ARCHITECTURE

(Median and Achaemenid, see Archeology and Art in Iran.)

i. Seleucid.

ii. Parthian.

iii. Sasanian.

iv. Central Asian.

v. Islamic, pre-Safavid

vi. Safavid to Qajar. (Qajar, see Art in Iran.)

vii. Pahlavi, before World War II.

viii. Pahlavi, after World War II.

i. Seleucid

The Seleucid architecture of Iran encompasses the buildings constructed during the period of Greek power from 330 B.C. through the 2nd century B.C. The terminal date varies from region to region, since the Seleucid Greeks continually lost control of area to the Parthians invading from the northeast and to various local warlords. The scarcity of historical documents complicates the identification of structures erected under Greek rule, and archeological investigations have produced no Seleucid site comparable to Aï Khanum (see Āy Ḵānom) in Afghanistan or Failaka in the Persian Gulf. The situation is further confused by the fact that Greek masons and stonecutters were employed by the Achaemenids as early as the late 6th century B.C. It is entirely likely that elements of their influence persisted in later times. Thus mere classical appearance is not a reliable indication of Seleucid date.

The spectacular temple at Kangāvar exemplifies the problems of identifying Seleucid architecture. The large structure with its great Ionic columns set on a high stone platform has been equated with a Greek temple noted by Isidore of Charax (Parthian Stations 6; tr. W. H. Schoff, London, 1914, repr. Chicago, 1976) and mentioned in a royal Seleucid inscription dated 193 B.C. found at Nehāvand, some 50 km to the southeast of Kangāvar (E. Herzfeld, Iran in the Ancient East, London, 1941, p. 281; L. Robert, “Inscriptions séleucides de Phrygie et d’Iran,” Hellenica 7, 1949, pp. 5-29 and pls. I-IV; “Addenda au tome VII,” Hellenica 8, 1950, pp. 73-75 and pl. XXIII). Recent excavations, however, support Sasanian rather than Seleucid dating (T. Cuyler Young, Jr., “An Archaeological Survey of the Kangavar Valley,” Proceedings of the III Annual Symposium on Archaeological Research in Iran, Tehran, 1974, Tehran, 1976, p. 27; S. Kambakhsh-Fard, “Kangavar,” Iran 11 , 1973, pp. 196-97; and V. Lukonin, “Khram Anakhit v Kangavar,” VDI, 1977, no. 2, pp. 106-11; M. Azarnoush, “Excavations at Kangavar,” AMI 14, 1981, pp. 69ff.; for a different opinion see K. Schippmann, Grundzüge der parthischen Geschichte, Darmstadt, 1980, p. 100).

The Ionic structure at Ḵorra, near Qom in central Iran, is similarly problematic. The ruin has been called both a Parthian temple and a Seleucid heroon (K. Schippmann, Die iranischen Feuerheiligtümer, Berlin, 1971, pp. 424-30; W. Kleiss, “Qal’eh Zohak in Azerbaidjan,” AMI 6, 1973, pp. l73-74 and 180-83; and A. D. H. Bivar, in Journal of Roman Studies 59, 1969, pp. 307-08). Ḵorra is distinctly Greek in style but finds no real parallel in any other Greek or Iranian monuments.

Random finds of fragmentary Ionic bases and portions of pilasters suggest that classical, or classicizing, buildings also existed at Bīsotūn and at least three sites in Azerbaijan (H. Luschey, “Bisotun,” Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1974, p. 124; and W. Kleiss, op. cit., pp. 174-75). Whether these are Seleucid or Parthian is not certain.

A better indication of Greek architecture may be the presence of fired clay roofing tiles. These tiles are not characteristic of Iranian architectural practice in any period and thus may serve as clear indication of a strong Greek presence. Such tiles, known from Qaḷʿa-ye Zoḥāk in Azerbaijan and from the great city of Susa in Ḵūzestān, show that gable-roofed structures in the Greek style existed in Iran (Kleiss, op. cit., p. 182; and A. Labrousse and R. Boucharlat, “La fouille du Palais du Chaour à Suse en 1970 et 1971,” CDAFI 2, 1972, pp. 89-99). Furthermore, the ridge tiles from Susa are ornamented with palmettes, another Greek characteristic. The type of buildings constructed in the Seleucid period at Susa is unknown, though a temple of Herakles and a theater have been placed in the section known as the Ville des Artisans by Roman Ghirshman (“Un basrelief parthe de la Collection Foroughi,” Artibus Asiae 37, 1975, p.23).

The architecture of Fārs (classical Persis) shows little Greek influence, in contrast to western Iran, perhaps because of the brevity of the Seleucid period, which evidently ended in that region with the death of Seleukos I in 280 B.C. Parts of the burned ruins of Persepolis, particularly Palace H, were repaired and occupied for some time in the 3rd century B.C. The elaborate columns remained as testaments to the past, models for the future, and sources of readily available building materials (A. Tilia, Studies and Restorations at Persepolis and Other Sites in Fars, Rome, 1972, pp. 315-16). During the same century a moderate-sized building, usually considered a temple, was reshaped below the Persepolis terraces somewhat to the northwest. Construction methods paralleled those of the buildings on the terraces where the doorways and window frames were stone, while the walls were mud brick. Column bases from the terrace were used within the structure, and additional bases of a simpler design were also produced. (For illustrations see R. Ghirshman, Persian Art, New York, 1962, p. 26, fig. 34; for a more detailed consideration see E. Schmidt, Persepolis I: Structures, Reliefs and Inscriptions, Chicago, 1953; and Herzfeld, op. cit., p. 275 and pls. LXXXV and LXXXVI). No trace of distinctly Greek building techniques have appeared so far. Thus the architecture of Fārs in the 3rd century B.C. may better be called post-Achaemenid rather than Seleucid.

Little is known of the Seleucid period in eastern Iran, and no buildings in that region can as yet be surely dated to the time.

Bibliography : Given in the text.

(T. S. Kawami)

ii. Parthian

To define Parthian architecture is not synonymous with describing the architecture of the Parthians. Firstly, some sites traditionally labeled as Parthian lie outside of an Iran expanded beyond its modern borders. But while other disciplines must also recognize the difference between Iran and non-Iran, there are so few examples of architectural monuments from the plateau of Iran either known or documented in detail that it seems impossible to use the Iranian homeland of the Parthians as the basis for the definition of Parthian architecture. Secondly, the Parthian dynasty of the Arsacids maintained its capital at Ctesiphon in Mesopotamia, but during the latter half of the era there were large sections of the plateau area which claimed independence: “Indo-Parthian” kings struck coins in Sīstān as did other kings in the provinces of Persia and in Elymais, and the south and east of the Caspian, Hyrcania established a degree of autonomy by the middle of the first century A.D. Much closer to the capital, at the head of the Persian Gulf, the kings of Characene maintained their independence (albeit with interruption) for several centuries. Yet it is precisely when Arsacid political authority was being rigorously challenged by other groups that recognizable traits were beginning to appear in Middle Eastern architecture as a whole and which owe their origins to “indigenous” forces. Given the multiplicity of the ethnic and linguistic make-up of the area, these developments can be seen as expressions that were concurrent with the existence of many political groups. They occurred during the Parthian period, but they are not to be thought of as exclusively the property of the Parthian dynasty of the Arsacids.

The dynastic art of the Arsacids, if such an entity could be conceived, should be sought in no more than central Mesopotamia and the Zagros mountains. Common usage, however, requires that one think of Parthian architecture as involving everything between Hatra in Iraq and Taxila in Pakistan, between Nisa (q.v.) in the Soviet Union and Dārābgerd in southern Iran. In the northeast, the precise boundary between Parthian and Kushan kingdoms is a difficult problem to define. Certain sites, however, such as Khalchayan (Ḵaḷčayān) and Koi-Krylan-Kala in Uzbekistan and Surkh Kotal in Afghanistan, have to be considered under Parthian architecture if that term is to be adequately defined. Geographical limits, then, are not the way to define Parthia. Rather, one should acknowledge that over a wide territory there was a recognizable development of architectural style and form, the evolution of which was not completed when the Parthian period came to an end. And while the source of these fundamental changes may not necessarily have come from Iranian-speaking architects, it was essentially an “Iranian” revolution in the arts. For the evolution continued under the Sasanians, and from there the architectural ideas were transferred as producing some of the more readily identifiable characteristics of the architecture of Iran under Islam.

