Picturing Pasargadae: Visual Representation and the Ambiguities of Heritage in Iran

Abstract

For Graham Seal

This paper probes the relationship between visual representations and visitation practices at Pasargadae, a UNESCO World Heritage site in southern Iran. Presenting a systematic analysis of publicly available online images of Pasargadae, the paper examines the complex relationship between the place and its visual representations. Through analysis, the paper elaborates on a sense of intimacy that, while grounding Pasargadae, is also a potential common ground in pre-Islamic heritage in which the Iranian state and society could at once meet and contest versions of identity. Examining this relationship facilitates reflections into both heritage and the peculiarities of its visual representation in the Iranian context.

Notes

1. For example, see Urry and Larsen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0.

2. Selby, “People‒Place‒Past.”

3. Smith, Uses of Heritage, 30‒31, 79.

4. Ibid., 11, 29‒30, 79.

5. Ibid., 12.

6. Berger, Ways of Seeing; Albers and James, “Travel Photography,” 136.

7. Hunter, “A Typology of Photographic Representations,” 356.

8. Cf. Chalfen. “Photography's Role in Tourism,” one of the earliest texts calling for the use of photographic analyses; Markwick in “Postcards from Malta” discussing postcards; and Edwards, “Objects of Affect,” mapping the landscape of anthropological approaches to photographs.

In addition, there are a number of valuable scholarly contributions in tourism studies addressing photographs (postcards, tourist photographs, or tourism brochures) and their role in the formation of imaginaries as well as experience of a place or destination. See Edwards, “Postcards”; Scarles, “Where Words Fail”; Hunter, “A Typology of Photographic Representations”; and Garrod, “Exploring Place Perception.”

9. Urry and Larsen argue that photography is “central to tourism and the perspectives of tourists”. The Tourist Gaze 3.0, 212.

10. Albers and James, “Travel Photography,” 136

11. Hunter, “A Typology of Photographic Representations,” 357.

12. Urry and Larsen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0.

13. Watson and Waterton, “Reading the Visual.”

14. A precedent for such use of public media may be seen in the work of Stylianou-Lambert, “Tourists with Cameras,” where, amongst other sources, she examines tourist photographs of the Rock of Aphrodite in Cyprus.

15. The existing body of scholarship highlights the significance of the web and various social media websites in shaping tourism destination plans as well as the significance of search engines in directing traffic to tourism websites. In this respect, search engines function as “the ‘gateway’ to travel-related information” (Xiang and Gretzel, “Role of Social Media”). Also see Lo et al., “Tourism and Online Photography.”

16. These sites can be found at the following web addresses: http://www.travelblog.org; http://www.wikitravel.org; http://www.tripadvisor.com; http://www.youtube.com; and http://www.flickr.com

17. The few exceptions, such as João Leitão's Taxi from Pasargadae to Persepolis (http://bit.ly/2mCw3KL) document little more than the landscape around the main highway leading to Pasargadae, or certain ceremonial or politically sensitive rituals.

18. Rose, Visual Methodologies, 187.

19. Ibid., 187.

20. Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy.

21. Ibid., 58.

22. Ibid.

23. For further reading on this see Mozaffari, “The Heritage NGO”; Jasper et al., “Heritage Contests”; Shamoradi and Abdollahzadeh, “Antinomies of Development.”

24. Stylianou-Lambert, “Tourists with Cameras.”

25. Urry and Larsen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0, 178.

26. Considering these transformations, this paper reinforces recent calls for the sufficient grounding of heritage theories in localized, empirical evidence. See Winter, “Going Places.”

27. Jones and Talebian, “Perspectives and Prospects for Cultural Tourism.”

28. Mozaffari, Karimian and Mousavi, “Tourism and Political Change.”

29. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, “Pasargadae.”

