ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the possible role of poetics at Pasargadae. It considers the unexpected cultural landscape connection to Hodjat's principles. The Iranian state needs to negotiate the care and interpretation of Pasargadae in the context of World Heritage expectations and state parties' obligations. In addition, Islamic Iranian national and religious values need to be protected, or at least not challenged within the fluid framework of evolving Iranian attitudes to heritage. The European ideals of World Heritage are very clear when examining the criteria for the 2004 inscription of the ruins of Pasargadae. The site was judged to have World Heritage status because of its evidence of human creative genius; interchange of values; testimony to cultural tradition and significance in human history. Curatorial insistence on perspective, therefore, opens up a site to both diachronic analysis and the views and individual. Using the concept of perspective individual people's relationships to landscape leads analysis away from the rigidity of early World Heritage interpretation.
