[custom_adv] A mummified body discovered near the site of a former royal mausoleum in Iran may be the remains of Reza Shah Pahlavi, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty and the father of the country’s last shah. [custom_adv] The recent find of the gauze-wrapped body — and the speculation it triggered — puts new hurdles in the way of the Islamic Republic’s efforts to fully erase the country’s dynastic past, which includes the destruction of the autocrat’s tomb immediately after the 1979 revolution. [custom_adv] Yet, as disaffection and economic problems grow in the run-up to the Islamic Revolution’s 40th anniversary, mystique around Iran’s age of monarchies persists even with its history of abuses. Reza Shah’s grandson, the U.S.-based exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, already tweeted about it as forensic experts in Iran try to determine whose body they found. [custom_adv] Construction workers discovered the mummified remains while working at the Shiite shrine of Abdul Azim, whose minarets once rose behind Reza Shah’s mausoleum. A digger pulling away dirt and debris uncovered the body, according to the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency. [custom_adv] She was the twin sister of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and daughter of Reza Shah. In the early 1930s she, along with her mother Tadj ol-Molouk and older sister Shams, were among the first significant Iranian women to cease wearing the traditional veil. She was not permitted to attend a university and married in 1937 at the age of 18 to Mirza Khan Gazam, whose family were allies to her father. [custom_adv] Serving as a palace advisor, she was considered the "power behind her brother" and allegedly was instrumental in the 1953 coup that put her twin brother back on the throne. She was a strong supporter of women's rights in not only Iran, but around the world. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, she lived in exile in New York, Paris, and Monte Carlo and was the oldest living member of the Pahlavi family at the time of her passing. [custom_adv] Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari Queen Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari was wife of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,the late Shah of Iran.They married on 12 February 1951. In Paris she was became real socialite.Soraya died on 26 october 2001. [custom_adv] During her residence in Paris she interacted with Qawam preliminaries to Mossadegh downfall and prime ministry of Qawam, but Qawam with all political subterfuges and the support of the court stayed awhile in the chairmanship seat and Mossadegh again seized power by his popular support. Ashraf entered into negotiations with the Americans and British and rouse implementation of coup idea in them. [custom_adv] He lived in Egypt, Morocco, the Bahamas, and Mexico before going to the United States for treatment of lymphatic cancer. His arrival in New York City led to the Iranian takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran by "Students of Imam's Line" and the taking hostage of more than 50 Americans for 444 days.