30. Lincoln, “Ã La Recherche”; Stronach, “The Garden as a Political Statement.”

31. For a full description of Pasargadae's monuments and geographical surroundings see: Boucharlat, “Archaeological Approaches”; Sami, Pasargadae; Stronach and Gopnik, “PASARGADAE.”

32. For a discussion of its periods and their meanings refer, among many other summaries of the site's history, to Mozaffari, “Conceptualising a World Heritage Site”; Daryaee, Cyrus the Great.

33. For examples of its pre-Islamic ritual significance see Plutarch, Life of Artaxerxes, 75; and Xenophon, The Economist. For an example of its significance until the early twentieth century see Crawshay-Williams, Across Persia.

34. Information gathered in 2011, while interviewing local families in the current village.

35. This was a celebration of the 2,500th Anniversary of Persian Kingship, a political spectacle that was meant to reinforce the legitimacy of the Pahlavi monarchy (1925‒79) but resulted in emboldening political opposition and domestic discontent. For a further reading see Boucharlat, “Archaeological Approaches”; Ministry for Information's Historical Documentation Research Centre, Bazm-E Ahriman, vol. 4‒5; and Kadivar, “We Are Awake.”

36. This has brought with it issues of settlement and growth which fall outside the scope of this paper.

37. Although they offer insufficient evidence from fieldwork or in-depth analysis for their claims. For example see Saboor, “Irāni-e Āryā‘i” or Amanasian, “Pāsargād dar keshākesh bā efrāti-ha.”

38. I have explained this in detail elsewhere, see Mozaffari, “Conceptualising a World Heritage Site.”

39. Albers and James, “Travel Photography,” 135.

40. Shawcross, Roland Barthes; Hall, Representation.

41. Garrod, “Exploring Place Perception.”

42. For example, refer to Selwy, The Tourist Image.

43. According to current scholarship (e.g. Xiang and Gretzel, “Role of Social Media”; Lo et al., “Tourism and Online Photography”), web content is outperforming specialized tourism sites in travel planning. Xiang and Gretzel, “Role of Social Media.”

44. Hunter, “A Typology of Photographic Representations.”

45. Ibid., 355.

46. These results were obtained in a search on 1 November 2013.

47. Some of these sites, such Google®, work on the basis of crawling—locating updates to existing pages and finding new ones online—and indexing the data. It is here that the descriptions of the content of the image and its attributes, as well as the context surrounding the image are important in it showing up in searches. Another important part of this indexing process is “pagerank,” which is determined by the number of citations, links given to a particular page which prioritize it in searches (see https://support.Google.com/webmasters/answer/70897?hl=en). Other sites such as Flickr® allow the creation of groups of interest and a more direct curatorial agency to users. Despite their different approaches to image presentation, and while acknowledging their differences which could be construed as a kind of agency in constructing the public domain, these processes do not affect the arguments of this paper.

48. For example, see images on Flickr® (http://www.Flickr.com/search/?q=pasargadae). Due to limitations of space, the discussion of the visual constructions of Pasargadae by various sub-categories of locals and visitors and others is undertaken in a forthcoming paper.

49. The service discontinued on 4 November 2016 and old link to this image (http://bit.ly/17E3KOX) is now redundant.

50. http://www.irantourcenter.com/, http://www.iranexplorers.com/Tours-Photo-Gallery/Robert-Ismail-Heydar, http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/pb/1af010/ and, http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/pb/1af010/.

51. For an example see Tegelberg, “Framing Maya Culture.”

52. Schwartz, “The Geography Lessons”; and Osborne, Travelling Light, both of which are also cited in Urry and Larsen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0, 192. Although it has to be noted that this is not peculiar to the “Orient” and similar conditions have occurred in sites like Mycenae, Pompeii, and other places.

53. Smith, Uses of Heritage.

54. Perhaps because of the complete three-dimensional form of the structure, the majority of pictures illustrate the tomb from a corner angle.

