Bam Citadel
Bam Citadel (Arge Bam in Persian) is the largest adobe building in the world, located in Bam, a city in the Kerman province of southeastern Iran. It is recorded by Unesco as a world cultural heritage site. This enormous citadel, situated on the famous Silk Way, was built sometime before 500 BC and remained in use until 1850 AD. It is not known for certain why it was then abandoned.
The entire building in fact is a big fortress, in whose heart the citadel itself is located, but because of the impressive look of the citadel, which forms the highest point, the entire fortress is named the Bam Citadel.
On December 26, 2003, the Citadel was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake, along with much of the rest of Bam and its environs (see Bam article for details). A few days after the earthquake, President Mohammad Khatami announced that the Citadel would be rebuilt.
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2 Dimensions 3 Citadel design and architecture 4 Security 5 Weather-milding (air conditioning) 6 Tourism 7 References |
Bam city
Bam is a small city, approximately 1100 metres above sea level, situated on the historially famous Silk Road. It is found in Kerman province in the South East of Iran, south of Kerman city and north of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Mild winters and very warm summers characterize the climate of this region. The trees start to blossom in the last days of February. Like most desert places, the nights, even during the warmest days of the summer, are cool.
There are various opinions about the date and reasons for the foundation of the citadel. Some people believe that Bam city was founded during the empire of Parts, a very powerful Persian empire, and flourished in the 10th century. Economically and commercially, Bam occupied a very important place in the region and the majority of its textiles and clothes enjoyed world fame. Ibne-Haugal (943-977), the Arab traveller and geographer wrote in his book Surat-ol-arz (The Earth-figure), of Bam:
"Over there they weave excellent, beautiful and long-lasting cotton cloths which are sent to distant countries and cities. There they also make excellent clothes, each of which costs around 30 dinars; these are sold in Khorasan, Iraq and Egypt."
Dimensions
The area of Bam Citadel is approximately 180,000 square meters, and it is surrounded by gigantic walls 6-7 metres high and 1815 metres long. The citadel features two of the "stay-awake towers" for which Bam is famed - there are as many as 67 such towers scattered across the ancient city of Bam.
Citadel design and architecture
The planning and architecture of the citadel are very ingeniously thought out from different points of view. For example from the present form of the citadel, one can easily understand that since the first step in the planning/drawing, the planner(s) had foreseen the entire final form of the building/city, and during each phase of building development, the built part enjoyed a complete figure whether 2-dimensionally or 3-dimensionally, and each additional part could be “sewn” to the already built section seamlessly.
The citadel is situated in the center of the fortress-city, on the highest place to enjoy the longest and widest view for security resons. The notable impression of the citadel, caused that they call also all other buildings around it, "Bam Citadel".
In the architectural form of Bam Citadel there are two different distinguishable parts:
- The rulers' part in the most internal wall, holding the citadel, barracks, mill, 4-sezonan house, water-well (dug in the rocky earth and about 40 metres deep), and a stall for 200 horses.
- The rulled
over part surrounding the rulers' place, consists of: the main entrace of the
entire fortress-city, bazaar alongside of the North-to-South spinal axle (which
connects the main entrance to the citadel), around 400 houses and their needed
public buildings like school, a sport-place, ...
- Smaller houses with 2-3 rooms for the poor families.
- Bigger houses with 3-4 rooms for the middle social class, some of which have also a veranda.
- The most luxurious houses
with more rooms heading to different directions suitable for different seasons
of the year, together with big a court and a stall for animals nearby. This kind
of houses is not found in a big number in the fortress.
Security
When the gate of the city was closed, no human being or any animal could enter it. In such a situation, the inhabitants could continue their living for an extremely long period of time, because they already had access to the well, planted earths and even cattles and domestic animals. So when the fortress-city was besieged, the inhabitants could remain in the city while the soldiers could suitably defend it being protected by the high extreme walls and towers.
Weather-milding (air conditioning)
Besides the whatch towers and ornamated tops of the high walls, on the skyline of the fortress, also the wind-catchers or wind-towers (in Persian: badgir) are remarkable. They are special structures sticking out of the different buildings in order to catch the pleasant wind and lead it down into the internal spaces of the buildings; sometime the captured wind is passed over a surface of a water basin in the building in order to become cooler, lose the dust and driness of the desert air. Different types of wind-towers are utilized for different buildings. For example there are 4-directional wind-towers for bigger and more important buildings, which are capable to catch the winds which blow from dofferent directions during different times in the day and night in all seasons. There are also 1-directional wind-towers for smaller buildings.
Tourism
Since the middle of the 19th century, the fortress began to be abandoned for some unknown reasons. Now it is one of the best tourist attractions in the region, which is visited by a large number of domestic and foreign tourists each year.