The single trait most characteristic of this “Iranian” architecture is the use of an ayvān (q.v.) as a rectangular, vaulted hall with one end open where it faces a courtyard, for which diverse sources have been proposed ranging from a tent or reed house to the Mycenean megaron or the Hellenistic exedra. Iranologists, however, stress the theoretical nomadic origins of the Parthians as the reason for the adoption of this distinctive architectural feature, and the Iranian origin of the term. The most important fact in the debate is that at Seleucia-on-Tigris in the late first century A.D. it can be demonstrated that house plans changed from having a hall with a pair of columns set in the opening on the side of the court (distyle in antis) to that of a barrel-vaulted ayvān as the building’s most important roofed structure, indicating the practical application of a previously well-known constructional technique—the barrel vault of brick—to a portion of the building where Greek style was no longer an important aspect. Barrel vaults of brick had been built as much as a millennium and a half earlier (at Susa, for example), but it was the application of the vaulted ayvān to the main units of a building in the late Parthian period which gave Iranian architecture such a regal reception hall through emphasis on the height of the room and the longitudinal axis. The ground-plan change was negligible, but the visual aspect as vaults replaced columns and beams was revolutionary.

The problem of the heavy lateral thrust of brick vaulting was solved by flanking corridors which buttressed the main vault by carrying the thrust out through a series of parallel side walls. Whatever use was then made of the corridors must have been secondary to the original, structural contribution. In some instances where square chambers have been added at the rear of an ayvān complex, the use of a corridor is still retained, a clumsy arrangement which suggests a formative stage when architects had not as yet worked out how to create a unified, integrated layout.

Other details of Parthian architecture, especially unorthodox techniques, underline the formative nature of the art. Bricks stacked on edge in groups, alternating with others in horizontal lays, were quite common in the mud-brick architecture of the Ur III period in Mesopotamia (3rd millennium B.C.). The Parthian version of this technique, used occasionally for walls and columns, employed baked brick with each course built alternating between vertical and horizontal lays, ignoring the bonding properties of flat brick where the joints are laid overlapping both lengthwise and laterally through the wall. Similarly, to build strong wall foundations, deep trenches for wall footings were dug and elaborate systems of platforming were constructed, to support structures above; yet these platforms appear in a variety of forms, suggesting that there was no architectural standard that builders followed. Often, at mound sites with an upper layer of Parthian or late Iron Age date it is only remnants of these platforms which survive, resulting in confusion for the archeologist should the matrix of walls and fill be confused with occupational remains. In some cases where massive platforms have been called for, the execution of the project has defeated the purpose behind the plan. This is especially true where a platform has been designed to project out from an existing elevation, forming an extended terrace. There is a danger here that the sheer weight of the added mass is so heavy that it is torn away from the core to which it is supposed to be anchored. To use brick sizes as a way of dating archeological remains of the Parthian period is unwise: there are generalities one can observe, even local characteristics that repeat themselves, but such dimensions can not be used outside of the area to date other ruins because the concept of standards does not apply.

More successful, in terms of their execution, were platforms built in the Zagros mountains of field- and dressed-stone. The antecedents of these were the palace terraces for which the Achaemenids are famous. Parthian examples are the terraces at Masǰed-e Solaymān and Bard-e Nešānda which formerly were assigned to early Achaemenid time. Terraces of this kind were indeed a characteristic of early Iranian architecture.

Under the Parthians any observable western influence can just as well be a survival from the Hellenistic period, which is why the monument at Kangāvar was once acceptably dated as early Parthian while recent investigations proved it to be late Sasanian. In some instances elsewhere, such as Nippur in Iraq, there are also survivals of archaic building forms alongside contemporaneous structures in the “new Parthian” style, which helps to stress the fact that buildings can not be dated on isolated features of style alone.

In this light one can also best evaluate Parthian architectural decoration. Wall surface decoration includes a wide range of geometrical, stylized vegetal and figural ornament executed in plaster both molded and carved. Sites in Iraq (such as Ashur/Āšūr, Seleucia-on-Tigris and Warka), in western Iran (Qalʾeh-i Yazdigird/Qaḷʿa-ye Yazdegerd), and in Sīstān (Kuh-i Khwaja/Kūh-e Ḵᵛāǰa) all show a tendency on the part of architects to divide up wall surfaces into flat panels and bands of repeat designs, suggestive of textile ornament. These once vividly-colored wall-hangings include motifs taken from the repertoire of western artists, yet the art is not western. Liberties are taken with designs which ignore their original properties, and, through the geometrizing of natural forms, Parthian art anticipates Islamic art by several centuries.

Wall surfaces also include architectonic decorations, that is, architectural members reduced to decorative features to break up flat surfaces. The component parts are often derived from western architectural vocabularies—columns, capitals, cornices, etc.—but the combination of the different elements into façade compositions, particularly “blind arcades,” is a distinctive feature of Parthian architecture. Blind arcading—the treatment of a façade without any connection to the building layout behind—is yet again a feature that was transferred via Sasanian architecture to the Islamic architecture of Iran.

Bibliography : W. Andrae, Hatra nach Aufnahmen von Mitgliedern der Assur-Expedition der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, WVDOG 9 and 21, Leipzig, 1908-12. Idem, Die deutschen Ausgrabungen in Warka (Uruk), Berlin, 1935. Idem and H. Lenzen, Die Partherstadt Assur, WVDOG 57, Leipzig, 1933. M. Bussagli, “Parthian Art,” Encyclopaedia of World Art XI, cols. 105-17. M. R. A. Colledge, Parthian Art, London, 1977, pp. 21-79. V. E. Crawford, “Nippur the Holy City,” Archaeology 12, 1959, pp. 74-83. N.C. Debevoise, “The Origins of Decorative Stucco.” AJA 45, 1941, pp. 45-61. M. Dieulafoy, L’art antique de la Perse V: Monuments parthes et sassanides, Paris, 1889. C. S. Fisher, “The Mycenaean Palace at Nippur,” AJA 8, 1904, pp. 401-32. R. Ghirshman, Iran: Parthian and Sassanian Period, London, 1962. Idem, Terrasses sacrées de Bard-è Néchandehet Masjid-i Solaiman, MDAFI 45, 1976. B. Goldman, “The Allover Pattern in Mesopotamian Stuccowork,” Berytus 10, 1952-53, pp. 13-20. G. Gullini, Architettura iranica dagli Achemenidi ai Sasanidi, Torino, 1964. U. W. Hallier, “Neh—eine parthische Stadt in Ostpersien,” AMI, N.F. 7, 1974, pp. 173-90. E. Herzfeld, Iran in the Ancient East, London and New York, 1941, pp. 276ff. C. Hopkins, ed., Topography and Architecture of Seleucia on the Tigris, Ann Arbor, 1972. E. J. Keall, “Some Thoughts on the Early Eyvan,” in D. K. Kouymjian, ed., Near Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy and History. Studies in Honor of George C. Miles, Beirut, 1974, pp. 123-30. Idem, M. A. Leveque, and N. Willson, “Qaḷʿeh-i Yazdigird: Its Architectural Decorations,” Iran 18, 1980, pp. 1-41. M. Y. Kiani, Parthian Sites in Hyrcania, AMI Ergänzungsband 10, Berlin, 1982. H. J. Lenzen, “Architektur der Partherzeit in Mesopotamia und ihre Brückenstellung zwischen der Architektur des Westens und des Ostens,” in E. Boehringer, ed., Festschrift für Carl Weickert, Berlin, 1955, pp. 121-36. W. K. Loftus, Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana, London, 1857. N. F. Manasseh, “Architectural Features of Block B,” Second Preliminary Report upon the Excavations at Tel Umar, Iraq, director L. Waterman, Ann Arbor, 1933. J. Marshall, Taxila, 3 vols., Cambridge, 1951. G. A. Pugachenkova, Rekonstruktsiya " kvadratnogo zala" parfyanskogo ansamblya Staroĭ Nisy. Trudy Yuzhno-Turkmenskoĭ arkheologicheskoĭ kompleksnoĭ ekspeditsii II, Ashkhabad, 1951. O. Reuther, “Parthian Architecture. A: History,” Survey of Persian Art I, 1938, pp. 411-44. D. Schlumberger, “Parthian Art,” Camb. Hist. Iran III/3, 1983, pp. 1027-54. L. Trümpelmann, “The Parthian Buildings at Assur,” Summer 35, 1979, pp. 287-93. T. N. Zadneprovskaya, “Bibliographie de travaux soviétiques sur les parthes,” Studia Iranica 4/2, 1972, pp. 243-60.

