Resumen de Parterres and stone watercourses at Pasargadae: notes on the Achaemenid contribution to garden design
Until only a few years ago it was a still prevalent opinion that the celebrated garden carpets of sixteenth-century Safavid Iran provided the oldest extant evidence for the form of the early Persian garden. From the appearance of such carpets it was already clear that Safavid gardens included numerous water channels, multiple parterres, and a centrally placed garden pavilion which often stood within a rectangular pool on the long axis of the plan. Such carpets of Safavid date indicate, moreover, that the design of even the most complex gardens of the day depended on the repeated use of a single, basic motif: namely that of the chahar bagh or fourfold garden.
