Pre-Islamic Times
Shiraz lies in Fārs Province, a central area for Persian civilisation. The massive ruins of the Persian Empire's grand palace Persepolis, about 2500 years old, are about 60 km northeast of Shiraz. Firouzabad, and Pasargadae are other nearby historic settlements.
The earliest reference to Shiraz is on Elamite clay tablets dated to 2000 BCE, found in June 1970 during digging for the construction of a brick kiln in the southwest corner of the city. The tablets, written in ancient Elamite, name a city called Tiraziš. Phonetically, this is interpreted as /tiračis/ or /ćiračis/. This name became Old Persian /širājiš/; through regular sound change comes the modern Persian name Shirāz. The name Shiraz also appears on clay sealings found at Qasr-i Abu Nasr, a Sassanid ruin, east of the city, (2nd century CE). As early as the 11th century several hundred thousand people inhabited Shiraz. Its size has decreased through the ages.
Cuneiform records from Persepolis show that Shiraz was a significant township in Achaemenid times.
There is mention of a city at Shiraz during the Sassanid era, (2nd to 6th century CE) in the 10th century geographical treatise Hudud ul-'alam min al-mashriq ila al-maghrib, which reports the existence of two fire temples and a fortress called "Shahmobad". In the 14th century the Nozhat ol-Qolub of Hamdollah Mostowfi confirmed the existence of pre-Islamic settlements in Shiraz.
Read more about this topic: History Of Shiraz
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