(E. J. Keall)

iii. Sasanian

1. Building materials. Sasanian architecture is characterized by the widespread use of mortar masonry and the associated vaulting techniques. Although mud brick had been developed long before, and mortar constructions were known in Parthian times, both became preeminent in the high-standard architecture of the Sasanians. Mud brick remained a most important building material (e.g. Dāmḡān, Istakhr/Eṣṭaḵr, Ḥāǰīābād, Kīš, Ctesiphon, Kuh-i Khwaja/Kūh-e Ḵᵛāǰa), and only its impermanence shifts our attention to the better preserved stone and brick ruins of Sasanian architecture. Among these, rubble stone masonry with gypsum mortar is predominant. Brickwork was frequently used for vaults and domes, although there are a number of buildings made entirely of brick (e.g. Dastegerd, Ayvān-e Karḵa, Ctesiphon, Taḵt-e Solaymān). Dressed ashlar appears sporadically, mainly in the early (e.g. Bīšāpūr, Fīrūzābād, Nūrābād, Pāykūlī) and late (e.g. Ṭāq-e Gerra, Darband, Taḵt-e Solaymān, Kangāvar) phases of the empire, and seems to be due to western influence (H. Wulff, Traditional Crafts of Persia, Cambridge, Mass., 1966, p. 102).

2. Construction and structural types. (a) Vaulted constructions. Sasanian vaulting techniques depend largely on the special qualities of gypsum mortar, which allows vaulting without centering because of its short setting time. Barrel vaults with “pitched courses,” the most frequent system, owe their elliptical shape and their significant step out above the impost to this technical procedure, which requires only a back wall or a narrow strip of centering for the first courses, with the following ones successively glued in front (K. A. C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture 1/2, Oxford, 1969, p. 544; O. Reuther, “Sasanian Architecture,” in Survey of Persian Art I, p. 498). Notwithstanding its practical advantages, vaulting without centering prevented the development of geometrically advanced constructions. Semicircular barrel vaults appear only when built on centering as a voussoir arch with “lying courses.” The cross vault, resulting from the intersection of two barrel vaults at right angles, was not developed. There are no examples of pointed arches built by formal intention, although they occur as a result of building practice in lesser monuments (e.g. Qaṣr-e Šīrīn) (G. L. Bell, Palace and Mosque at Ukhaidir, London, 1914, p. 51). The standard unit of the rectangular barrel-vaulted room was frequently enlarged by vaulted bays. Adjoining semidomes occur rarely (e.g. Kīš, Bozpar, Negār, Sarvestān), although in vernacular architecture the use of the squinch vault, probably an ancient technique and one widely regarded as the origin of the Iranian dome, results in a hybridization of semidome or dome and cloister vault (A. Godard, “Voûtes iraniennes,” Athar-é Iran 4, 1949, p. 221). With the barrel-vaulted ayvān, a rectangular room with the front side open, the visible shape of the vault became the dominant feature of the facade. Already present in Parthian time, the ayvān became the most conspicuous element of Sasanian and later Iranian architecture.

(b) Domed constructions. The propagation of the dome on squinches above a square hall may be regarded as the most significant Sasanian contribution to Middle-Eastern architecture. This most uncomplicated and solid of all constructive systems already appears fully developed in the buildings of Ardašīr I in Fīrūzābād (Plate V). Its tectonic disposition remained basically unchanged throughout the Sasanian period and had a decisive impact on Islamic architecture; its empirical form clearly distinguished Eastern dome construction from the abstract geometrical concept of Western domes with pendentives (J. Rosinthal, Pendentifs, trompes et stalactites dans l’architecture orientale, Paris, 1928, p. 43). The variety of squinch forms demonstrates an increasing effort to find satisfying forms for what was originally a purely constructive element. In its early stage (e.g. Fīrūzābād) the cupola proper does not yet have a perfectly circular base, but rises on a fairly well rounded octagon. Later examples (e.g. Qaṣr-e Šīrīn) draw nearer to geometric perfection, which is finally achieved in Islamic architecture.

The elevation of the domed hall consists of three horizontal zones: (1) plain walls, generally with doors or arches at the four axial intercepts; (2) a zone of transition including the corner squinches and generally windows or decorative niches at the main axes; (3) the cupola proper. The addition of barrel-vaulted bays to all four sides of the square produced the mature scheme that was to become a standard type for representative architecture in Iran until the present. This cruciform plan, based on the čahār-ṭāq, the square with four arches, appears in the earliest examples of Sasanian architecture, (e.g. Taḵt-e Nešīn in Fīrūzābād); it may have been inspired by Roman and Parthian architecture, although the central square was generally covered by cross or barrel vaults in those monuments.

(c) Columns and other supporting constructions. With the introduction of far-spanning vaults, the use of columns as constructive elements was widely discarded. There are examples of archaizing slender columns with bases, capitals, and sometimes fluted shafts that maintain Achaemenid or Hellenistic traditions (e.g. Bīšāpūr, Nūrābād, Kīš), while those of later monuments (e.g. Bīsotūn, Ṭāq-e Bostān) reflect a fresh Western, Byzantine influence. But most often the column was transformed into a massive, round or rectangular pillar suitable for vaulted masonry constructions.

Apart from their use in colonnades (e.g. Kangāvar), pillars distinguish a characteristic group of generally three-aisled halls covered by longitudinal or transversal barrel vaults (e.g. Čāl Ṭarḵān, Dāmḡān, Ctesiphon, Taḵt-e Solaymān, Tepe Mīl). Nonetheless the typical supporting elements remained the massive wall, and pillars more often appear as relics of a wall pierced by arches than as individual tectonic members.

(d) Constructive and decorative details. Clay remained the chief coating material for flat and vaulted roofs as well as for floors which were frequently covered with gypsum plaster, stone, or in rare cases, with Roman influenced mosaics (e.g. Bīšāpūr, Ctesiphon). Plaster of Paris, frequently painted (Bīšāpūr, Ayvān-e Karḵa, Kīš), was widely used for building facings and for the dominant mode of architectural ornamentation, the stucco relief (Čāl Ṭarḵān, Dāmḡān, Ḥāǰīābād, Kīš, Ctesiphon) (D. Thompson, Stucco from Chal Tarkhan, London, 1976; J. Kröger, Sasanidischer Stuckdekor, Mainz, 1982; M. Azarnoush, “Excavations at Hâjîâbâd, 1977,” Iranica Antiqua 18, 1983, pp. 159ff.). The traditional stepped revetment remained a favorite decorative element, normally with four rectangular stages, which were already becoming dovetail-like at the late Sasanian Ṭāq-e Gerra.

3. Functional types of buildings. (a) Religious architecture. Frequent reference to sacred fires in Pahlavi texts indicate the important role that sanctuaries of the Zoroastrian state religion played in Sasanian architecture, but their architectural type remains disputed (F. Oehlmann “Persische Tempel,” Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1921, pp. 273ff.; U. Monneret de Villard, “The Fire Temples,” Bulletin of the American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology 4, 1936, pp. 175ff.; K. Schippmann, Die iranischen Feuerheiligtümer, Berlin, 1971; M. Boyce, “On the Zoroastrian Temple Cult of Fire,” JAOS 95, 1975, pp. 454ff.; Y. Yamamoto, “The Zoroastrian Temple Cult of Fire in Archaeology and Literature,” Orient 15, 1979, pp. 19ff.; 17, 1981, pp. 67ff.). The prevailing theory suggests that the main sanctuary structures were a freestanding čahār-ṭāq, under which the sacred fire, shining through the four lateral arches, was exposed to worshipers during the religious services, and a small ātešgāh some distance away, where the fire was kept at other times (A. Godard, “Les monuments du feu,” Athār-é Iran 3, 1938, pp. 7ff.; K. Erdmann, Das iranische Feuerheiligtum, Leipzig, 1941, pp. 46ff.). Apart from religious prescriptions that raise doubts about this kind of cult practice (Dârâb Hormazyâr’s Rivâyat, ed. M. R. Unvala, I, Bombay, 1906, pp. 60, 65ff.), archeological field work suggests another type of sanctuary: a closed chamber, where the fire was permanently maintained and served by priests, with adjoining ambulatories or rooms for worship (E. Herzfeld, Iran in the Ancient East, London, 1941, pp. 301ff.; E. Keall, “Archaeology and the Fire Temple,” in C. J. Adams, Iranian Civilization and Culture, Montreal, 1972, pp. 15ff.; D. Huff, “Das Imamzadeh Sayyid Husain und E. Herzfelds Theorie über den sasanidischen Feuertempel,” Stud. Ir. 11, 1982, pp. 197ff.). If the suggested identification of the Taḵt-e Nešīn in Fīrūzābād with a fire temple of Ardašīr I proves right, the early type was a square, domed room with four interior bays and with ayvāns or rooms added to the four facades (Huff in Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1972, pp. 517ff.). A unique, semi-subterranean structure at Bīšāpūr, convincingly attributed to Šāpūr I, is believed to be an ambulatory type fire temple because of its corridors; these surround a courtyard-like square of uncertain roofing, apparently associated with Anāhitā, as it was connected with an underground water canal (Ghirshman, RAA 12, 1938, p. 14; see, for a different interpretation, R. N. Frye, “The So-called Fire Temple of Bishapur,” in The Memorial Volume of the VIth Internalional Congress of Iranian Art and Archaeology, Oxford, Septemher 11-16th, 1972, Tehran, 1976, p.93). The Sasanian phase of the mud brick structure at Kūh-e Ḵᵛāǰa, identified as a fire temple by an altar in its principal building, had a square, domed sanctuary surrounded by corridors and halls, with a vast complex of subsidiary rooms and ayvāns around a central court (Herzfeld, op. cit., pp. 291ff.; G. Gullini, Architettura iranica, Torino, 1964, pp. 87ff.). A similar layout was found at Taḵt-e Solaymān, tentatively dated to the 6th century, which has been identified, on the basis of historical tradition and the excavation of clay bullae bearing priests’ names and titles, as the shrine of Ādur Gušnasp (Figure 11), one of the three most important Ādur Wahrāms (see Ātaš; the others, Ādur Farnbaγ and Ādur Burzēnmihr, have not yet been precisely localized. A second shrine excavated here, beside a dome-ambulatory temple, revealed an altar socle in a small sanctuary, preceded by two successive pillar halls rather than ambulatories (H. H. Von der Osten and R. Naumann, Takht-i Suleiman, Berlin, 1961; R. Nauman, “Takht-i Suleiman,” Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1975, pp. 109ff.; idem, Die Ruinen von Tacht-e Suleiman und Zendan-e Suleiman, Berlin, 1977, pp. 57ff.; D. Huff, “Takht-i Suleiman,” AMI 10, 1977, pp. 211ff.). The Čahār Qāpū at Qaṣr-e Šīrīn, attributed to Ḵosrow II, seems to have been another dome-ambulatory type temple within a large architectural compound (Bell, op. cit., pp. 51ff.; Reuther, op. cit., pp. 552ff.; differently J. Schmidt, “Qaṣr-i Širin,” Baghdader Mitteilungen 9, 1978, pp. 39ff.).

