Mummy in Tehran rubble could be Iran’s missing shah
Raf Sanchez Ahmed Vahdat
A BUILDING worker in Tehran may have found the mummified body of Reza Shah Pahlavi, the Iranian ruler whose son was overthrown in 1979.
Builders working at a Shia shrine in Iran’s capital found the body in a pile of rubble.
Pahlavi was buried in a mausoleum nearby after his death in 1944, but his tomb was blown up by revolutionaries attempting to erase all traces of the previous regime. His body has been missing for nearly 40 years.
Hassan Khalilabadi, the head of Tehran’s heritage committee, said it was “a possibility” that the body may be that of Pahlavi.
However, a spokesman for the Shah Abdol Azim shrine denied the claims, describing them as “false and void of any truth”.
Pahlavi overthrew the ruling Persian dynasty in 1921, paving the way for him to seize power.
Ousted during the Anglosoviet invasion of Iran in 1941, he was forced to abdicate in favour of his son, Mohammad Rezi Pahlavi, who in turn was deposed during the Islamic revolution in 1979.