Siahkuh (also called Abbasabad or Qasr-i Bahram) and Haramserail are situated close together, and between the fearsome salt plains of the Darya Namak and a 30km expanse of salty mud. Siahkuh is said to have been built as a hunting lodge for Shah Abbas the First, while the nearby Haramserail is suggested to have been …
In 1896, three British men set off on “the longest bicycle ride ever attempted, just 19,237 miles over continuous new ground” – including a ride through Persia. John Foster Fraser’s account of the two year trip is full of colonial-style anecdotes (many of which are a little too close to racism for many modern readers). …
This week’s blog is with many thanks to Kamran Afshar – who also helped me make the contacts I needed to be able to walk the migration with a Bakhtiari family. Kamran wrote to me of how: Those who have travelled to the land of the valiant, namely Chahar Mahal & Bakhtiari province in Iran, …
Yezdikhwast is between Isfahan and Shiraz – or, for Vita Sackville-West in 1927, from Isfahan on the way across the Zagros Mountains when she visited the Bakhtiari. She described the town as: “that fantastic grey eyrie overhanging a chasm. Pierre Loti compared it to the abode of sea birds [click here and scroll down for …
From 334BC onwards Alexander was aiming to conquer the whole of the Persian empire. He raced through Anatolia, defeating Darius III at Issos (click and rollover to see annotations on the mosaic) and then again – at Gaugamela. Babylon and Susa then surrendered without a struggle, giving Alexander access to the immense Achaemenid treasures. Alexander …
This week, my article on Three British Ladies in Bakhtiariland is published in the journal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs. The article explores the history of the Bakhtiari – through the eyes of three British women who visited the area across a span of 40 years. The first of the women, Isabella Bird, …
Three very different British women travelled in Bakhtiari territory between 1890 and 1927. Although their accounts span only four decades, they encapsulate the meteoric rise – and fall – of the Bakhtiari, all of whose important leaders were immediate relatives of the ‘Great Khan’, Hosaynqolī Khan. Here below is the full bibliography for my article …
Major Herbert Sawyer was an Indian Army officer who, in 1890, carried out a geographical-military reconnaissance in West Persia, including a mapping of the Bakhtiari territories. Even though a detailed version of his map was publicly available in 1894 (click here and scroll down); copies in the India Office collection (now in the British Library) …
Dr Elisabeth Macbean Ross (author of the renowned ‘A Lady Doctor in Bakhtiariland’) was the physician for the “Bibis or great ladies, wives, sisters and mothers of the leading [Bakhtiari] Khans” for around four years from 1910. She usually visited each of the many “Gha[l]ehs or castles” for several weeks, and there “enjoyed the almost …