A great number of čahār-ṭāq ruins, surveyed all over Iran and most frequent in Fārs and Kermān, are regarded as fire temples. Nearly all of them were closed to the outside by blocking walls in their bays or the surrounding vaulted corridors (L. Vanden Berghe, “Récentes découvertes de monuments sassanides dans le Fars,” Iranica Antiqua 1, 1961, pp. 163ff.; idem, “Nouvelle découverte de monuments du feu d’époque sassanide,” ibid., 5, 1965, pp. 128ff.; idem, “Les Chahar Taqs du Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan,” ibid., 12, 1977, pp. 175ff.). See further D. Huff, “Sasanian Čahar Taqs in Fars,” in Proceedings of the IIIrd Annual Symposium on Archaeological Research in Iran, Tehran, 1975, pp. 243ff.). The two types are represented by the excavated examples at Tūrang Tepe identified as a sanctuary by an altar socle, and at Qaḷʿa-ye Yazdegerd, respectively (J. Deshayes, “Un temple du feu d’époque islamique à Tureng Tépé,” in Le feu dans le Proche-Orient antique, Leiden, 1973, pp. 31ff.; E. Keall, “Qal’eh-i Yazdigird, an Overview of the Monumental Architecture,” Iran 20, 1982, pp. 51ff.). Several open air altars including those at Naqš-e Rostam and Tang-e Karam most likely served for some Zoroastrian religious practice (A. Stein, “An Archaeological Tour in the Ancient Persis,” Iraq 3, 1936, pp. 175ff.; K. Erdmann, “Die Altäre von Naqsh-i Rustam,” MDOG 81, 1949, pp. 6ff.; D. Stronach, “The Kuh-i Shahrak Fire Altar,” JNES 25, 1966, pp. 217ff.). Christian churches discovered at Ḥīra, Ctesiphon, and Rahalīya have long prayer halls, mostly with two rows of pillars and tripartite choirs (Reuther, Die Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Ktesiphon-Expedition, Berlin, 1930, pp. 11ff.; D. Talbot Rice, “The Oxford Excavations at Hira, 1931,” Antiquity 6, 1932, pp. 276ff.; B. Finster and J. Schmidt, “Sasanidische and frühislamische Ruinen im Iraq,” Baghdader Mitteilungen 8, 1976, pp. 27, 40ff.).

(b) Palaces. Although palaces provide the best known examples of Sasanian architecture, the number of well defined monuments is smaller than generally assumed. They are characterized by a regular layout along an axis of symmetry and an obligatory ayvān. The two palaces of Ardašir I at Fīrūzābād, Qaḷʿa-ye Doḵtar (Figure 12) and Āteškada, both have as public reception areas a deep ayvān with lateral rooms, followed by a central dome and domed or barrel-vaulted subsidiary halls. A courtyard with ayvāns and large, uniform halls behind or in front of the reception area is generally regarded as the royal living quarters, although it gives the impression of belonging to the official area. Therefore the private lodgings may be assumed in small rooms on the upper floor that are otherwise unexplained (D. Huff, “Qaḷʿa-ye Dukhtar bei Firuzabad,” AMI, N.F. 4, 1971, pp. 127ff.; idem, “Ausgrabungen auf Qaḷʿa-ye Dukhtar bei Firuzabad, 1976,” AMI 11, 1978, pp. 117ff.).

There are few palaces remaining from the middle Sasanian period, during which the characteristic combination of ayvān and domed hall seems to have been abandoned. At the Ṭāq-e Kesrā, now generally attributed to Ḵosrow I (Reuther, op. cit., pp. 15ff.; O. Kurz, “The Date of the Taq-i Kisra,” JRAS, 1941, pp. 37ff.; differently Herzfeld, “Damascus: Studies in Architecture II,” Ars Islamica 10, 1943, pp. 59ff.), and at the probably contemporary ayvān building at Taḵt-e Solaymān (Nauman, Die Ruinen von Tacht-e Suleiman, pp. 44), the ayvān appears to be the only dominating element. The inadequately documented ʿEmārat-e Ḵosrow in Qaṣr-e Šīrīn and the nearby ruin of Hawš Kūrī, both attributed to the time of Ḵosrow II, also seem to lack a dome behind the ayvān, where a transverse structure of uncertain elevation and a square courtyard were located instead (J. de Morgan, Mission scientifique en Perse IV, Paris, 1896, pp. 341ff.; Bell, op. cit., pp. 44ff.; Reuther in Survey of Persian Art I, pp. 533ff.). Regular house-like units added to the rear seem to have been living areas. Both palaces stand on artificial terraces with double ramps like the ruin at Kangāvar, now thought to be a late Sasanian palace (V. Lukonin, “The Temple of Anahita in Kangavar” [in Russian], VDI 2/140, 1977, pp. 105ff., cf. G. Herrmann, The Iranian Revival, Oxford, 1977, p. 107; M. Azarnoush, “Excavations at Kangavar,” AMI 14, 1981, pp. 69ff.). Other terraces such as Tall Ḏahab and Ḥaram-e Kesrā at Ctesiphon (Reuther, Ktesiphon-Expedition, pp. 23ff.; E. Kühnel et al., Die Ausgrabungen der zweiten Ktesiphon-Expedition, Berlin, 1933, pp. 1ff.) or Sarmaǰ (L. Trümpelmann, “Die Terrasse des Hǰosrow,” Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1968, pp. 11ff.) may have carried palace-like super structures as well.

