Читать книгу Monument Future - Siegfried Siegesmund - Страница 94

Naqsh-e Rustam archeological site is located in Marvdasht municipal territory, in the Fars province, Iran (Figure 1). The site served as a necropolis during the Achaemenian (550–330 BC) and Sassanian (224–651 AD) periods (Schmidt 1970). Naqsh-e Rustam contains the rock-cut tombs of four celebrated kings of ancient Persia, Darius the Great, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, and Darius II.

This paper deals with the conservation issues related to the outstanding bas-relief decorations of these tombs. During the recent years, reports about their progressive decay were repeatedly presented by local conservation experts as well as visitors. Different hypotheses were presented about the causes of threats and decay rates which may be 72put into two main classes. Those which relate the current situation of rock reliefs to the long-term exposure to the open-air weathering processes. On the other hand, it is argued that the rate of decay is drastically increased during the last decade due to anthropic factors such as air pollution, as well as climatic changes such as unexpected seasonal floods and land subsidence.

Due to the difficulties in getting access to the tombs which are located in the upper parts of vertical cliffs, no report, mapping or analytical data was in hand about their previous state of conservation. Therefore, not only a close examination of the stone substance had to be done, but also it was necessary to obtain a clear picture of the state of conservation of the reliefs in the past decades or even longer periods, if possible.

Another specific feature of these reliefs which were dealt with during the previous attempts for conservation in one of the tombs (Darius I) was the uncovering of polychromy. Therefore, it was important to consider the possibility of encountering such features also on other tombs and to discuss their decay problems as well. This study was carried out with the aim to support the decay mapping of rock reliefs, which can be used as a measure for systematic monitoring and mitigation of the risks in the framework of a preventive conservation program in the future. For this reason, a combined methodology consisting of different approaches were applied for data collection about the reliefs. In the meanwhile, it became possible to discover aspects of the original decoration, which was hidden for many years from the experts and visitors.