Fasa and Firuzabad (Ruins)

In these two towns in the surroundings of Shiraz important remains of the Sassanian period can be visited. The ancient town of Our lies about 3 km northwest of the present Firuzabad. The circular contours of the town can still be seen; there is a slope where the ramparts of unbaked bricks used to stand and at the bottom of the ramparts there was a deep ditch. The town walls were pierced by four gates, deliberately situated at the four cardinal points of the compass. According to Istakhri (famous historian) the gates were named the Bab-e Mehr to the east, the Bab-e Bahram to the west, the Bab-e Hormoz to the north, and the Bab-e Ardeshir to the south.
According to the same historian, Firuzabad was built by Ardeshir I in the third century AD on a marshy site. He had vowed to build a town and a pyre at the place where he triumphed over his enemy Artabanus V, on whom he was waging war, and he gained his victory exactly on the site of Firuzabad. The town was built to a circular design, and named Gur; it retained this name until the second half of the 10th century AD, when a Buvayid prince, Azod od-Dowleh (949-982 AD) gave it its present name. The town still had its fire altar which the Iranian population came to pray a considerable time after the Arab invasion. Several Iranian and Arab have boasted of the incredible fertility of the plain of Firuzabad and its rose fields, which, they said, were famous throughout the world.