The residential function of a number of monuments generally regarded as palaces has been questioned. The ground plan of the well-preserved building of Sarvestān suggests other than palatial use. Its dating in the mid-Sasanian period has also come into question because of its highly developed vaulting system, closely paralleled by early Islamic constructions such as Qaṣr al-Ḵarāna in Jordan (O. Grabar, “Sarvistan. A Note on Sassanian Palaces,” in Forschungen zur Kunst Asiens. Festschrift K. Erdmann, Istanbul, 1968, pp. 1ff.; M. Siroux, “Le palais de Sarvistan et ses voûtes,” Stud. Ir. 2, 1973, pp. 49ff.; L. Bier, The " Sasanian" Palace near Sarvistan, New York, 1979). The highly complex layout of the so-called palace of Šāpūr I in Bīšāpūr raises similar questions of function (Ghirshman, “Les fouilles de Châpour (Iran),” RAA 12, 1938, pp. 15ff.; idem, Bîchâpour II, Paris, 1956, pp. 11ff.; Huff, Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1972, pp. 517ff.). The three-naved buildings of Dāmḡān (F. Kimball, apud E. F. Schmidt, Excavations at Tepe Hissar, Philadelphia, 1937, pp. 327ff.), Čāl Ṭarḵān (Thompson, op. cit., pp. 3ff.), Tepe Mīl (Kröger, op. cit., pp. 202ff.), and Kīš (P. R. S. Moorey, Kish Excavations 1923-33, Oxford, 1978, pp. 134ff.) can be reasonably regarded as forerunners of similar, early Islamic palaces such as Kūfa and Tall al-Oḵayder but are formally connected with the second fire temple at Taḵt-e Solaymān and other cult buildings as well. There is little decisive evidence for the purpose of the hall on the city wall of Ayvān-e Karḵa (M. Dieulafoy, L’art antique de la Perse V, 1889, pp. 79ff.; Ghirshman, MDAFI, Paris, 1952, pp. 10ff.) or the buildings at Bozpar (L. Vanden Berghe, “Le tombeau achéménide de Buzpar,” in Vorderasiatische Archäologie. Festschrift A. Moortgat, Berlin, 1964, pp. 243ff.), Behešto Dozaḵ (L. Vanden Berghe, “Les ruines de Bihisht-u Duzakh à Sultanabad,” Iranica Antiqua 8, 1968, pp. 94ff.), and elsewhere. (c) Cities and houses. The political importance of city foundations in Sasanian Iran is indicated by the almost obligatory component of the sponsor-king’s name in the name of the city. Although many attributions may concern some kind of re-founding or shifting of existing places, a number of original foundations are known, the standard pattern of which is a rectangular system of streets. The exceptional concentric and radiating plan of the circular city of Ardašīr-ḵorra may reflect an individual decision by Ardašīr I, demonstrating the cosmological and sociopolitical ideas of his emerging empire (D. Huff, “Zur Rekonstruktion des Turmes von Firuzabad,” Istanbuler Mitteilungen 19/20, 1969/70, pp. 319ff.; idem, “Der Takht-i Nishin in Firuzabad,” Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1972, pp. 517ff.; idem, AMI 11, 1978, pp. 117ff.). Archeological evidence for other circular geometric city plans is scanty, although they appear at different periods in the ancient Orient and with different stages of refinement. The round layout of Hatra, the best known Parthian example, lacks a genuine geometrical concept. It is unlikely that the round perimeter of Dārābgerd is a prototype for Ardašīr-ḵorra, as it probably dates from the 8th century (Creswell, Early Islamic Architecture I/2, 1969, p. 21). The circular plan of Ctesiphon and the general topography of the site of al-Madāʾen are still under discussion (Reuther, in Survey of Persian Art I, pp. 2ff.; J. M. Fiey, “Topography of al-Madāʾ in,” Sumer 23, 1967, pp. 3ff.), and the reportedly round city of Sasanian Isfahan is not yet uncovered. Ardašīr-ḵorra may have influenced the layout of later circular cities such as al-Manṣūr’s Baghdad and its successors.

Few details are known about the architectural and sociological structure of orthogonal cities such as Jondīšāpūr (R. McC. Adams and D. Hansen, “Archaeological Reconnaissance and Soundings in Jundi Shapur,” Ars Orientalis 7, 1968, pp. 53ff.), Ayvān-e Karḵa, and Bīšāpūr, the last featuring a commemorative monument at the intersection of its two orthogonal main axes (Ghirshman, Bîchâpour I, pp. 21ff.; II, plan I). The majority of cities certainly continued older settlements with regular or organically grown patterns, as at Eṣṭaḵr (D. Whitcomb, “The City of Istakhr and the Marvdasht Plain,” In Akten des VII. internationalen Kongresses für iranische Kunst and Archäologie, München, 7.-10. September 1976, Berlin, 1979, pp. 363ff.). Some residential areas have been surveyed or excavated in Kīš (S. Langdon, “Excavations at Kish and Barghutiat 1933,” Iraq 1, 1934, p. 113), Ctesiphon (Kühnel, 2. Ktesiphon-Expedition, pp. 1ff.; R. Venco Ricciardi, “The Excavations at Choche,” Mesopotamia 3-4, 1968/69, p.57; idem, “Trial Trench at Tell Baruda,” Mesopotamia 12, 1977, pp. 11ff.), Lorestān (Morgan, op. cit., pp. 361ff.), Roqbat al-Madāʾen (Finster-Schmidt, op. cit., pp. 151ff.) and Qaṣr-e Abū Naṣr (W. Hauser and J. M. Upton, “The Persian Expedition 1933-34,” Bulletin of The Metropolitan Museum of Art 29, December 1934/II, pp. 3ff.), but the daily life of the middle and lower classes remains incompletely known.

(d) Fortifications. The main elements include ditches, walls with stepped niches, blind windows and arrow slots with horizontal or triangular covering, stepped battlements, corridors or narrow rooms within the walls, and far-protruding bastions, generally with semicircular headings. Unsophisticated gates were placed between pronounced bastions, and gate chambers were connected with the defense platform above by vertical shafts, probably for acoustic communication.

Few city ramparts have survived later changes. Ardašīr-ḵorra clearly had an earth wall with bastions, a ditch, and a small fore-wall. The ramparts of Bīšāpūr were originally lined with semicircular bastions about 40 cm apart (ʿA. A. Sarfarāz, “Bīšāpūr, the Great City of the Sasanians” [in Persian], Bastan Chenassi va Honar-e Iran 2, 1969, pp. 27ff.). The presumed palace section of the ramparts of Ayvān-e Karḵa shows an elaborate arrangement of brick constructions (Ghirshman, MDAFI, 1952, pp. 10ff.). The brick wall of Dastegerd, an unusual 16.6 m thick, harbored narrow corridors with radiating arrow slots and connecting semicircular tower chambers (F. Sarre and E. Herzfeld, Archäologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet II, Berlin, 1920, pp. 76; IV, pl. 127). The exceptional cut stone facing of the wall at Taḵt-e Solaymān (Osten-Naumann, op. cit., p. 39) seems to be identical with that of the Darband walls (S. Khan-Magomedov, Derbent, Moscow, 1979). The standard Sasanian fortification type is represented by the mud brick ramparts of Ctesiphon and Eṣṭaḵr (M. M. Negroponzi and M. C. Cavallero, “The Excavations at Choche,” Mesopotamia 2, 1967, pp. 41ff.; Herzfeld, Iran in the Ancient East, pp. 276ff.) and by the rubble stone walls of Qaḷʿa-ye Doḵtar at Fīrūzābād (Huff, AMI 11, 1976, pp. 138ff.).

Most surviving fortresses served as isolated strongholds or protection for cities; this abundant but scarcely explored military architecture gives some insight into the Sasanian social hierarchy. Examples of the regular, generally square, Roman-type fort with rounded bastions are found in Harsin, Qaṣr-e Šīrīn (Morgan, op. cit., pp. 354ff.), Sīrāf (D. Whitehouse, “Excavations at Siraf,” Iran 10, 1972, pp. 63ff.), and at several Mesopotamian sites (Finster-Schmidt, op. cit., pp. 49ff.). More frequent are irregular fortresses on strategically important heights; these usually have straight curtains between rounded bastions, as at Fīrūzābād, Bīšāpūr, Tūrang Tepe (R. Boucharlat, “La forteresse sassanide de Tureng-Tepe,” in Colloques internationaux du C. N. R. S., No. 567: Le plateau iranien et l’Asie Centrale des origines à la conquête islamique, Paris, 1977, pp. 329ff.), and the “Ātašgāh” at Isfahan (M. Siroux, “ " Atesh-gâh" près d’ Ispahân,” Iranica Antiqua 5, 1965, pp. 39ff.). Territorial defense lines are known from literary tradition and archeological evidence (R. N. Frye, “The Sasanian System of Walls for Defense,” in M. Rosen-Ayalon, ed., Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet, Jerusalem, 1977, pp. 7ff.), such as the ditch of Šāpūr II west of the Euphrates, the limes of Sīstān (A. Stein Innermost Asia II, Oxford, 1928, pp. 972ff.), the walls of Darband from the Caspian into the Caucasus (A. A. Kudryavtsev, “O datirovke pervykh sasanidskikh ukrepleniĭ v Derbente,” Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 3, 1978, pp. 243ff.), the wall of Tammisha (Tamīša) from the bay of Gorgān/Astarābād to the Elburz (A.D. H. Bivar and G. Fehérvári, “The Walls of Temisha,” Iran 4, 1966, pp. 35ff.), and the wall of Alexander north of the Gorgān river, although the last may date back to Parthian times (D. Huff, “Zur Datierung des Alexanderwalls,” Iranica Antiqua 16, 1981, pp. 125ff.; M. Y. Kiani, Parthian Sites in Hyrkania, AMI, Ergänzungsband 9, Berlin, 1982, pp. 11ff.).

