Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery

There is a cemetery outside Tehran called Behesht-e-Zahra, "The Paradise of Zahra" in Farsi. (Yea, I linked Wikipedia. I feel bad because I know this encyclopedia isn't so reputable. But I could find almost nothing at all online about this graveyard. Only a bunch of media outlets re-publishing an AP story that I am using for the rest of this post. The report is also where I learned about this place. But I must say I'm a bit surprised at the lack of information on it. Not suggesting any nefarious reasons, just startled to see the internet not spilling over the brim with data.).

What caught my eye in this article was the size of the cemetery. There are around 1.6 MILLION bodies there. The graves cover more than a thousand acres.  It's in the news because the facilities are being overwhelmed with COVID deaths, bodies coming in at a rate higher than during even the butcherous Iran-Iraq War. They're digging fifty percent more tombs than usual. 

This made me wonder how old this sacred site must be. It is Tehran's main burial spot, after all, the capital of an ancient civilization prospering for over two thousand years. Actually, it was built in 1970. Tehran itself became the national seat of power in 1786, relatively recently in Persian history. Persepolis, in contrast, the Achaemenid capital, was created in the 5th century BCE.