The Founder's Tomb

King of Anshan

Cyrus called himself king of Anshan, son of Cambyses, of the line of Teispes. About 550 the Median king Astyages marched against him, but his own army mutinied and handed him over, and Cyrus took Ecbatana and its treasure. Strabo, five centuries later, says Pasargadae was founded where Cyrus won (an ancient account).

In the game: Hill raiders strike from the east, as the Medes once did.

Nabonidus Chronicle ii 1-4; Cyrus Cylinder 20-21; Strabo 15.3.8

King of the four quarters

In 539 Babylon opened its gates. A clay cylinder laid in its walls says the god Marduk chose Cyrus, and that he sent gods and peoples home. It is royal propaganda in the old Babylonian style, not the 'first charter of human rights' it is sometimes called, but it shows a conqueror who wished to be welcomed.

Cyrus Cylinder (British Museum); Nabonidus Chronicle iii 12-20

A city of gardens

Excavations in 1961-63 found palaces with columned halls, a gatehouse with a four-winged guardian in relief, and a garden framed by limestone water channels and basins. Our word 'paradise' comes from the Old Persian for such a walled garden.

In the game: Fields watered by canals from the Pulvar feed the city.

D. Stronach, Pasargadae (1978); Xenophon, Oeconomicus 4.20-25

Stone by stone

The tomb is a gabled stone room on six stepped plinths, about eleven metres high. Its blocks are fitted without mortar and held with metal clamps, a technique learned from the stonemasons of Lydia and Ionia. Arrian describes a golden couch and coffin inside.

In the game: The tomb is the level's great work, raised one course at a time.

Arrian, Anabasis 6.29; Strabo 15.3.7; Stronach (1978)

'I am Cyrus the King'

Short inscriptions on the palaces read 'I (am) Cyrus the king, the Achaemenide'. Many scholars think Darius had them cut later, to tie Cyrus to his own family. Herodotus tells that Cyrus dreamed of young Darius with wings over Asia and Europe. The game's meeting of Cyrus and Darius is a dramatized scene.

In the game: The commission from Cyrus to Darius is a labelled dramatization.

Inscriptions CMa-CMc; Herodotus 1.209

How Cyrus died

Babylonian tablets show his reign ended in 530. Herodotus chose, from many tales, the one where Queen Tomyris of the Massagetae killed him in battle. Ctesias says he died of a wound fighting the Derbices; Xenophon has him die peacefully in bed.

Herodotus 1.205-214; Ctesias (Photius 72); Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.7

Alexander at the tomb

Two centuries later, in 324, Alexander of Macedon found the tomb robbed. He had its keepers questioned and ordered Aristobulus to restore the body and seal the door. The tomb survived later centuries as the 'tomb of Solomon's mother'.

Arrian, Anabasis 6.29, from Aristobulus