Southern Iran Trip – April 1975

This is another trip write-up composed years after the trip was taken, in fact, 35 years after the trip.  It is written based on faint memories, hand scratched notes, notes annotated in our guide book and various pieces of memorabilia saved over the years.



The year was 1975 and we had already lived in Teheran, Iran, for over a year.  Rachel was eight years old and Gretchen was nearing five.  We took them out of school and started our trip on Thursday, April 24.  The weekend in Iran consisted of Thursday and Friday while the work week started Saturday through Wednesday.  Friday is the holy day of the Muslim religion. 



We drove our Citroen Jiane which was still fairly new.  The Jiane, manufactured in Iran, was based on the Citroen 2CV, which stood for deux chevaux or two horses.  From a safety point of view, the Citroen was a death trap but it was cheap, reliable, and economic on fuel.  Plus the Citroen was fun to drive.  The only guide book we used was Persia: An Archaeological Guide by Sylvia A. Matheson and our only map was a very basic tourist guide map of Iran from the Iran National Tourist Organization.  We packed very few clothes since the car had almost no trunk space, our toothbrushes, and were on our way.



We left our apartment in the north of Teheran and drove through the city into the south part with the bazaar and crowded neighborhoods of the poorer Iranians.  About 150 kilometers later we came to Qom or Qum, the second most sacred city in Iran.  The famous shrine of Fatima, sister of the Imam Reza, is located here and dominates the skyline.  Qom is not a city for non-Muslims so we could not get out and sightsee.  We did drive by the entrance of the shrine and continued on our way southward. 



From Qom we drove another 275 kilometers to the beautiful city of Isfahan or Esfahan.  We stayed at the Darius Hotel in Isfahan for two nights.  Isfahan is the most truly Persian city in Iran and most of the famous buildings date from the time of Shah Abbas the Great, 1571 to 1629, of the Safavid dynasty.  In the center of this city is the enormous square called Maidan-e Shah where kings used to play polo on horseback.  On the north end of the square is the Qeisarieh covered bazaar while on the south end is the Masjid-e Shah or Shah Mosque, started in 1612 and with some of the best examples of mosaic tile work in Iran.  On the east side of the square is the Sheikh Lutfollah Mosque and on the west side is the Ali Qapu palace constructed in the early 17^th century. 



We walked a great deal in Isfahan and saw many other beautiful old buildings including the Jame or Friday Mosque, probably the most beautiful mosque in Iran and possibly the world.  The oldest part of the Friday Mosque dates from about 1080.  Near this mosque we came across a dark building where camels turned a traditional oil press dating from Safavid times.  We saw the Palace of 40 columns and the Armenian quarter (Christian) called Julfa with the 17^th century Vank church. 



In the surrounding areas we visited ancient Zoroastrian fire temples and temples of silence where their method of body disposal after death is to place the bodies on the top floor where birds of prey can take care of business.  We climbed the tomb with the “shaking minarets” where, if someone shook one of the large minarets atop the building, the other one shook as well and the vibration could be felt throughout, especially on the roof.  We also visited the three main bridges of Isfahan; the Khaju Bridge built during the reign of Shah Abbas the Second, the largest bridge called the Seosepol or bridge of 33 arches, and the oldest bridge, Shahrestan Bridge, built during the Sassanid empire of 224 to 651 AD.



Eventually we headed further south into the provinces of Fars and Khuzestan, the heart of Iranian history.   The road to Shiraz has numerous archaeological sites as well as loose camels and donkeys along the roads.  One of the most interesting sights was the migrating Qashqai tribes.  As it was springtime, the Qashqai were moving from the low areas up into the mountains where they spend the hot summers.  They were traveling on camel, donkey and horseback with their herds of goats and sheep.  Chickens were tied to donkeys and dogs circled everyone.  The Qashqai women did not wear any veils but wore brightly colored costumes.  We saw them pitch their black goat hair tents alongside the road and they would smile and wave to us as we stopped to photograph them. 



