Rayen Citadel
Interesting facts
- The citadel stands at an altitude of about 2,200 metres, on the edge of the Iranian plateau.
- Its roughly square ring of walls, more than ten metres high, is studded with sixteen watchtowers.
- The only way in is through a single large gateway on the east side.
- Within the walls are a bazaar, a governor's quarter, mansions, ordinary homes, a school, a quarantine building and the remains of a fire temple.
- According to tradition, Arab armies failed to take Rayen in the time of the last Sasanian king, Yazdegerd III, thanks to its high walls.
- Rayen Castle is mentioned in the history of Kerman as early as the first century of the Islamic calendar.
- The citadel was added to Iran's list of national monuments in 1966.
- Iranian sources often describe it as the second largest mud-brick building in the world, after the citadel of Bam.
Why it is worth it
The mud-brick ramparts of Rayen, their rounded towers the colour of the surrounding desert, enclose a whole fortified town at the foot of the mountains south of Kerman. Covering about 20,000 square metres, Arg-e Rayen is among the largest adobe structures in the world, and while the great citadel of Bam was shattered by the 2003 earthquake, Rayen still stands largely intact.
The precise age of the citadel is uncertain. It is generally believed to be at least a thousand years old, and its foundations may go back to the Sasanian period, before the coming of Islam; much of what stands today was expanded and strengthened in later Islamic centuries. Its plan and building techniques show the hallmarks of the classic Iranian citadel, with a fortified town of houses and lanes protected by towered walls. The walls, houses and lanes are all built of sun-dried brick and clay, a material that has survived several earthquakes here which levelled neighbouring buildings.
Rayen lay on an important trade route and was known as a centre of textile production and of craftsmen who made swords and knives, and later firearms. People went on living inside the walls until 1868. The citadel is listed as part of Iran's national heritage, and the modern town of Rayen, in Kerman Province, surrounds it on the edge of the desert plateau.
Getting there
The citadel stands in the town of Rayen, about 100 km south of Kerman by road and about 54 km from Mahan. The nearest airport is Kerman's Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani International Airport (KER), about 89 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Rayen Castle is a historic adobe fortress situated in the city of Rayen, about 100 kilometers south of Kerman, Iran. The castle and the mudbrick city it protects display numerous architectural elements and design strategies recognized as hallmarks of Iranian citadels. The complex is well preserved despite numerous natural disasters that have destroyed similar structures nearby, including Arg-e Bam, which was destroyed in an earthquake in December 2003.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
29.59338, 57.43826per Wikidata