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Tappeh
One of the oldest and richest archaeological sites in central Iran, the Tappeh-ye Seyalk has yielded a plethora of interesting pottery pieces, metal tools and domestic implements made from stone, clay and bone (they date from as early as the 4th millennium BC). More significant, pe
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Qal’eh Salosel
The historic heart of Shushtar was Salosel Castle, on a prominent cliff-hill overlooking the river. This is where Shapur I is said to have imprisoned Roman Emperor Valerian. It’s also here that Persians held out for two years against the invading Arab-Muslim armies until secret tun
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Museum of the Islamic Period
Next door to the National Museum and part of the same complex, this museum had been closed for several years when we passed and had a small but worthwhile exhibit of Silk Road artefacts in its place; staff assured us the main museum would reopen ‘soon, insh’Allah’. When it does you
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Watermills
Shushtar’s raison d’être for millennia was controlling the irrigation of the Khuzestan plains, and the town’s most famous attraction is a set of ancient watermills. Actually, these aren’t buildings at all but a powerful arc of cascading water chutes that are strangely mesmerising,
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Boq’eh
This beautifully proportioned, blue-domed mausoleum commemorates an apostle of the prophet Mohammad. Coming to pay respects here was said to have been Imam Reza’s ‘main consolation’ in coming all the way out to Khorasan. The tower took its present form after a 1612 rebuild, which a
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Unesco World Heritage Site
Sitting in a high, lonely bowl of mountains ringed by 1500-year-old fortress walls, this Unesco World Heritage site is one of the most memorable sights of western Iran. In the 3rd century AD the state religion of Sassanian Persia was Zoroastrianism and Takht-e Soleiman (then called
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Reza Abbasi Museum
Named after one of the great artists of the Safavid period, the Reza Abbasi Museum showcases Iranian art from ancient times and the Safavid-era paintings of Abbasi himself. If you like Iranian art, it’s one of the best and most professionally run museums in the country. The exhibit
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Hegmataneh Hill
In the mud beneath this scraggy low hill lies Hamadan’s ancient Median and Achaemenid city site. Small sections of the total area have been fitfully excavated by several teams over the last century, most extensively in the 1990s. The most interesting of several shed-covered ‘trench
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Mil
This predominantly Turkmen town grew up around Jorjan’s one surviving building, the utterly magnificent Mil-e Gonbad. Soaring 55m tall on 12m-deep foundations, this astonishing tower has the cross-section of a 10-pointed star and looks like a buttressed brick spaceship. It was buil
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Pol
About 400m west of the bus terminal are substantial ruined sections of this partly Sassanid bridge cum weir, also known as Band-i Qaisar or Valerian’s Bridge. Along with the Band-e-Mizan weir, this raised the river level by 2m, providing the waters necessary for irrigation and mill
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Sheikh Safi
Though relatively compact, the Safi-od-Din Mausoleum Complex is western Iran’s most dazzling Safavid monument and a World Heritage Site. The patriarch is buried with lesser notables in an iconic 1334 Allah-Allah tower , so named because the apparently geometrical motif in blue-glaz
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Old City
With its badgirs (windtowers or wind catchers) poking out of a baked-brown labyrinth of lanes, the old city of Yazd emerges like a phoenix from the desert - a very old phoenix. Yazds old city is one of the oldest towns on earth, according to Unesco, and is the perfect place to get
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Oljeitu Mausoleum
By far the most dramatic of the three monuments is the magnificent mausoleum built for this Mongol sultan, now a Unesco World Heritage site. Almost 25m in diameter and 48m high it’s the world’s tallest brick dome. Inside, renovators’ scaffolding can’t hide the enormity of the enclo
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Glass & Ceramics Museum
Housed in a beautiful Qajar-era building a short walk north of the National Museum of Iran, the Glass & Ceramics Museum is, like many of its exhibits, small but perfectly formed.Built as a private residence for a prominent Persian family, it later housed the Egyptian embassy an
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Azadi Tower (Borj
Way out west at the end of Azadi Ave is the inverted Y-shaped Azadi Tower, built in 1971 to commemorate the 2500th anniversary of the first Persian empire. After being closed for years, the tower reopened in 2006.Like the City Theatre, Carpet Museum and Tehran Museum of Contemporar
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Grand Stairway & Xerxes’ Gateway
Entry to the complex is via the monumental Grand Stairway at the northwest corner of the site. The stairs were carved from massive blocks of stone, but each step was shallow so that Persians in long elegant robes could walk gracefully up into the palace.Whenever important foreign d
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Kabud (Blue) Mosque
When it was constructed in 1465, the Mosque was among the most glorious buildings of its era. Once built, artists took a further 25 years to cover every surface with the blue majolica tiles and intricate calligraphy for which it’s nicknamed. It survived one of history’s worst-ever
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Taq
Tucked into a towering cliff are inscribed some extraordinary Sassanian bas reliefs, set in and around a pair of carved alcoves. Originally the site of an earlier Parthian royal hunting garden, the Sassanians added their own regal stamp. The biggest alcove features elephant-backed
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Other Buildings
The mausoleum approach crosses partly rebuilt stubs of Soltaniyeh’s citadel wall and some archaeological excavations of the Mongol-era townscape.Some 500m southwest of the main complex, the 1330 Khanegah Dervish Monastery has restored cells around a courtyard leading to the Boq’eh
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Hazrat
This shrine is the physical and spiritual centre of Qom. The burial place of Imam Reza’s sister Fatemeh, who died and was interred here in the 9th century AD, it has two huge domes, various courtyards and exquisite tiled minarets. Much of what you see today was built under Shah Abb
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