Achaemenid Style

Esfahan has an excellent reputation of being one of the most beautiful cities in the world. One single argument is, aside from exquisite and really old mosques, its marvelous river bridges, and stately mansions its beautiful palaces located in Persian gardens.






Chehel Sotun Palace in a typical paradise imitating park uses clearly Achaemenid (550-330 BCE) elements of architecture, although the huge building was built during the reign of Shah Abbas II in the early 17th century. Especially the tall, but incredibly slender, wooden pillars carrying the porch remind of Persepolis, which will be the topic of a future posting. When entering the terrace of the palace, one will get an impression of royal life in the earlier of several high cultures in Iran. The Great Hall displays gorgeous frescos and the, for Esfahan, so immensely typical miniatures.




















Another palace, albeit much smaller, is Hash Beshest (the ‘Eight Paradises’) in the vicinity of Chehel Sotun. And not to forget Ali-Qapoo, one of the key elements in Nagsh-e Jahan’s architecture. From its balcony, the Shah used to watch polo games on the gorgeous square.














Comments

Mirror Polisher said…
I was supposed to go to Isfahan last month, but unfortunately couldn't. With this post i feel like i did go :D

Thanks for posting
17 May 2008 at 10:49
Muller said…
Thanks a lot! I had recently also certain problems with getting a visa for Iran.
Anyway, more is coming!

Fahad
17 May 2008 at 12:10
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lady Shatita

Image
In order to learn more about Shi’a Islam and the piety of ordinary people it would have been most helpful to visit at least some of the plenty of Emamzadehs (holy sites) all over Iran. So, it was a most welcome opportunity and, in fact, great honor when my Kuwaiti friends invited me to accompany them on their several bus trips in Khorasan on the occasion of their 2006 pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mashhad. Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian Empires each embraced half of the then known world when they climaxed. And even when Iran was under the reign of Seleucids, Arabs, Seljuks, or Mongols, the Iranians imprinted their lifestyle and culture on the non-welcome invaders, who in any sense immensely benefited. So, the austere new religion Islam, which replaced Iran’s state religion Zoroastrianism, was fundamentally reorganized, and, as I see it as an outsider, filled with life. The rapid and shocking decline of the Sasanid Empire at the end of a century-long fight with Byzantium, and the
Read more

Persianization

Image
Kuwait’s Arab Times had attracted my attention to Esfahan’s gorgeous Great Mosque in an article in 2003. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find so far a webpage of the article which praised the wonders of Iran’s largest mosque and one of the most significant and finest buildings of the Islamic world. I visited the site the first time at my second trip to Esfahan in late spring of 2004. I took some pictures in the vast courtyard, soaked the peaceful atmosphere there, and watched the few visitors from Iran and elsewhere. I had forgotten about the many details of the article and faintly had read some of the notes in my travel guide. My second visit in late 2007 was driven by scientific interest. I had recently posted (at Freelance ) my rather amateurish studies and thoughts about a suggested ‘conceptual breakthrough’ in Islamic architecture and art in the late 15th century, i.e., quasi-crystalline tessellations, which had led to world-wide attention due to its publication in the Science magazine
Read more

Buyid Architecture in Esfahan

Image
Older than what is now visible in Esfahan’s Great Mosque (although the first mosque there was built in the 7th century) is what has remained of the Jurjir Mosque . The fragmentary façade of the Jurjir Mosque had been discovered during restoration work at Masjed-e Hakim in 1955. The fragment had been hidden for centuries behind a mud wall. The beautiful Hakim mosque itself is a Safavid mosque from the 17th century. The Jurjir façade is the only remains of a 10th century mosque which was commissioned by the Buyid (Buwayhid) vizier Al-Sahib ibn Abbad (d. 995), a Mutazilite scholar. The Buyid Dynasty, who ruled in Iraq and Iran, effectively brought the Abbasids era in Baghdad to an end. Although the Abbasids retained the caliphate, they were deprived of all secular power. Buyids were originally Zaydi, or Fiver Shi'as. They later began to lean closer to the nowadays dominating Twelver Shi'a branch of Islam. In general tolerant in religious matters, the Buyid rulers in Baghdad even
Read more