2,500year celebration of the Persian Empire
About the blog

Welcome to a successful blog Afshin kamyab fard
• Email
Threads
• Zarathustra
• darush the great
• Cyrus the great Family
• Arab invasion of Iran
• War between Iran and the Arabs
• Other subjects of Cyrus the Great (second page)
Latest News
• Behistun Inscription
• Lion and Sun
• Answer unanswerable
• The oldest photographs of the tomb of Cyrus the Great
• mandane, mother of Cyrus
• 2,500year celebration of the Persian Empire
• Speaking about Cyrus
• Iranian prophet Mani
• Atoosa
• Death of Cyrus the great
• America constitution and Cyrus pedia
• Tomb of Cyrus the Great
Archive
• فروردين 1391
Author
• afshin kamyab fard
links 1
• TOOPOOLI
• (｡◕ ‿◕｡)♀N@v!d♀(◡���◡✿) - ♀♥★BOy★♥♀
• cyrus never sleep - persian
• iranians history on this day
• ردیاب خودرو

 Smart Link Exchange
To exchange links with our first cyrus never sleep  www.cyruspedia.loxblog.ir  with your link then post your link here. If our link on your site link is automatically placed on our site
links 2
• حمل ماینر از چین به ایران
• حمل از چین
• پاسور طلا
• الوقلیون

<-PollName->

<-PollItems->

آمار وب سایت:
 

بازدید امروز : 2
بازدید دیروز : 0
بازدید هفته : 2
بازدید ماه : 65
بازدید کل : 1749
تعداد مطالب : 13
تعداد نظرات : 2
تعداد آنلاین : 1





Cyrus never sleep
In the name of God
2,500year celebration of the Persian Empire

The 2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire  consisted of an elaborate set of festivities that took place October 12–16, 1971, on the occasion of the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Iranian monarchy (Persian Empire) by Cyrus the Great. The intent of the celebration was to demonstrate Iran's long history and to showcase its contemporary advancements under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran.

 Planning

Imperial Coat of Arms of Iran.svg

The planning for the event took more than a decade. The Cyrus Cylinder served in the official logo as the symbol for the event. With the decision to hold the main event at the ancient city Persepolis near Shiraz, the local infrastructure had to be improved including the airport at Shiraz and a highway to Persepolis. While the press and supporting staff would be housed in Shiraz, the main festivities were planned for Persepolis that for this occasion would be the site of an elaborate tent city. The area around Persepolis was cleared of snakes and other vermin.[1] Other events were scheduled for Pasargadae, the site of the tomb of Cyrus the Great, and Tehran.

 The Tent City of Persepolis

The Tent City (also Golden City) was planned by the Parisian interior-design firm of Maison Jansen on 160 acres (0.65 km2) that took its inspiration from the 1520 Field of the Cloth of Gold meeting between Francis I of France and Henry VIII of England.[1] Fifty 'tents' (actually prefabricated luxury apartments with traditional Persian tent-cloth surrounds) were arranged in a star pattern around a central fountain, and vast numbers of trees were planted around them in the desert, recreating something of how the ancient Persepolis would have looked. The large Tent of Honor was designed for the reception of the dignitaries. The Banqueting Hall was the largest structure and measured 68 by 24 meters. The tent site was surrounded by gardens of trees and other plants flown in from France and adjacent to the ruins of Persepolis. Catering services were provided by Maxim's de Paris, which closed its restaurant in Paris for almost two weeks in order to provide for the glittering celebrations. Legendary hotelier Max Blouet came out of retirement to supervise the banquet. Lanvin designed the uniforms of the Imperial Household. 250 red Mercedes-Benzlimousines were used to chauffeur guests from the airport and back. Dinnerware was created by Limoges and linen by Porthault.

 Festivities

Cyrus' tomb at Pasargadae where the festivities started

Persian Immortals, as portrayed during the celebrations

The festivities were opened on October 12, 1971 when the Shah and the Shahbanu paid homage to Cyrus the Great at his mausoleum at Pasargadae. For the next two days, the Shah and his wife greeted arriving guests, often directly at the Shiraz airport. On the evening of the 14th, a grand gala dinner took place in the Banqueting Hall in celebration of the birthday of the Shahbanu. Sixty heads of royalty and heads of state were assembled at the single large serpentine table in the Banqueting Hall. The official toast was raised with a Dom Perignon Rosé 1959.

