Yazd - Jewel in the Desert
With its mud brick houses, wind towers and underground workshops, Yazd is a typical desert town with a characteristic architecture that is adapted to the hot climate. It is located in an oasis at 1200 m above sea level on the Iranian high plateau between the two deserts Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut and has around 656,500 inhabitants (2016).
History
4th Century BC
Little
is known about its foundation. According to some legends, Alexander the
Great is said to have left high-ranking Achaemenid prisoners here in
the seclusion of the desert.
5th century AD
Whether
the towns name derives from the Sassanid ruler Yazdgerd I (399-420) is
not clear. But at the time, Yazd was already a centre for
Zoroastrianism.
Bagh-e Dolatabad
This garden with its large water basin was commissioned by the governor
of the time around 1750. The airy, octagonal little palace served him as
a reception hall. Also noteworthy is the octagonal badgir (wind tower)
on top of the palace. It is the highest in Iran and is part of an
ingenious cooling system: the air flowing into the tower is cooled by
the thick walls and sinks down through the tower, where it is led over a
water basin. Through evaporation the air gets even fresher, so ensuring
constant temperatures in the rooms of the palace .
The water was
brought in through underground pipes, so-called qanats. These can be
visited at the end of the garden where a stair leads down into the
unterground.
Zoroastrian Firetemple
With the arrival of the Islam, many followers of the ancient Zoroastrian
religion fled to India. Some also sought refuge in the remote desert
town of Yazd. Today the city is still home to the second largest
Zoroastrian religious community in Iran. Wealthy fellow believers from
Bombay founded this modern fire temple in 1934.
The main facade with its nice archway shows a symbol of the God Ahura Mazda, the only god of this first monotheistic religion.
Inside
the temple the sacred fire can be visited. It is guarded by a priest
who regularly adds wood. The fire was brought to Yazd in 1940, but is
said to have been burning without interruption since 1500.
Outside of
Yazd there are also two impressive Towers of Silence. Zoroastrians used
to place their deads on the platforms on top of the towers for the
vultures to eat. This ritual was banned in 1970 for hygienic reasons.
Tekiyeh Amir Chaqmaq
With its two slender minarets, the tree rows of beautiful arcades and
its tile decorated entrance gate, this impressive building from the 19th
century looks a bit like a mosque. But the facade construction used to
be a stand for the viewers oft he Shiite Ashura celebration remembering
the battle and death of Imam Hossein. The arcades served as boxes for
the spectators. Nowadays the public gathers in the square in front of
it.
Standig in front of the facade there is a large, leaf-shaped
wooden frame, the naghl, built from cedar wood. During the celebration
it is covered with black cloths and represents the shrine of the Imam.
Water Museum
In a desert city like Yazd, water is a precious good. Housed in a
renovated traditional patrician house, the water museum offers a lot of
informative knowledge about the watering system in Yazd with its qanats,
the famous underground irrigation system.
The basement rooms are
particularly impressive. There you can visit the cool summer rooms and
the qanat running deep under the house.
Alexander's Prison
This mud brick building with ist dome was probably built as a mausoleum
in the 12th century. During the 13th century the building was expanded
and transformed into a madresse.
The so called prison is a dungeon-like cistern under the central courtyard. There you can now find a small tea house.
Next
to the Alexander Prison, there is another domed structure: the
Davazdah-Imam Shrine (mausoleum of the 12 Imams) dating from the 11th
century.
Masjed-e Jomeh
This mosque is considered to be one of the best preserved buildings in
Iran dating from the 14th and 15th centuries. It was built on the site
of an older mosque dating from the 12th century.
The entrance to the
mosque is crowned by a pair of minarets, the highest in Iran, dating
back to the Safavid era and measuring 52 meters in height and 6 meters
in diameter. The high entrance portal is decorated over and over with
blue tiles, which contrast the otherwise very plain fassade made of
unadorned bricks.
The inner courtyard is formed by ocher-colored
brick arcades. The high prayer room with ist exquisite dome on the other
hand, is richly decorated with tile ornaments.
The mosque is certainly one of the most beautiful of its kind.
Entrance Water Museum
Khaneh-e Lariha
In the labyrinth of narrow streets in the old town of Yazd you can visit the house of the Lariha. It is a traditional residential building, the rooms of which are grouped around a large inner courtyard. From the outside only the plain walls can be seen, but inside the Qajar-style house built in 1865 you will find a nice inner courtyard with trees around a water basin, splendidly decorated living rooms with colorful glass windows and a classic wind tower for ventilation.
Inside Alexander's Prison