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Minar (Firuzabad)

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Vorlage:Short description Vorlage:Infobox ancient site The Minar was a staged, tower-like structure built in the center of the Sasanian circular city of Gōr (modern Firuzabad, Iran). Several theories have been proposed for its purpose. Only the core of the structure remains today.

Description and history

The structure is known as Minar (منار, literally "pillar") or Minaret () in New Persian, while the medieval Arabic-language Islamic sources referred to the structure as Terbal ( Ṭirbāl).

Similar structures, i.e., staged tower with an outside ramp, have been recorded by ancient historians, including a tower mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus at the Nahar Malka (near the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon; he compared it to the Lighthouse of Alexandria), several towers at Pirisabora (al-Anbar) mentioned by Zosimus, and the Borsippa tower near Babylon. These in turn may have been based on the ziggurats of the ancient Near East.[1]

Ardashir I's new city of Gor had a circular plan with the official buildings located at the centre of an inner circle Vorlage:Convert in radius. The tower-like structure of Terbal was located at the very centre of this circle. Together with Takht-e Neshin, these are the only structures of the city that are made of granite-mortar-masonry. According to Iranica, these two structures may have been confused in medieval Islamic sources, and it is unclear that the names Aywān kiyākhurra () (Istakhri), Gunbad-i Kīrmān (or Gīrmān; ) and Īrān Garda/Girda[2] () (Ibn al-Balkhi) mentioned in these sources refer to which structure. Terbal was a Vorlage:Convert square structure with more than Vorlage:Convert high and spiral in design. It was the core of a stair-tower, and was compared by Ibn Hawqal to a similar edifice at Balkh (a reference to a Buddhist stupa, or possibly a ziggurat). With the width of the destroyed stairs and outer walls added, its actual width is estimated to be about Vorlage:Convert.[3][4] The remaining structure is hollow, according to the Qajar period writer Forsat-od-Dowleh Shirazi.[5] Ernst Herzfeld (1907) had described it as a tower of a square ground plan with a spiral outer ramp.[6] According to Dieulafoy (in his L'Art Antique de la Perse), who had examined the structure, it was "composed above the platform, of four stages ... Each stage is square and recedes from the preceding one by a space equal to Vorlage:Frac of the base".[1]

  • Black and white drawing of the Minar
    Drawing by Eugène Flandin, who called the structure "the Fire temple (Ateshgah) of Firuzabad"
  • Black and white drawing of the Minar with two schematic drawings above left and above right
    Drawing by Pascal Coste, which contains further details
  • A drawing of the Minar with traces of the outer stairs apparent
    A drawing of the Minar with traces of the outer stairs apparent

Purpose

An 1889 artistic impression of the Minar as a fire temple, with the outer stairs reconstructed and the Holy Fire (atar) at its top

Among Western orientalists and travellers, the structure was first observed by Eugène Flandin and Pascal Coste, who noted its uniqueness in Iranian architecture. Prior to Ernst Herzfeld studies of the structure, Terbal was mistakenly thought to be a descendant of the ziggurat, while some thought it is a fire temple, with the Holy Fire (Atar) being put at its top to avoid contamination with dust.[4][7][5]

It is hypothesised that the structure may have been part of a government building and symbolised the divine and centralist kingship introduced by Ardashir I. It may have had practical military and civil uses as well, as the tower provided visual contact with some fortifications in the area, and/or may have been used as an observation tower to survey activities during the implementation of the planned scheme of the new city of Gor and the plain. In fact, this grand scheme was centred in Terbal and continued the concentric and radiant pattern of the town, with traces of canals, paths, walls and field borders found up to 10 km distance from this central tower.[4]

According to a newer study, the structure, as also described in medieval sources, may have functioned as a water tower, in such a way that water from nearby elevated sources would flow through tubes and Terbal's hollow core towards its dome, and from there it would be flowed to another tube to flow elsewhere in the town. It is argued that it was not the only purpose of the structure, but it was also part of a temple of Anahita, the divinity of the Waters (aban).[5][2][8]

Influence

It is thought that the Terbal was the architectural predecessor of the unique minaret of Great Mosque of Samarra (also known as the malwiya) in Iraq, which was built in the Abbasid period.[9] The minaret itself inspired that of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, Egypt,[9] and recently Philip Johnson's design for the 1976 Chapel of Thanksgiving at Thanks-Giving Square in Dallas, Texas.[10][11][12]

See also

References

Vorlage:Reflist

Vorlage:Commons category

Vorlage:Towers in Iran

  1. ↑ a b Richard J. H. Gottheil: The Origin and History of the Minaret. In: Journal of the American Oriental Society. 30. Jahrgang, Nr. 2, 1910, ISSN 0003-0279, S. 132–154, doi:10.2307/3087601.
  2. ↑ a b Guy Le Strange: Collected works of Guy Le Strange: the medieval Islamic world. I.B. Tauris, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-84885-670-7, S. 45.
  3. ↑ C. E. Bosworth: ARDAŠĪR-ḴORRA. In: Encyclopædia Iranica. 15. Dezember 1986, abgerufen am 21. Mai 2017.
  4. ↑ a b c Dietrich Huff: FĪRŪZĀBĀD. In: Encyclopædia Iranica. 15. Dezember 1999, abgerufen am 21. Mai 2017.
  5. ↑ a b c
  6. ↑ "von quadratischem Grundriß mit äußere Wendelrampe"
  7. ↑ موسوی، سید احمد؛ «طربال تداوم معماری زیگورات», کیهان فرهنگی, دی 1367, شماره 58, صص 26–27
  8. ↑ مهرآفرين رضا، خراشادي سرور، جامه بزرگ عباس، «اردشير خوره: تختگاه اردشير پاپکان»، پيام باستان شناس: بهار و تابستان 1392، دوره 9، شماره 19، صص 107–120.
  9. ↑ a b اکرم ارجح: جامع کبیر. In: rch.ac.ir. دانشنامه جهان اسلام, abgerufen am 21. Mai 2017 (persisch).
  10. ↑ Self-Guided Tour – Guide to Thanks-Giving Square. In: www.thanksgiving.org. Archiviert vom Original am 26. Mai 2017; abgerufen am 21. Mai 2017.
  11. ↑ Travel Tips: Thanks-Giving Chapel's Islamic Design a Visual, Spiritual Gem in Downtown Dallas. In: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Abgerufen am 21. Mai 2017 (britisches Englisch).
  12. ↑ Franz Schulze: Philip Johnson: Life and Work. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1996, ISBN 978-0-226-74058-4, S. 334.
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