The banquet menu was:

Six hundred guests dined over five and a half hours thus making for the longest and most lavish official banquet in modern history as recorded in successive editions of the Guinness Book of World Records. A son et lumière show and fireworks, accompanied by Iannis Xenakis' specially-commissioned electronic music piece Persepolis[2] concluded the evening. The next day saw a parade of armies of different Iranian empires covering two and half millennia by 1,724 men of the Iranian armed forces, all in period costume. In the evening a less formal "traditional Persian party" was held in the Banqueting Hall as the concluding event at Persepolis.[3]

On the final day, the Shah inaugurated the Shahyad Tower (later renamed the Azadi Tower after the Iranian revolution) in Tehran to commemorate the event. The tower was also home to the Museum of Persian History. In it was displayed the Cyrus Cylinder, which the Shah promoted as "the first human rights charter in history".[4][5] The cylinder was also the official symbol of the celebrations, and the Shah's first speech at Cyrus' tomb praised the freedom that it had proclaimed, two and a half millennia previously. The festivities were concluded with the Shah paying homage to his father, Reza Shah Pahlavi, at his mausoleum.[3]

The event brought together the rulers of two of the oldest extant monarchies, the Shah and Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. By the end of the decade, both monarchies had ceased to exist. Orson Welles said of the event: "This was no party of the year, it was the celebration of 25 centuries!"[1]

 Security

Security was a major concern. Persepolis was a favorable site for the festivities as it was isolated and thus could be tightly guarded, a very important consideration when many of the world's leaders were gathered there. Iran's security services, SAVAK, took into preventive custody anyone it suspected to be a potential troublemaker.[1]

 Criticism

In retrospect, the event can be considered the swan song of the Iranian monarchy.[]Arguably, it was the most notable international social event in the 20th century involving royalty and heads of state.[citation needed]The festivities were criticized for their lavishness and it was opined that the money could have been better spent by supplying social services. Such critiques were voiced in the western press and by Khomeini and his followers – Khomeini called it the "Devil's Festival.".[1] Expenses were said to be as high as $200 million, while the Ministry of the Court placed the cost at $17 million; Ansari, one of the organizers, puts it at $22 million.[1] The actual figure is difficult to calculate exactly and is a partisan issue. The defenders of the activities point out other benefits such as the opening of 3,200 schools, improvements in infrastructure, and the positive effect on Iran's international public relations. The event was officially denounced after the Iranian Revolution.[]

Revolutionary critics claimed that the event highlighted Mohammed Reza Shah's loss of touch with the general public.[] Critics of the regime claimed Mohammed Reza Shah was too secular, un-Islamic, and westernized, and that his shunning of Islam's role in Iran alienated the general population from the regime, who began to see the Shah as a puppet of the west, trying to impress it and court it by westernizing Iran.[] The cost of the event added to the impression that the regime was authoritarian and did not care about its people.[]

 Today

Persepolis remains a major tourist attraction in Iran and apparently there are suggestions to rehabilitate the archeological site as it is a proclamation of Iranian history. The tent city remained operating until the 1979 for private and government rent, when it was looted by locals after the Shad fled. The iron rods for the tents and roads for the festival area still remain and are open as a park, but there are no markers making any reference to what they were for.[6] The rededicated Azadi Tower is a major landmark in Tehran. The mausoleum of Reza Shah Pahlavi was destroyed after the revolution and replaced by an Islamic religious school.

[List of guests

Commemorative silver coin from a set of 9 gold and silver coins, minted on the occasion of the celebrations

Elizabeth II had been advised not to attend, with security being an issue (The Duke of Edinburgh and The Princess Anne represented her instead).[1] Other major leaders who did not attend were Richard Nixon and Georges Pompidou. Nixon had initially planned to attend but later changed his mind and sent Spiro Agnew instead.[1]

Some of the guests who were invited include:

 Royals and viceroys

 Presidents and Prime Ministers