Iran - Andrew Burke [160]
Of a similar era but architecturally less successful is the heavily buttressed Baba Taher Mausoleum (Aramgah-e Baba Taher; admission IR3000; 8am-5.30pm). It looks like a failed prototype for Thunderbird 3. There’s little reason to go inside unless you enjoy Persian calligraphy, inscribed here on some gently opalescent stone wall-slabs.
The Alaviyan Dome (Gonbad-e Alaviyan; Shahdad Lane; admission IR3000; 8am-7pm) is now a misnomer, as the 12th-century green dome, immortalised in a Khaqani reference, has long since been removed. The dome-less brick tower remains famous for the whirling floral stucco added in the Ilkhanid era. This ornamentation enraptured Robert Byron in Road to Oxiana, but frankly it’s ugly. In the crypt (narrow steps down from the interior at the back) is the plain-blue tiled Alaviyan family tomb covered with votive Islamic embroidery.
A useful landmark is the golden dome of the unfinished Imamzadeh-ye Abdollah (Imamzadeh Sq). More appealing is the 1883 Imamzadeh-ye Hossein, tucked behind the Hotel Yass in a little courtyard with an ancient mulberry tree. The 13th-century Borj-e Qorban is a classic 12-sided, pointy-roofed tower tomb, but it looks sadly out of place in its dowdy housing-estate setting.
HEGMATANEH HILL
In the mud beneath this scraggy low hill lies Hamadan’s ancient Median and Achaemenid city site ( 822 4005; admission IR4000; 8am-4pm Tue-Sun, 8am-noon Mon). Small sections of the total area have been fitfully excavated by several teams over the last century, most extensively in the 1990s. The most interesting of several shed-covered ‘trenches’ allows you to walk above the excavations of earthen walls using plank walkways on wobbly scaffolding. The walls’ gold and silver coatings are long gone of course and it’s hard to envisage the lumpy remnants as having once constituted one of the world’s great cities. A nicely presented museum tries to fill the mental gap, showing some of the archaeological finds including large amphorae, Seljuk fountains, Achaemenid pillar-bases and Parthian coffins.
A few decades ago when the government relocated inhabitants from the hill and demolished their homes in the name of archaeology, they spared a pair of 19th-century churches, which remain at the southern edge of the site.
OTHER ATTRACTIONS
A vaulted passage of the bazaar leads into the courtyard of the large Qajar-era Jameh Mosque (admission free). The off-line south iwan leads into a hall (currently under restoration) over which there’s an impressively large brick dome. The new north iwan is lavished with patterned blue tilework that continues on four of the mosque’s six minarets. Some areas are restricted to men only.
Sang-e Shir is a walrus-sized lump of rock eroded beyond recognition by the rubbing of hands over 2300 years. Supposedly once a lion, you’d never look twice at were it not the only surviving ‘monument’ from the ancient city of Ecbatana whose gates it once guarded. Some claim it was carved at the behest of Alexander the Great.
Sleeping
BUDGET
These three cheap mosaferkhanehs are conveniently located close to central Imam Khomeini Sq.
Farshchi Guest House (Mosaferkhaneh-ye Farsi; 252 4895; Shohada St; tw/tr/q/5-bed IR60,000/80,000/100,000/130,000, showers IR5000) By mosaferkhaneh standards the Farshchi is a cosy, friendly place with something of a family atmosphere, plastic flowers and samovars giving vague touches of humanity to the area of shared squat toilets and washbasins. Most rooms are four-bedded.
Hamadan Guest House ( 252 7577; Ekbatan St; bed