(e) Funerary, commemorative, and rock architecture. The remarkable lack of monumental funeral architecture may be explained by Zoroastrian religious prescriptions (Vd. 6.44ff.) restricting burial rites to exposure of the dead and a possible but not necessary preservation of the bones in bone receptacles, or astōdāns (q.v.). Rock-cut exposure platforms and small cavities for preserving the bones are known mainly from southern Iran, notably around Eṣṭaḵr and Bīšāpūr, where the huge grotto with the statue of Šāpūr I is interpreted as his tomb (Vanden Berghe, Archéologie de l’Iran ancien, p. 45; A. Stein, Old Routes of Western Iran, London, 1940, pp. 311ff.; Ghirshman, Bîchâpour I, pp. 180ff.). Ritual texts describe astōdāns as freestanding buildings, a type possibly represented by a bone burial in a fortification tower in Šahr-e Qūmes (J. Hansman and D. Stronach, “A Sasanian Repository at Shahr-i Qūmis,” JRAS, 1970, pp. 142ff.) and by the tower of Nūrābād (D. Huff, “Nurabad, Dum-i Mill,” AMI, N.F. 8, 1975, pp. 167ff.). Rock-cut tombs on the island of Ḵārg seem to belong at least partly to non-Zoroastrian communities (E. Haerinck, “Quelques monuments funéraires de 1’île de Kharg dans le Golfe Persique,” Iranica Antiqua 11, 1975, pp. 134ff.).

Some commemorative or triumphal monuments are identified by inscriptions. The Syro-Roman-influenced twin-column monument in Bīšāpūr was dedicated to Šāpūr I (G. Salles and R. Ghirshman, “Châpour,” RAA 10, 1936, pp. 117ff.). The tower-like monument of Pāykūlī celebrates the victory of Narseh over his rivals (E. Herzfeld, Paikuli. Monument and Inscriptions of the Early History of the Sasanian Empire I-II, Berlin, 1924). There is as yet no definitive explanation for the late Sasanian Ṭāq-e Gerra, a small ayvān building with a Syro-Roman archivolt (H. V. Gall and W. Kleiss, “Entwicklung und Gestalt des Thrones im vorislamischen Iran,” AMI, N.F. 4, 1971, pp. 2ff.; S. Kambakhsh Fard, “L’arc de Guirra, monument en pierre,” Traditions architecturales en Iran 4, 1976, pp. 2ff.), or for a freestanding gateway building outside the wall of Bīšāpūr (Sarfarāz, op. cit., pp. 27, 73). The tower in the center of Ardašīr-ḵorra, which possibly carried a hall with the king’s seat or his fire, may symbolize God-given royalty (Huff, Istanbuler Mitteilungen l9-20, 1969/70, pp. 319ff.). The late Sasanian Ṭāq-e Bostān, an ayvān-like artificial grotto, is linked by its monumentality with official Sasanian architecture, and by its decoration with the tradition of Sasanian rock reliefs (E. Herzfeld, Am Tor von Asien, Berlin, 1920, pp. 57ff.; M. C. Mackintosh, “Taq-i Bustan and Byzantine Art,” Iranica Antiqua 13, 1978, pp. 149ff.; S. Fukai et al., Taq-i Bustan I-IV, Tokyo, 1968-84). It may be related to other, partly unfinished rock monuments, such as those at Bīsotūn (H. Luschey, “Bisotun, Geschichte und Forschungsgeschichte,” Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1974, pp. 114ff.; W. Salzmann, “Die Felsbearbeitung und Terrasse des Farhad in Bisotun,” ibid., 1976, pp. 110ff.) and Harsin (Godard, Athar-é Iran 3, 1938, pp. 67ff.).

(f) Civil engineering architecture. The centralized Sasanian government enabled the realization of large-scale community projects such as road communications, bridges, irrigation, and drainage systems, most of which utilized the technical skill and manpower of Roman prisoners of war. Many bridges (e.g. Ḵūzestān and Lorestān, Fīrūzābād, Bīšāpūr, and Bīsotūn) show Roman-style dressed masonry with iron clamps at their preserved piers, which are generally rectangular with a triangular prism upstream; the arched superstructures are mostly destroyed (Stein, op. cit., pp. 15, 48, 71). Bridges were frequently constructed as weirs for irrigation and constituted the starting point of far-reaching canal systems, as at Šūštar and Dezfūl (Dieulafoy, V, pp. 105ff.; G. Van Roggen, “Notices sur les anciens travaux hydrauliques en Susiane,” MDAFI 7, 1905, pp. 167ff.; R. J. Wenke, “Imperial Investments and Agricultural Developments in Parthian and Sasanian Khuzistan: 150 B.C. to A.D. 640,” Mesopotamia 10/11, 1975/76, pp. 31ff.). Aqueducts were carried on walls or bridges, and the use of syphon tunnels seems to have been known (Adams-Hansen, op. cit., pp. 59ff.).

Bibliography : Given in the text.

(D. Huff)

iv. Central Asia

Architecture in Central Asia dates back to the late Neolithic period (6th-5th millennia B.C.). In such settlements of Turkmenistan as Pessenǰīk Tepe and Jeytūn, the typical buildings are one-family houses with a hearth and a special place for worship. The walls were made of lumps of raw clay and roofed with beams. Walls and floors were often painted. Fragments of pictorial wall painting have been discovered in Pessenǰīk Tepe. The settlements of Anaw I, Qara Tepe, and Geoksür attest that multi-family houses with many rooms were built during the Neolithic period (4th-3rd millennia B.C.); some rooms were decorated with wall paintings. Protourban complexes came into existence during the Bronze Age (3rd-2nd millennia B.C.), with dwelling houses, temples and blocks of workshops surrounded by a wall with a fortified gate (Altin Tepe, Namāzgāh). Dating from the end of the 2nd millennium B.C. are large square strongholds compactly built up inside (Sappalï Tepe in Bactria), sometimes flanked by semicircular towers (Gonur Tepe and Kelleli in Margiana); by the 1st millennium B.C. there were towns encircled by moats and powerful walls (Elken Tepe in Apavarktikena, Gaur Qaḷʿa in Margiana, Afrāsīāb/Samarkand in Sogdiana), sometimes with semicircular towers and numerous loop-holes (Qïzïl Tepe in Bactria, Kalalï Gir and Küzeli Gir in Ḵᵛārazm). Dwellings typically have a square plan with a small inner court surrounded by chambers (Qïzïḷča estate in Bactria). The palace in Kalalï Gir (5th-4th cent. B.C.) is characterized by regular planning: a vast courtyard, rectangular chambers, halls with wooden pillars on stone bases. This palace and the stone capital from Sultan Uizdag in the shape of two male heads with ram’s horns indicate a link between Ḵᵛārazm and the Achaemenid kingdom. Throughout the entire ancient period building material consisted of large rectangular, unbaked clay bricks, adobe, and wood for roofing; simple vaulting was introduced at that time.

Central Asia in the 4th cent. B.C. to 4th cent. A.D. is distinguished by the flourishing of building in towns, owing to the general development of the urban economy, commerce, handicrafts, and cultural life. Defense requirements stimulated fortifications; the ancient cities and strongholds of Parthyene (Nisa, q.v.), Margiana (Marv, Durnalï, Čelborǰ), Ḵᵛārazm (Janbas Qaḷʿa, Angka Qaḷʿa, Hazarasp), Bactria (Old Termeḏ, Zartepa, Dalverzīn Tepe, Qay-Qobād-šāh), Sogdiana (Samarkand, Yer Kurgan, Kurgān Tepe, Umaramin Tepe) were surrounded by moats and powerful walls with fortified gates and rectangular towers. Often there were numerous casemates in the walls, chambers for bowmen in the towers, and barbicans with emplacements for ballistas. Such fortifications gave the ancient cities a grimly imposing aspect. The earlier building materials continued to be used, but construction showed notable progress with the introduction of wide-spanning beams for roofing pillars (wooden, often on stone bases, but sometimes entirely of stone) and raw clay brick vaulting. Architectural structures based on local building traditions nonetheless showed great originality. Elements of Hellenic architecture—Corinthian and Ionic capitals, Attic bases, antefixes, profiled cornices—appeared in modified form in Parthian and Bactrian buildings.

Characteristic of the monumental architecture of eastern Parthia are vast halls surrounded by corridors, rectangular interiors with rows of columns disposed lengthwise in the center, small inner courts with columned ayvāns (the palace-temple complex of Nisa, the temples of Mansur Tepe). Decorations include features of the Greek orders, occasional monumental sculpture, and wall painting. The architecture of Bactria and Sogdiana developed a standard layout for wealthy residences and palaces, including a vestibule, central hall, encircling passage, and group of subsidiary and living rooms, with a special prayer chamber (houses on Dalverzīn Tepe, palaces of Ḵaḷčayān, Yer Kurgan). Topraq Qaḷʿa, the huge palace of the shahs of ancient Ḵᵛārazm (2nd-3rd cent.), included a system of communication, columned halls, passages, and chambers decorated with clay sculpture and painting.

