is remarkable for a domed stalactite ceiling It is the 12th April 1934 and Byron’s just paid a visit to the tomb tower of Chelabi Oghlu. After that, he reports his visit to the Shrine of Mullah Hassan-i Kashan. What Byron writes about it is only that the most interesting feature of this monument is the…
Tag: tomb
The simple tomb-tower of Chelebi Oghlu
an octagonal tomb-tower of the thirteenth century When Robert Byron is back to Sultaniyya, on the 12th April 1934, he does not only remember the first time he saw the Tomb of Uljaytu (that does not disappoint him, not even now that has visited many monuments), but visits other monuments, one of which is the…
The ruins of Qubba-i Sabz and the doubts on its origins in old sources
It was a shrine with a tall blue dome Little can be said about the ruins of the Qubba-i Sabz. Even Robert Byron, that went to see the ruins of this monument on the 24th of March 1934, says little about it, only one sentence: “The Kuba-i-Sabz, which Sykes mentions, has fallen down. It was…
Blaming the murderer: an inscription of the Ziyarat-i ‘Abd Allah Ansari
Everyone goes to Gazar Gah After his visit to the citadel of Herat, where he fancied for a second about becoming a spy for His Majesty the King of England, on the 24th of November 1933, Byron took a cab that drove him to what he calls “the shrine of Gazar Gah”. In fact, the…
Imam Reza Shrine
A gold dome flashed, a blue dome loomed, out of the cold autumnal haze The Imam Reza Shrine is by far the most important and most articulated monument of Mashhad, and probably Iran. It is also one of the biggest religious complexes in the world, with a total area of about 598,657 m2. So big that…
May God give light to him: a tombstone from 10th century Iran
I love tombstones… that’s something creepy and well known: I realised that the majority of inscriptions I publish here are from tombstones, but that’s it. Tombstones are not only beautiful, but also a fertile source of information. Some Iranian tombstones, for instance, can be used to trace the history of craftsmen, or to better understand…
SquareKufic 