Tomb in paradise: The preservation of the Tomb of Cyrus the Great during the Islamic Revolution

Abstract

The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran saw the destruction of many monuments to previous regimes. Despite the close alignment of the previous regime to the Tomb of Cyrus the Great and calls from Chief Justice Sadeq Khalkhali to raze Cyrus’s tomb, the tomb remained intact as a historical site. Why was Cyrus’s tomb preserved when other pre-Revolution monuments were razed? I answer this question through the analysis of secondary sources about Cyrus’s tomb, architecture, and nationalism. I combine this approach with the examination of primary photographic and documentary footage of the tomb. The tomb was preserved because it is a palimpsest, representing many facets of Iranian culture and heritage - from tomb to mosque to monument. Nationalists in Iran succeeded in attributing modernity and patriotism to Cyrus, both of which are gendered masculine. The combination of Islam and nationalism into religious nationalism allowed not only for the preservation of Cyrus’s tomb, but also his later rehabilitation. Additionally, the tomb is about 800 km south of the capital city which allowed for the silencing of the tomb without necessitating its destruction. The iconoclasm of revolution often results in the destruction of important historical monuments and architecture, but the preservation of this particular monument is an important case study for how oppositional new regimes can preserve the monuments of previous ones while still bolstering their own legitimacy.