In 1601, Shah Abbas the First left Isfahan to walk 1200 kilometres to the holy city of Mashhad. In 2008-9, I used the daily records of the Shah’s astrologer to be the first person in four hundred years to pinpoint the journey-route – bumping across salt deserts and around tiny Iranian villages in various unsuitable vehicles.
Deh Namak (literally, ‘Village of Salt’) was 441km from Isfahan along Shah Abbas’ walk. This satellite image shows the qaleh (fort) and the two caravanserais in this tiny village. I think Shah Abbas probably, in 1601, either camped here or – perhaps – lodged in the fort.
This schematic drawing shows the 24 known stopping places along the final part of Shah Abbas’ 1601 walk. Those indicated as open diamonds were included in an Ottoman logistics briefing for a bungled invasion of Iran during the reign of Shah Abbas.
This satellite image shows the last section of Shah Abbas’ walk, with the 24 known halts along the Khurasan Highroad to the Holy City of Mashhad.
This schematic drawing shows the 40 known stopping places along the 1601 walk of Shah Abbas from Isfahan.
After Shah Abbas the First had walked through Kashan and across the kavir area of salt plain and salt mud, he turned eastwards along the Khurasan highroad towards the Holy City of Mashhad. This latter part of the Shah’s route is easy to trace exactly: many pilgrims came – and still come – this way. …
After we perfected rope-measuring on the flat, we also tried it out up and around hills. Along the Khurasan highroad, between two extant buildings where the Shah is known to have stopped on his 1601 walk, I have also compared the tanab with several other measurement systems.
The back-marker in the rope-measuring team has to make sure the rope doesn’t get tangled.
A lecturer in (modern) building metrics at the Islamic Azad University in Isfahan (standing to right) helped me get a rope-measuring team together. Near the Sardahan Caravanserai we soon found a simple and fast way of working. One person leads off at the front then, when the rope is fully extended, signals to the back-marker …
In Isfahan, the master craftsman currently in charge of renovating the Safavid buildings in New Julfa explained the different types of traditional rope to me and also described how the maximum length for any rope was determined by the size of buildings, and therefore by the standard size of Safavid bricks. He then helped me …
Munajjim Yazdi, Shah Abbas’ astrologer royal, accompanied the Shah along the 1601 walk and produced day-to-day records, itemising the stopping places and recording the distances between them using a tanab – a rope measuring 39.9m. I found Yazdi’s tanab measurements extremely useful when I was searching for Abbas’ stopping places, and was keen to investigate how easy it was …