahartaq is an architectural form commonly associated with fire temples, religious monuments related to Zoroastrian religion vastly built throughout the Persian empire during the Sasanian era. This dissertation discusses Chahartaq as a building type that might have different functions and focuses on the architecture and landscape of Chahartaqs to see their architectural variations and find out how they were related to the surrounding environment and natural features.

Simultaneously, through the study of religious and historical text related to Zoroastrianism and the Sasanian era, we get some information about the Zoroastrian beliefs, rituals and religious necessities in relation to natural elements, fire temples, and their landscapes. This allows us to better understand the importance of having special architectural and landscape qualities for buildings with fire temple function. This dissertation combines these groups of information to discuss the architecture and landscape of Chahartaqs and aims to find out which of these Chahartaqs were more likely to have functioned as Zoroastrian fire temples.

The PhD project is supervised by  Prof. Dr. Reinhard Bernbeck and Prof. Dr. Susan Pollock.

Program: Landscape Archaeology and Architecture of the Berlin Graduate School of Ancient Studies (BerGSAS)

Funding: Graduate School Scholarship (DAAD)

For further information, please check BerGSAS and the CV.