Gonbad-e Qabus
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- Including its foundations, the tower measures about 61 metres, roughly 11 of them hidden below ground.
- On the flat Gorgan plain the tower can be seen from about 30 kilometres away.
- Qabus was deposed by his own army commanders in 1012, who put his son Manuchihr on the throne and had the old ruler die of cold in a castle prison.
- Before building the tower, Qabus had spent some 16 years in exile in Khurasan after the Buyids seized his lands, regaining power in 997.
- Around 1000 the young al-Biruni completed his first major work, the Chronology of Ancient Nations, at Qabus's court in Gorgan and dedicated it to him.
- Qabus's grandson Keikavus later wrote the Qabus-nama, a celebrated book of Persian advice literature named after him.
- The inscriptions around the tower are composed in rhymed prose.
- Scholars think the dead in such towers were laid on raised, impermeable platforms rather than buried, blending Zoroastrian and Islamic customs.
- The interior is just under 10 metres across at the base, a modest chamber beneath the soaring brick shaft.
- Iran listed the tower as national heritage in 1932, eighty years before UNESCO inscription.
Why it is worth it
Rising from a low mound above the plains of Golestan province in north-eastern Iran, the tower of Gonbad-e Qabus is one of the most striking single buildings of the medieval Islamic world. It was built in 1006-7 for Qabus ibn Wushmgir, ruler of the Ziyarid dynasty, as his own tomb, and it stands nearly perfect after a thousand years. The modern town around it takes its name from the monument, and in 2012 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The design could hardly be simpler or bolder. A cylinder of fine baked brick, flanged by ten sharp triangular buttresses that turn its plan into a star, climbs to a conical brick roof. Above ground it stands about 50 metres tall, three times its outer diameter, with further masonry below ground, and it can be seen from a great distance across the flat countryside. The only ornament is two bands of inscription, one above the door and one below the roof, each divided into ten panels between the buttresses; they record the date in both the Iranian solar and the Islamic lunar calendars. The entrance also contains some of the earliest evidence in Iran of muqarnas, the honeycomb vaulting that became a hallmark of Islamic architecture.
The tower belongs to a family of tomb towers along Iran's Caspian coast, but none approaches its height. Historians have linked the form to Zoroastrian funerary traditions, at a time when the region was still converting to Islam. No body has been found inside. A legend claims Qabus was placed in a glass coffin hung from the roof on chains; the absence of any burial on the floor has kept that story alive, though it remains a legend.
The tower was the goal of Robert Byron's journey in his celebrated travel book The Road to Oxiana (1937). The golden colour of the brick is at its best in low evening light.
Getting there
The tower stands in the town of Gonbad-e Kavus, in Golestan province. Gorgan, the provincial capital, is about 90 to 95 km away by road, roughly an hour and a half. Gorgan Airport (GBT), about 103 km from the town, is the nearest with domestic flights; Sari Dasht-e Naz (SRY) is further away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Gonbad-e Qabus or Gonbad-e Qabus Tower is a monument in Gonbad-e Qabus, Iran, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2012. It marks the grave of Ziyarid ruler Qabus, and was built during his lifetime in 1006/7. It is a cylindrical tomb tower that reaches c. 61 metres and can be seen from some 30 kilometres away. The eponymous city is named after the monument.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
37.25812, 55.16899per Wikidata