Salmiya

Before I traveled to Abyaneh and Natanz , and then further to Esfahan , I visited, for a couple of days, Kashan, another 100 kilometers south of Qom . It is the first oasis along the old Qom-Kerman road, a small desert city at the border to the Great Desert. It has been home of ancient settlements since at least the 5th Millennium BC. Legend has it that the Three Wise Men, who were in fact Zoroastrian Magis, set out from here to follow a star announcing the birth of the New King of the Jews, the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. (But how did the bones arrive in Cologne’s Dome then?) Kashan is very famous for rose water which is made here from the beautiful flowers blooming at the fringes of Dasht-e Kavir. On the southern outskirts of the city an amazing ziggurat is located which might be older than those in Mesopotamia. It is what is now called Tappeh-ye Seyalk, a famous destination for archaeologists , and tourists, as well. It might well have been the starting point of any Persian civilizatio...

In an 11 minute documentary Iranian scientists presented what may be considered the world’s first flip-book. The five, 5200-year-old, drawings of a goat on a goblet could be set into rotation and then give the impression of a short moving picture: the wild goat ( Capra aegagrus ) jumping up to eat the leaves of a bush. The goblet was discovered in a grave at the city of Shahr-e-Sookhte (the Burnt City), at the banks of the river Helmand along the Zahedan-Zabol road, in the southeast province of Sistan. The settlement is part of the Jiroft civilization.The site is considered an archeological treasure trove. The goblet is also featured on this Iran’s Press TV site’s article .