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Arg-e Bam

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Bam Citadel (Arge Bam in Persian) is the largest adobe building in the world, located in Bam, a city in the Kerman province of southeastern Iran. It is recorded by Unesco as a world cultural heritage site. This enormous citadel, situated on the famous Silk Way, was built sometime before 500 BC and remained in use until 1850 AD. It is not known for certain why it was then abandoned.

The entire building in fact is a big fortress, in whose heart the citadel itself is located, but because of the impressive look of the citadel, which forms the highest point, the entire fortress is named the Bam Citadel.

On December 26, 2003, the Citadel was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake, along with much of the rest of Bam and its environs (see Bam for details).

About Bam city

Bam is a small city, approximatly 1100 metres above the sea level, situating on the historially famous Silk Way. It is found in Kerman province in Southern East of Iran, Southernly of Kerman city and Northernly of the Persian Gulf and the Oman Sea. Mild winters and very warm summers characterize the climate of this region. The trees start to blossom in the last days of February. Like most desertal places, the nights, even during the warmest days of the summer, are cool.

About the foundation date and reasons of the citadel exist varoius opinions. Some people believe that Bam city was founded during the empire of Parts, a very powerful Persian empire and was totally florished in the 10th century. Economially and commerceally, Bam occupied a very important place in the region and the majarity of its textiles and clothes enjoyed world fame. Ibne-Haugal (943-977), the travellerr Arab geographer in his book called Surat-ol-arz (The Earth-figure) wrote:

“Over there they weave excellent, beautiful and long-lasting cotton cloths which are sent to distant countries and cities. There they also make excellent clothes, each of which costs around 30 dinars; these are sold in Khorasan, Iraq and Egypt.”

About the philology of the word Bam

About the origin of the word Bam, there are some links even to the mythical history of Iran, namaly according to some sources “Bam” is metamorphosis of the word “Bahman”, which is the name of a king, about whom Ferdowsi (940? -1020?), the most renown epic poet of Iran, narrates in his most famous work Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), written during 30 years (980-1010). This epic, consisting of 60,000 verses, is the most ancient book written in the modern Persian, in which Ferdowsi both crystalised the Persian language (long after when the Arabic was spread in Iran consequently of the arrival of Islam), and gives an account for the 1. 5-millenium history of ancient Persia starting before Achemenids (the first Persian royal dinasty in 7th century B.C.), i.e. from Pishdadids period, until the arrival of Islam in Iran, i.e. 641 A.D.. Bahman was the son of Esfandiyar who had fought against Rostam, one of the chiefheroes in the Shahnameh. As Ferdowsi epically narrates, Bahman fights against the son of Rostam, who was called Faramarz. A sandstorm hinderred Faramarz and Bahman defeated him and as a triumph he built a fortress on the rock hill there, where now is situated the Bam Citadel.

The dimensions

The area of Bam Citadel is approximately 180,000 square meters, and it is surrounded by gigantic walls 6-7 metres high and 1815 metres long! There are two whach towers in the most internal wall called "StayAwake-towers", while there are as many as 67 different towers scattered across the ancient region of Bam city.

The urban designing and architectural qualities of the Citadel

The planning and architecture of the citadel are very ingeniously thought from different points of view. For example from the present form of the citadel, one can easily underestand that since the first step in the planning/drawing, the planner(s) had foreseen the entire final form of the building/city, and during each phase of building development, the built part enjoyed a complete figure whether 2-dimensionally or 3-dimensionally, and each additional part could be “sewn” to the already built section seamlessly.

The citadel is situated in the center of the fortress-city, on the highest place to enjoy the longest and widest view for security resons. The notable impression of the citadel, caused that they call also all other buildings around it, "Bam Citadel".

In the architectural form of Bam Citadel there are two different distinguishable parts:

  1. The rulers' part in the most internal wall, holding the citadel, barracks, mill, 4-sezonan house, water-well (dug in the rocky earth and about 40 metres deep), and a stall for 200 horses.
  2. The rulled over part surrounding the rulers' place, consists of: the main entrace of the entire fortress-city, bazaar alongside of the North-to-South spinal axle (which connects the main entrance to the citadel), around 400 houses and their needed public buildings like school, a sport-place, ...

Among the houses, three different types are recognizable:

  1. Smaller houses with 2-3 rooms for the poor families.
  2. Bigger houses with 3-4 rooms for the middle social class, some of which have also a veranda.
  3. The most luxurious houses with more rooms heading to different directions suitable for different seasons of the year, together with big a court and a stall for animals nearby. This kind of houses is not found in a big number in the fortress.

All buildings are made of non-baked clay bricks, i.e. adobes. Probably Bam Citadel is the biggest adobe structure in the world. Unesco recorded it as a universal cultural herritage.

Security qualities of the citadel

When the gate of the city was closed, no human being or any animal could enter it. In such a situation, the inhabitants could continue their living for an extremely long period of time, because they already had access to the well, planted earths and even cattles and domestic animals. So when the fortress-city was besieged, the inhabitants could remain in the city while the soldiers could suitably defend it being protected by the high extreme walls and towers.

Weather-milding (air conditioning) qualities in the citadel

Besides the whatch towers and ornamated tops of the high walls, on the skyline of the fortress, also the wind-catchers or wind-towers (in Persian: badgir) are remarkable. They are special structures sticking out of the different buildings in order to catch the pleasant wind and lead it down into the internal spaces of the buildings; sometime the captured wind is passed over a surface of a water basin in the building in order to become cooler, lose the dust and driness of the desert air. Different types of wind-towers are utilized for different buildings. For example there are 4-directional wind-towers for bigger and more important buildings, which are capable to catch the winds which blow from dofferent directions during different times in the day and night in all seasons. There are also 1-directional wind-towers for smaller buildings.

One of the best tourist attractions

Since the middle of the 19th century, the fortress began to be abandonned for some unknown reasons. Now it is one of the best tourist attractions in the region, which is visited by a large number of domestic and foreign tourists each year.

Sources

This is a translation by A.R. Mamdoohi of the article "Bam-Citadelo", originally written in Esperanto language by Asad Mahbub, first appeared in Irana Esperantisto (Iranian Esperantist), No. 4, Year 2, Summer 2003, 40 p., pp.5-7. Its sources are:

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