One of the first sites we saw from the road was the deserted mud-brick village of Yazd-e Khast that stuck up like a large ship in the desert.  We stopped to explore the ruins of Pasargadae which is the burial place of King Cyrus the Great.  It was at Pasargadae that Cyrus established his capital about 546 BC and it was from this valley that the Persian Empire really came into being.  We saw the tomb of Cyrus, the citadel area, the palace area and the sacred precincts.  We were almost the only people at the site.



A short distance down the highway we visited the ruins of Istakhr or Estakhr.  About all that remains here today is a single Achaemenian period column but it was a large important city dating back to the 4^th millennium BC.  Close by are the large Sassanian reliefs carved into rock walls known as Naqsh-e Rajab.  The reliefs were probably carved early in Shahpur’s reign, about 250 AD.  Across the highway from this is Takht-e Rustam which are the remains of an unfinished monument which archeologists think may have been intended as the tomb of King Cambyses II, son of Cyrus the Great.  A little further on is Naqsh-e Rustam with a large cliff face that has four cut out tombs of King Darius and three of his successors.  This area is crawling with ancient sites.



Finally we arrived at the highlight of our trip, Persepolis, or as it is known locally,

Takht-e Jamshid.  This massive palace, built on three different levels, is a monument to King Darius the Great, 522 to 485 BC.  One of the first things we noticed was much historical graffiti carved into the stone in the entrance hall.  The most famous graffiti was carved by Henry Stanley of the New York Herald with the date 1870.  In 1871 it was this Henry Stanley who found David Livingston in Africa. 



Much has been written about Persepolis and, if interested, you can find details on the Internet and in loads of books.  I’ll just finish by saying that the palaces were destroyed by Alexander the Great shortly after the death of the last of the Achaemenians, Darius III, in 330 BC. 



On we continued to the beautiful city of Shiraz which was founded in 684 AD after the Arab armies conquered the Sassanian capital of Istakhr.  Shiraz is known as the “city of poets, wine, and roses”.  The Shiraz or Syrah grape that is made into so many good wines around the world comes from here.  It is believed that the rose was cultivated first here.  The most famous poets from Shiraz are Hafez and Saadi. 



We stayed at the International Hotel in the heart of the city and walked to some of the beautiful gardens that the city is known for.  We wandered throughout the old Vakil Bazaar that was built in the 11^th century AD and bought some Qashqai souvenirs from the area.  We saw many other tribal people in Shiraz such as Afshars, Lurs, Bakhtiaris, and the occasional Kurd and Baluchi all with their distinctive dress. 



We could have explored Shiraz more but time was short and so we pressed on even further west and south.  Near the town of Kazerun we turned south towards the Persian Gulf to see the remains of Bishapur, also called “the Beautiful City of Shahpur”.  This royal city was built by Shahpur I in 266 AD, six years after his triumph over the Roman emperor Valerian.  It was captured by the Arabs about 637 AD and soon lost its importance.



We had reservations in Behbahan at the Iran National Tourist Organization (INTO) government-run inn.  We arrived in the town of Dogonbadan late in the afternoon and stopped to fill up the fuel tank.  In a mixture of my poor Farsi and the gasoline attendant’s poor English, he asked where we were heading.  When I told him Behbahan he informed me that we couldn’t get there.  I couldn’t quite understand why so he called over an oil field worker who was tanking up his Land Rover.  That roustabout spoke better English and they told me that the bridge to Behbahan had been washed out the previous week due to floods.  The oil field worker set about drawing a map with a felt pen marker on the fender of our car to get us to the major town of Ahvaz in the middle of Iran’s oil fields.  He also told me to follow him and he would get us on the right road.



So we followed the Land Rover past pumping stations on a very, very remote road, but it was paved.  At one point he motioned to us that we turn right while he continued straight ahead to his camp.  I don’t think we saw another car on the road until we approached Ahvaz around midnight.  As the sun set we felt so isolated in a desolate, strange country and on a road that was not on our map.  In the light of our headlights, we saw very large tarantulas crossing the highway and hoped we did not have a flat tire or any other car problems.  Finally we began to see gas flares and it was obvious we were approaching civilization once more.



