Kangavar is best known for the archaeological remains of a mixed Sassanid and Achaemenid-style edifice and the town was mentioned by Isidore of Charax in the 1st century AD. Excavation first began in 1968, by which time the “large structure with its great columns set on a high stone platform” had been associated with a comment by Isidore of Charax, that refers to a “temple of Artemis” (Parthian Stations 6) at “Concobar” in Lower Medea, on the overland trade route between the Levant and India. References to Artemis in Iran are generally interpreted to be references to Anahita, and thus Isidore’s “temple of Artemis” came to be understood as a reference to a temple of Anahita.