55. For example, refer to archives of Herzfeld available through the Smithsonian website.

56. Pinney, “Buddhist Photography,” 179‒83.

57. Bohrer, Photography and Archaeology, 71.

58. Ibid., 76.

59. Ibid., 79.

60. Following Urry and Larsen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0, 190, tourism sites in general are affected by the mythology surrounding them.

61. Jackson, “Constructions of Culture,” 95 also cited in Urry and Larsen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0, 192.

62. Letcher et al., “Re-Viewing the Past.”

63. For further information on the cult of Cyrus the Great see Ansari, The Politics of Nationalism, 166‒78.

64. For example, see Khamenei, “Bayānāt”; Malekian, “Takht-e Jamshid rā Rumi-hā Sākhtand.”

65. Examples are Urry and Larsen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0; Hall, Representation.

66. Jenkins, “Photography and Travel Brochures,” 324.

67. This insight was generously contributed through the first-hand experience of one of my anonymous reviewers.

68. This description was offered by architect Hossein Amanat in an interview with the author. See Mozaffari and Westbrook, “The (Unfinished) Museum,” 205.

69. This quote was obtained from a travel companion, an architect, during a visit to the site in 2004.

70. This information was obtained from local informants in an interview in October 2013.

71. This information was corroborated through interviews with local informants in 2011 and 2013. 29 October is believed to be the day of Cyrus’ conquest of Babylon when he issued his famous cylinder containing a declaration about the rights of residents. Especially during Ahmadinejad's terms in office, commemorating this day was considered subversive.

72. For example see here http://bit.ly/2gL6Uan.

73. Radio Zamaneh, “Dādsetān-e Shirāz.”

74. Radio Zamaneh, “Nouri-e Hamedāni.”

75. Tunbridge and Ashworth, Dissonant Heritage.

76. This is not a completely new invention. For example, Sami (Pasargadae) and others relate how, after the Muslim invasion, the place was preserved by ascription to Solomon giving it legitimacy within the Muslim narrative. While the origin of that ascription is a subject of speculation, the present appropriation is more ideological.

77. In Iran, music and other artistic productions are subject to official vetting.

78. Footage available on YouTube: http://bit.ly/1jcGBac

79. For a similar expression in 2012 see: http://bit.ly/1eI8nWh

80. Tunbridge and Ashworth, Dissonant Heritage.

81. Silverman, Contested Cultural Heritage, 10.

82. Tunbridge and Ashworth, Dissonant Heritage.

83. Information obtained during interviews with local residents and also corroborated by Sedaghatkish, Ārāmgāh-e Koroush.

84. Data was collected from interviews with local residents in 2011.

85. Information obtained during an interview with a local family in 2011.

86. According to Barthes, the abstract nature of a photograph lends itself to various political projections. See Shawcross, Roland Barthes.

87. The last Iranian monarch attempted to evoke connections between the achievements of the past and himself in the popular consciousness by making declarations such as “Cyrus, O king of kings, O free man among free men, sleep in peace for we are awake, and shall ever remain awake!” (Also quoted in Hodjat, “Cultural Heritage in Iran”).

88. Hodjat, “Cultural Heritage in Iran,” 202.

89. For example, see Radio Zamaneh, “Hoshdār-e Irān beh Barezāni-ha.”

90. Information from interviews with locals in 2013.

91. Hunter, “A Typology of Photographic Representations,” 354.

92. Urry and Larsen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0, 190.

93. Rodman, “Empowering Place,” cited in Smith, Uses of Heritage, 76‒7.

94. Both attempts at reinvigoration represent “substituting the signs of the real for the real.” Additionally, they are both attempts at reproducing a lost reality, one that is further masked by photographs and this little more than nostalgia. It is indeed indicative of an artificial resurrection “under the auspices of the real,” an indulgence in “retrospective hallucination.” See Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 2, 8, 11.

95. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. “Pasargadae.”

96. Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy, 3.

97. For example, see Ansari, “Chapter Four.”