In the 1st-2nd centuries A.D. in Bactria and in the 3rd century in Margiana Buddhist monasteries that were markedly different from their Indian prototypes appeared. The layout of the monasteries of Fayaz Tepe and Qara Tepe in Termeḏ, and others at Ayrtam and Marv, consists of small courts, sanctuaries, encircling passages, cells, and the main object of worship—the stupa—which sometimes reached enormous dimensions (Zurmala in Termeḏ). The decor of sanctuaries often included richly modeled and painted ornamentation.

The local cult temples discovered in Bactria (Dalverzīn Tepe, 1st-2nd cent.) and Sogdiana (Yer Kurgan, 3rd-4th cent.) present an original plan and are ornamented with sculpture and painting. Qoy-Qrïlgan Qaḷʿa in Ḵᵛārazm (4th cent. B.C., alterations at the beginning of our era) was presumably a fortified mausoleum temple connected with the dynastic cult of the Khwarezmian kings, as well as that of celestial bodies. This monumental structure, surrounded by a fortress wall was circular in plan with a central temple surrounded by subsidiary buildings.

Social upheavals, the collapse of the Kushan and Arsacid empires in the 3rd century, and later the invasion of Central Asia by the nomadic hordes of the Kidarites, Chionites, and Hephthalites, brought ruin to the majority of the large cities and rural towns and a general deterioration of cultural life in the 4th and 5th centuries. But with the development of the feudal system and the formation of numerous independent feudal dominions, cultural activity revived throughout the region from the 6th to the 8th century. It was concentrated not only in the few cities (Samarkand, Panǰikent, Bukhara, and some others), but also in numerous castles (kešks) of ruling lords (dehqāns) that were surrounded by the settlements of the vassals.

Early medieval architecture in Central Asia bears the signs of a new creative trend. Building techniques underwent some alterations: besides the roofing of beams (beams and frieze boards are often ornamented with carving), raw brick vaulting was widely used and led to new architectural constructions. One of the main structures of this monumental architecture is the kešk: a massive two-story building with a steep plinth, over which rise blank walls crowned with a crenellated cornice, which may be smooth (in Sogdiana, Šāš, and Ustrušana) or decorated with closely set, rounded pilasters (in Marv and Ḵᵛārazm). The towns, surrounded by fortified walls, had separate citadels. The space within the walls was densely filled with dwellings, shops, palaces, public buildings, and temples. The dwellings were two-storied and set close together to form large blocks. In Panǰikent the houses contained living quarters and a four-columned guest room (mehmānḵāna) often decorated with wall painting. The palaces of Sogdiana and Ustrušana (Samarkand, Panǰikent, Varaḵša, Qaḷʿa-ye Qahqaha), with many chambers and state halls, were richly decorated with frescos, carved stucco (gaṇč­), and carved wood. The diversity of religious cults led to temples for different creeds, most of them generously decorated with sculpture, painting, and carving. Two edifices in Panǰikent, both with a columned portico facing a courtyard and a four-columned hall at the back, were probably connected with a local variety of Zoroastrianism. The Buddhist monasteries of Ajina Tepe and Qaḷʿa-ye Kafirnigan in southern Tajikistan and the Buddhist temples in Āq Bešim (Kirghizia) and in Kuva (Uzbekistan) present variations of courtyard planning with an extensive use of vaulted roofing in their numerous apartments; the four-ayvān composition of two courts in Ajina Tepe is noteworthy. Ḵaroba Košuk in Marv province is a Christian church on a rectangular plan with a transept on the east side.

After almost a century of cultural stagnation following the Arab conquest of Central Asia, the architecture of the 3rd-6th/9th-12th centuries vigorously revived. Under the Samanids, Ghaznavids, Qarakhanids, and Ḵᵛārazmšāhs feudal towns grew steadily. Political instability encouraged the building of strong fortifications around the towns, including walls with semicircular towers (borǰ) and moats. The development of the merchant and artisan classes, as well as the problems of intensive building brought about the formation of building-trade corporations to organize the creators and transmitters of professional practices. During that period important regional schools of architecture developed in Transoxiana, Ḵᵛārazm, Khorasan, and northern Turkestan. Building techniques made steady progress; the perfecting and economy of raw brick and adobe (paḵsa) constructions, extensive use of baked brick with gaṇčḵa mortar, and the development of the vault and dome technique determined to a great extent the solution of architectural problems of form. Domes and high vaulted portals played an important role in monumental buildings by defining their external contours; the domes also established the spatial arrangement of the interior. Techniques of architectural decoration, in addition to the traditional carving of stucco and wood, include ornamental brickwork with baked, sometimes figured bricks, and from the 6th/12th century, the use of intricately carved terra-cotta, glazed bricks, and tiles. Central Asian architectural decoration presents features common to other countries of the Islamic world including geometrical, stylized plant, and epigraphic motifs. In the 5th-6th/11th-12th centuries the geometrical gereh (knot) design was dominant; the infinite combinations of the intricate designs of the gereh were based on the multi-axial partitioning of the architectural field and on systems of star-shaped and other polygonal figures. From the 4th/10th century, architectural epigraphy in the geometric kufic script was used extensively, along with the supple nasḵ in the 5th-6th/11th-12th centuries.

By this time there was a typology for civic and religious buildings. The town dwellings of wealthy citizens were compact; reception rooms were often decorated with carved stucco (Marv, Samarkand). The palaces of rulers (in Samarkand, Termeḏ, Khulbuq, Marv) contained many chambers and interior four-ayvān courts; the reception hall and state apartments were decorated with carved stucco, carved wood, and ornamental painting. In the countryside estates were enclosed by a high wall, with an inner court and peripheral subsidiary buildings. In the villages the feudal lord’s kešk was transformed into a comfortable two-story house with a central mehmānḵāna and living quarters (still preserved in Marv province, in Ḵᵛārazm). The growth of home and international trade led to the construction of large caravansaries along the trade routes, especially in the 5th-6th/11th-12th centuries (Akča Qaḷʿa, Dayā Ḵātūn, in the sands of the Qara Qom, Rabāt-e Malek in the province of Bukhara, others in Dahestān). These have one or two courtyards, usually with vaulted ayvāns on the axes, a central, domed mehmānḵāna, and watchtowers at the corners; galleries around the courtyard once housed beasts of burden, living quarters, and store rooms. There were also caravansaries in Ḵᵛārazm (Šah-Ṣenem); built mainly of unbaked brick and adobe they used baked brick as well (Dayā Ḵātūn). The blank walls of the caravansaries are smooth or patterned with blind arches, close-set semicircular pilasters, and sometimes figured brick facing. Engineering constructions included bridges, open water reservoirs (ḥawzÎʷ), and covered sardāba cisterns.

Pride of place among Muslim buildings belonged to mosques, especially the ǰomʿa (Friday) mosques that served as the principal social and ideological centers in towns and villages. Čār-Sotūn in Termeḏ and Dīgarrōn in Bukhara (both 5th/11th cent.) represent somewhat different examples of round-pillared, five- to nine-domed mosques of simple and powerful architectural design. The mosques of Khorasan and Dahestān (in Bašan), Dandanakan, Mašhad-e Mešrīān) consist of courts with encircling galleries and a central building on the axis in the form of a vaulted ayvān or domed pavilion. Suburban mosques, namāzgāh or ʿīdgāh, destined for the celebration of Qorbān and Bayrām, consisted of a wall oriented toward Mecca with a meḥrāb (Namāzgāh of Bukhara, 6th/12th cent.) in front of which an arched domed gallery was sometimes erected (Talḵatan Bābā ca. 489/ 1096, in Marv province). The mosques were usually richly decorated with glazed tiles, carved stucco, and carved wood. In Central Asia the minaret, a compulsory element attached to the mosque, took the form of a tapering, round tower, sometimes on a polygonal base, crowned by a multi-arched lantern. Its shaft was often divided into many bands filled in with patterned brick inlays (Burana in Kirghizia, Kalian in Bukhara, minarets in Babkent, Mašhad-e Meṣrīān, and Uzgend). The Jar Korgān minaret (architect ʿAlī b. Moḥammad al-Saraḵsī) is decorated with vertical rounded pilasters.

