![Sarouyeh 0981](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Sarouyeh_0981.JPG)
Sarouyeh ( fa, سارویه) was a large library in ancient pre-Islamic
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. The 10th century chronicler
Ahmad ibn Rustah
Ahmad ibn Rustah Isfahani ( fa, احمد ابن رسته اصفهانی ''Aḥmad ibn Rusta Iṣfahānī''), more commonly known as Ibn Rustah (, also spelled ''Ibn Rusta'' and ''Ibn Ruste''), was a tenth-century Persian explorer and geographer ...
refers to it as "Sarough" (). The ''Fars Nameh'' of
Ibn Balkhi calls it ''Haft Halkeh'' ().
The library, located near where the city of
Isfahan
Isfahan ( fa, اصفهان, Esfahân ), from its Achaemenid empire, ancient designation ''Aspadana'' and, later, ''Spahan'' in Sassanian Empire, middle Persian, rendered in English as ''Ispahan'', is a major city in the Greater Isfahan Regio ...
is today, is written by some sources to have been from the era of
Tahmuras
Tahmuras or Tahmures ( fa, تهمورث ,طهمورث, ; from Avestan ''Taxma Urupi'', meaning ''strong fox'') was the third Shah of the Pishdadian dynasty of Iran (Persia) according to Ferdowsi's epic poem, the ''Shahnameh''. He is considered th ...
, in ancient Iran.
Majmal al-tawarikh also mentions the library.
Ibn Sa'd al-Iṣfahānī, in the surviving translation of his book ''Maḥāsin-i Eṣfahān'' ''()'' edited by
Abbas Eqbal Ashtiani, gives both the real and the mythical traditions of the foundation and re-foundation of the library.
Abbas Milani
Abbas Malekzadeh Milani ( fa, عباس ملکزاده میلانی; born 1949) is an Iranian-American historian, educator, and author. Milani is a visiting professor of Political Science, and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of the Ira ...
describes the fortified collection of writings and documents as such:
:"Though only a few pages of its vast holdings have survived, we know of its grandeur through the testimony of its contemporaries, who compared it, in terms of the awe it inspired, to the Egyptian pyramids".
Abbas Milani
Abbas Malekzadeh Milani ( fa, عباس ملکزاده میلانی; born 1949) is an Iranian-American historian, educator, and author. Milani is a visiting professor of Political Science, and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of the Ira ...
. ''Lost Wisdom''. 2004. Mage Publishers. p. 15.
References
Defunct libraries
Libraries in Iran
History of Isfahan Province
Sasanian castles
Ancient libraries
Fortifications in Iran
Parthian architecture
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