Abyaneh

Abyaneh climbs a slope of the Karkas Mountains at about 2,100 metres above sea level, a tight terraced cluster of houses the colour of rust. The tint comes from the local clay, rich in iron oxides, from which the village is built, and in the low sun of evening the whole settlement seems to glow against the paler mountainside. The houses are of red mudbrick, with wooden balconies, lattice windows and narrow lanes that follow the contours of the valley of the Barz River.

The doors are one of the village's small wonders. Many are carved and inscribed with lines of poetry, and they traditionally carry two different knockers: a heavy bar for men that strikes with a deep sound, and a lighter ring for women with a softer one, so the sound itself told the household whether a man or a woman was at the door. Abyaneh is also known for its people's loyalty to their own dress, still worn by many of the roughly three hundred inhabitants. Women wear knee-length skirts, cotton stockings and long, brightly flower-patterned headscarves that fall below the waist, together with the traditional giveh shoes, while men wear black coats and wide trousers.

The village preserves a long sequence of monuments. Remains of the Harpak fire temple recall its Zoroastrian past, and three forts stand around it — Palahamooneh, about two centuries old, on the far side of the village, with Pala and Herdah to the north and northeast. The Friday Mosque dates back to the eleventh century and is a rare example from the Seljuk period of a mosque built largely in wood: two prayer halls, for summer and winter, have flat painted ceilings carried on wooden columns, the carved minbar was made in 1073–1074, and the wooden mihrab bears a fourteenth-century date. The smaller Porzaleh Mosque from the Ilkhanid era has an entrance door carved with rosettes and its construction date of 1302. A shrine said to hold the remains of Isa and Yahya, sons of the seventh Shia Imam Musa al-Kadhim, has a veranda overlooking the valley and a turquoise-tiled octagonal dome above a courtyard pool.

Getting there

Abyaneh lies in Natanz County, Isfahan province, about 31 km from the town of Natanz and some 70 km southeast of Kashan. Kashan Airport (KKS) is about 34 km away in a straight line.