The idea of posthumous glorification of lay and spiritual feudal lords was embodied in architecture by monumental and richly decorated mausoleums. Already toward the 4th/10th century two architectural types had evolved: the central-plan mausoleum of the Samanids in Bukhara and the portaled Arabata in Tim are the first examples of a highly artistic utilization of the decorative possibilities of baked brick. A large number of stately mausoleums erected during the 5th 6th/11th 12th centuries represent various regional concepts of the arrangement of space volumes. In Khorasan and Toḵārestān central plan mausoleums with a sharply pointed dome over a cubic space (one of the most striking examples is the mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar in Marv) coexist with the portal domed variety (Abuʾl Fażl in Saraḵs, Abū Saʿīd in Meana/Mayhana, the Uzgen mausoleums). Characteristic for Ḵᵛārazm are tent roofed mausoleums with pyramidal or conic domes (Faḵr al dīn Rāzī and Tekeš in Kunya Urgenč). In Dahestān polyhedral mausoleums were erected with a strongly projecting vault behind the portal (mausoleums of Mašhad-e Mesrīān). Another particular type featured pairs of coupled mausoleums connected by a vault or a domed chamber (Ḵᵛāja Mašhad in Sayyed, two Qarakhanid mausoleums in Uzgen).

A century after the Mongol conquest, monumental building in Central Asia was mainly concentrated in capital cities such as Bukhara and Samarkand or in the vicinity of Muslim sanctuaries. The achievements of 8th/14th century architecture are embodied in a number of commemorative monuments. The mausoleums of Sayf al dīn Boḵarzī and of Buyan qolī Khan in Bukhara, Moḥammad Bošaro in Mazār-e Šarīf, Imam Main and Ḥażrat Šayḵ in the Kaška Daryā region, Najm al dīn Qobrā and Turabek Ḵānom in Konya Urgenč, the mausoleums of Mezdāḵān and Ḵīva, and the mausoleum (gonbaḏ) of Manas in the Alatau hills illustrate the increasing complexity of plan and of space volume compositions, which at times combine several domed vaulted chambers. Architectural decoration was enriched with extensive use of polychrome glazed tiles. Terra cotta (partly, and later completely, glazed), inlays of unglazed and glazed bricks, polychrome majolica with under and overglaze painting enriched the facades and sometimes the interiors of buildings. Ornaments designed with a general geometrical segmentation of the pattern usually featured stylized plant motifs and inscriptions in the intricate dīvānī script.

The monumental architecture of Tīmūr’s times evolved from the unification of the creative efforts of master craftsmen of Central Asia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Syria, and India and then influenced the architecture of those countries in turn throughout the 9th/15th century.

Timurid architecture is distinguished by its grand scale, bold engineering solutions, and magnificent decoration. Urban building activity included the erection of mighty fortress walls and fortified gates, the opening up of new main thoroughfares lined with market buildings, and in the suburban zone, the laying out of gardens and the construction of palaces for the rulers and the aristocracy. Thinking on a large scale, the architects of the late 8th 9th/14th 15th centuries constructed whole architectural ensembles or complex monuments such as the mausoleum of Aḥmad Yasavī in Turkestan, Dār al Saʿādat in Šahresabz, and the mosque in Anaw (q.v.). Architectural ensembles were either composed on a strict system around squares (Rēgestān in Samarkand) or formed by a free siting of buildings (Šāhī Zenda in Samarkand). Magnificent edifices included those intended for formal functions (Āq Sarāy in Šahresabz) or those simply for pleasurable entertainment outside the towns (there were dozens situated in the district of Samarkand). The typology of the planning and space volume solutions of Muslim constructions was finally worked out—four ayvān mosques with a central court (Bībī Ḵānom in Samarkand, Kalian in Bukhara), madrasas with an entrance portal and a system of cells (ḥojra) around a two or four ayvān court (Uluḡ Beg’s madrasas in Bukhara, Samarkand, Giždovān). The composition of mausoleums developed from a single volume unit (e.g., Rūhābād, Gūr Amīr in Samarkand) into a complex structure (Ešrat ḵāna, Āq Sarāy in Samarkand). Architectural ornamentation attained unprecedented magnificence; besides majolica and inlays of glazed brick, polychrome, mosaic inlays (kāšīn) or carved marble slabs and lattices were used extensively. In brick ornamentation large size gereh predominated; in the glazed it was stylized plant designs and the intricate interlacing of the elegant ṯolṯ script. Interior decoration included glazed brick panels, ornamental wall painting (both polychrome and monochrome blue on white), and relief kundal painting with gilding.

In the 10th 11th/16th 17th centuries when the provinces of Central Asia were held by the Shaibanids and the Ashtarkhanids and in part by the Iranian Safavids, building activity was concentrated in the capital city of Bukhara and in the large feudal centers of feudal dominions—Samarkand, Tashkent, and Termeḏ. Monumental architecture continued the traditions of the Timurid epoch, but original thinking was manifest in the bold vault and dome systems that created new spatial organization of the interiors. Civic constructions included multidomed market buildings set up at crossroads or along main trade arteries; these featured central, domed space surrounded by vaulted lanes and numerous trade and workshops (Šahresabz, Taq and Tim in Bukhara). Numerous caravanserais and cisterns were built on caravan routes. Religious buildings on a monumental scale included mosques, ḵānaqās, and madrasas. Most typical were large Friday mosques with rectangular courts encircled by vaulted and domed galleries; the main domed building was emphasized by a high ayvān (Kalian in Bukhara after rebuilding, Kök Gönbaḏ in Ḵojand). Other constructions included namāzgāhs (in Samarkand, Kök Gönbaḏ in Karšī), ward and village mosques with winter quarters and a columned ayvān (in Langar, Baland in Bukhara), memorial mosques (Ḵoja Yusup in Marv). In the 10th 11th/16th 17th centuries ḵānaqās—houses of dervish sects with a formal central hall for Sufi gatherings—were numerous (Ḵoja Zayn al dīn, Fayżābād, Nāder Dīvān Begī in Bukhara, Qāsem Šayḵ in Kermine, Emām Bahr in Qālʿa ye Dabus). Madrasas have the traditional plan of an enclosed courtyard, with the main façade distinguished by a portal and corner minarets (Šīr Dor and Tella Karī in Samarkand, Kukeltaš, Koš Madrasa, ʿAbd al ʿAzīz Khan in Bukhara Kukeltaš and Baraq Khan in Tashkent). The façade of these monumental buildings were covered with glazed tile decoration; while the first half of the 10th/16th century maintained the Timurid standards, quality declined sharply in the second half, and mosaic was replaced by three colored majolica slabs with blurred designs. A revival of mosaic inlays followed in the 11th/17th century, with interior decorations including glazed brick panels and the ceiling painting in the kundal technique, or colored, encrusted qerma and časpak stucco on walls and ceilings. Complex woodwork was inlaid on ceilings, doors, and pillars (Bukhara, Ḵīva).

An outstanding architectural achievement of the 10th 11th/16th 17th centuries was the creation of vast complexes, mainly religious in function: the Rēgestān in Samarkand, rebuilt in the 11th/17th century, combined three madrasas; Lab-e Ḥawż in Bukhara with a great tank framed by two madrasas and a ḵānaqā, the necropolis of the Bukharan Jūybārī shaikhs, Čar Bakr with a mosque, madrasa, ḵānagā, and groups of tombstones on family daḵma platforms; necropolises in Kasbi and Pudina picturesquely adapted to the landscape of the foothills, and many others.

In the 12th/18th century, during the period of social crisis, architectural activity in Central Asia was almost at a standstill; it recovered only toward the beginning of the 13th/19th century in the main cities of the khanates of Bukhara, Ḵīva, and Ḵoqand. The fortified nucleus of Ḵīva, Ičan Qalʿa, has survived almost unaltered since this period. The city with its citadel Kunä (Kohnā) Arg is surrounded by mighty walls with semicircular towers, crenelated parapets, and fortified gates. Much attention was given here to civic buildings (market galleries, rows of shops, and baths) with exterior contours dominated by numerous domes. These commercial buildings are practically devoid of decoration, but glazed tile facings richly cover palatial and religious edifices such as the mausoleum of the Kungrad dynasty (Pahlavān Maḥmūd), and numerous madrasas, mosques, and minarets. Religious buildings in Bukhara, Ḵīva, Ḵoqand, Karši, and Tashkent follow traditional schemes.

The creative genius of the Central Asian architects of the 13th/19th century manifested itself to the highest degree in popular architecture. Several schools can be singled out: those of Farḡāna, Samarkand, Bukhara, Ḵīva, and a distinct folk architecture in the mountainous regions. All of these schools demonstrate careful consideration of natural climatic conditions, special features of planning and space volume solutions, and fine working out of detail. The popular traditions of building decoration—carved doors and ornamental pillars, painted ceilings, stucco variously carved with painted ornamental details and background—have all been preserved. The best masters of folk art were called to ornament the palaces of rulers (Taš Hauli and Küzišḵāna in Ḵīva, Urda in Ḵoqand), residences of wealthy citizens, and ward and rural mosques. These traditions have been carried on to the present times by folk craftsmen.

Bibliography: See in print ed., EIr. II/4, London, 1986, pp. 338-39.

(G. A. Pugachenkova)

v. Islamic, pre-Safavid