One of the ways that Herbert made his observations intelligible – and appropriately splendid – was by comparing the locales he visited in Persia with places that were already known to his audience. Persian authors did this too: Natanzi, for example, declared the 1590 Isfahani qaysariya “like one that was [once] in Tabriz”[1]. While Persians …
Junabadi, although he wrote later[1], was clearly aware that the maydan was originally intended as a sportsground[2]: “the Isfahanis had laid out a spacious rectangular maydan measuring some 300 jaribs in area… Any observer casting his glance on it would be filled with delight. In the very center of the maydan was [erected] a sublimely …
This week, I thought some of you might like to see the trailer for Pedram Khosronejad’s film about Bakhtiari lion tombstones (click here: its 16 minutes). This includes some fascinating testimony from some of the men who made the tombstones (up in situ, accommodated in tents for two or three months by the commissioning families …
Pincon wrote of the inhumanity and cruelty of Shah Abbas to his subjects, of how he “cut off their heads for the slightest offence, having them stoned, quartered, flayed alive and given alive to the dogs, or to the forty Anthropophagi and man-eaters that he always has by him”. But Chardin, who not only spent …
The Shah didn’t always act like a great warrior, major world leader, and major patron of architecture. Here he is, according to the Chronicle of the Carmelites – acting much more like a very annoying small boy: “One Friday therefore, on the 17th July [1609], while [Fathers Benignus and Redemptus] were in the Maidan near …
As I started to visit buildings in Iran, I started to meet Iranian craftsmen – often high up on rudimentary scaffolding. I also started to realise how little is understood about their impressive skills and knowledge. With many master craftmen (ustads) relatively old, and relatively few young men now wanting to undergo the lengthy, often …
The complex water system includes several large water ‘tanks’ – as shown here, in the 1970s. Now, the base of this tank has been cleared, revealing larger paving stones. [SA.M.14]
The Haramserail is said to have been the facilities for Shah Abbas’ wives and children, when he was hunting at Qasr-i Bahram. It is constructed from a mix of baked bricks and mud intermingled with large local stones, and the layout is completely unlike most other caravanserais. Here it is, in the 1970s. The central …
This image shows other marks in the stone, perhaps made in 1930. I have not been able to definitively decipher all of this, but would welcome any suggestions. [SA.M.9]
Morton photographed some of the many stonemasons’ marks. These are still visible now. Kleiss has recorded fourteen different marks. Although it is not clear if these are quarrying or builders’ marks, they still make a distinctive connection with a small group of non-elite men from 400 years ago. [SA.M.8]