We arrived in Ahvaz late at night without any reservations or even knowledge of the town at all.  I asked a young man on the sidewalks where I could find a nice hotel, and typical of the Iranians, he jumped in the car and directed me to a modern, large hotel.  We guessed he walked back to the place we picked him up.  The hotel clerk was reluctant to give us a room at first but was persuaded that he could take on two adults and two small, sleepy little girls for one night.  We slept soundly until late the next morning – all four in one room.



The next morning we discovered that not only were we in the oil fields of Iran but we were also in sugar beet country.  We headed north on the highway to Dezful and stopped to explore the ruins of Haft Tepeh or “seven mounds”.  There are, in fact, more than a dozen mounds in a vast architectural complex which includes royal graves and at least one temple.  Haft Tepeh has been identified as a center of the Elamite Empire which existed between 1500 to 1300 BC.  That’s pretty old.



About 30 kilometers further on we followed our guide book through a sugar beet factory and to the Elamite ziggurat of Choga Zanbil, built about 1250 BC.  Ziggurats were a sort of step pyramid and were temple complexes.  The Tower of Babel mentioned in the Bible was probably a ziggurat.  We were the only visitors to Choga Zanbil that day and the guard welcomed us with a broad smile.  Following our climb to the top of the ziggurat we headed north to Dezful where we spent the night in a miserable little hotel.



The following day we explored the ruins of ancient Susa which is called Shush today.  Susa was the site of prehistoric settlements dating back to the beginning of the 4^th millennium BC.  Now that’s very old.  It has been a major seat of power through many different periods of history.  As soon as Alexander the Great approached the city of Susa the city surrendered its riches to him.  Later it was the scene of his celebrated mass wedding when ten thousand Greeks and Persians were united in marriage.  Susa is mentioned in the Bible and is the site where Esther became queen and saved the Jews from genocide.  It is also the supposed site of the tomb of the prophet Daniel which we visited.



But we were running behind schedule so we headed further north driving over dangerous mountain passes, through the strategically situated city of Khorramabad, past the towns of Borujerd and Malayer to Hamadan where we checked into the nice Bou Ali Hotel. 



Hamadan, which the Greeks called Ecbatana, is over 6,000 feet high and was the summer capital of Cyrus the Great.  It is one of the oldest cities in Iran and the world.  Hamadan was established by the Medes and was the center of the Median Empire.  Alexander the Great’s favorite general, Hephaestion, died in Hamadan.  We walked through much of the city and visited what is believed to be the burial place of Queen Esther and Mordechai.  We saw the city’s symbol, an old carved stone that is supposed to be a lion, called Sang-e Shir.  Badly weathered, it is believed to be of late 4^th century and at one time crowned one of the city gates.  We saw the market place and saw scribes writing out letters for illiterate people for a fee.  Just on the outskirts of town we saw the stone inscriptions of kings Darius and Xerxes in which they gave the genealogical account of the Achaemenian dynasty. 



The next day we headed home on the highway from Hamadan to Qazvin to Teheran, one of the most dangerous highways at the time which follows the old Silk Road from Baghdad to Teheran.  It was a two-lane highway but, in actuality, it was three continuous lanes with the middle of the highway a passing lane for both sides.  We saw several shells of cars, trucks and buses on the side of the road and we saw many near misses but somehow we survived the trip home.



Looking back, we wonder now “what were we thinking?” at the time.  We headed out in a death-trap of a car with no real preparation.  This was before cell phones or global positioning systems, too.  I guess we were young and naïve.  At any rate we experienced a great trip through sparsely populated areas with thousands of years of history to explore.  We barely touched on all the possible sites but we did see and explore the most important ones.  Will we ever be able to return and have the freedom of roaming the countryside of Iran?  Probably not.