SMH   >   Travel   >   News   >   Asia   >   Article

Lost beauty that was Bam

January 17, 2004

Map: Robert Parkinson.

Felicity Blake recalls the grand old days in the ancient mud city devastated by a recent earthquake.

In Iran's remote south-east there is a desert known as the Plains of Emptiness. For thousands of kilometres, a wasteland of stones and dust is beaten by unremitting sun.

People have lived here in scattered settlements since the 4th millennium BC, but only one permanent township was established in the region. Travellers following the Silk Road from China through Persia had a single place of respite in this testing stage of their journey: Bam.

Bam was founded around the time of Christ during Persia's Parthian period. At an oasis 350 kilometres from Iran's modern border with Pakistan, a walled city was built from unbaked clay bricks, palm trunks, straw and stones. The governor's residence was surrounded by hundreds of houses, a caravanserai and a bazaar.

In the city's infancy, a Zoroastrian temple was constructed for the worship of a sacred fire. Later, a church, synagogue and mosque were added for the benefit of residents and travellers.

By the 16th century, Bam had become the Emerald of the Desert: six square kilometres of settlement divided into four sections and watched over by 37 towers. The citizens enjoyed the use of a gymnasium, bathhouses, schools and cultural buildings. All of Bam was wrought from the dust of the Plains of Emptiness.

Above the city, built around a spire of rock, was the citadel, housing a garrison, an independent water supply and stabling for 200 horses. Towering 65 metres above Bam was the governor's majestic square turret, the Chahar Fasl, or Four Seasons, so named because the wind direction turned with the changing months.

Bam was surrounded by hectares of date palms, citrus groves and crops used in the manufacture of the striking fabrics for which the town was renowned. Thirteen thousand people made their homes within Bam's walls.

But cool breezes weren't the only thing blustering across the desert to the Chahar Fasl: Afghan raiders began to terrorise Bam from 1722.

By 1850 Bam was completely abandoned. The precise reasons are unknown to this day. The merchants, astronomers, soldiers and mothers had gone, but the tawny walls remained and the governor's tower still loomed over the silent city.

That is what I went all that way to see.

I visited Iran alone, for the second time, in October, to attend a film festival in Shiraz and shoot some research footage for a documentary. As a 25-year-old woman, I find Iran a pleasant and fascinating place - the people are generous, curious and hospitable. Nowhere were they kinder than in Bam, now an isolated stopover on the road to Pakistan.

Few foreigners came to Bam for its own sake. Most were in the throes of the classic Europe-to-Asia overland trip that used to be known as the Hash Trail in the '70s.

Now, such voyages are the domain of young backpackers like Stef, Sparks and Slater, the three Kiwis I met at Akbar's Hostel. They became my comrades in exploring the Arg-e Bam, what was then the world's largest remaining mud brick structure, a flawless example of a medieval trading city.

By the time we arrived at the Arg, the sun was already beating down on the gatehouse. We followed a cobbled path to a staircase leading onto the crenellated wall surrounding the Arg. The fortifications were punctuated with small viewing towers, which I stopped to explore as the boys proceeded into the distance, Slater carrying his cricket bat under one arm.

Looking west, I could see the new Bam, now a little metropolis with a noted mosque, a small spice bazaar and a considerable automotive repair industry. South of the town lay a vast blanket of palm trees bearing late clusters of dates.

Behind me was Old Bam. I could pick out the locations of the Friday Mosque, the bazaar, the Jewish quarter, and the School of Mirza Naim, a celebrated mystic and astronomer.

I clambered into a watchtower. The citadel was framed in an arched window with the Chahar Fasl at its peak, under an intensely blue sky. A tea-house stood at the gate of the fortress; beneath its window hung a ram's skull, like a sinister fairytale illustration.

I continued along the precipitous wall. The path was dangerously narrow in places. I mused that such unfettered exploration of a significant UNESCO-recognised monument would be disallowed anywhere else, especially somewhere with liability laws and litigious tourists.

Below us an old man made mud bricks in a mould, working methodically, as though he alone had been patching up Bam for two millennia.

Stef and I were exploring the synagogue when the noon call to prayer resounded from the loudspeakers. It was the first day of Ramadan, the month during which Muslims fast until nightfall. Travellers can be excepted, so we fled - delirious and overheated - to the tea-house. We took tea and kolompeh (Bam's legendary date biscuits) in a cool, dark cavern festooned with trinkets and amulets.

Stef, Slater and Sparks were expiring from the heat - and they weren't even obliged to wear a headscarf and manteau, as I was. We decided to return at dusk to continue our exploration. We had seen no other visitors all morning.

Twilight brought new beauty to the Arg. The stark architecture of the parapets and stairways threw austere silhouettes onto walls muted to rich honey-gold. Dust rose from the cobblestones beneath the shadows of women enveloped in black chadors. I watched them in an enigmatic procession to the heart of the Arg.

I followed them to the Friday Mosque where I was invited to observe an antique ritual of praying to an Islamic saint for fertility and good fortune for children. The women welcomed my presence; they even held my shoes as I was shown inside the shrine. As the sun sank, I bade them farewell in halting Farsi and made my way up into the citadel.

Passing stabling for 200 horses and crossing the barracks, I followed the winding, cobbled road to the courtyard below the Chahar Fasl.

In Bam's soaring turret, a robust desert breeze blew through windows that had framed the folly and rapture of human transience. A new white shred of moon hung over the eastern mountains; the wind snapped my clothing like a lateen sail.

Stars were waking up above us. I felt as if I could close my eyes and open them three centuries ago, as the torches were being lit and merchants led their camels to the caravanserai to sleep.

Ramadan's first day of fasting would soon be over. The muezzin's call to prayer was carried from New Bam on the breeze and the beautiful, mournful song settled on the city like dew.

My subsequent travels in Iran demonstrated further traditional Persian culture. The mysterious mud-brick alleyways of Yazd showed what Bam might have been like when it was inhabited. Esfahan's exquisite mosques displayed the pinnacle of Safavid-era sophistication. In Tehran's museums I saw superbly preserved artefacts which could still have held the fingerprints of Bam's vanished citizens.

None of these jewels could soothe my heartbreak when I heard that Bam was gone. In a single earthquake on December 27, 20,000 lives were lost and the Arg-e Bam buckled into powder. I will never again stand on the parapets to see the new moon, or hear the muezzin's lilting cry from the lonely tower.

An old description of the Arg now applies to all of Bam: "This, the Arg, is history itself. Let us just watch, and pass very gently by these ruins, because beneath every place you tread, there may lie a king, a swordsman, an old sage, a lover, a mother... Be careful, beware."




Despite socio-political strife since the 1979 revolution, Iran is a very welcoming place to visit. Before travelling, check the Iran advisory on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's website, Once in Iran, stay away from political rallies and do not photograph government buildings.


Women must cover their hair and both genders must dress conservatively.


Allow several weeks to arrange a visa with the Iranian embassy in Canberra (see Visa applications are processed more quickly if you have booked accommodation or tours.


Emirates Airlines flies Sydney to Dubai. From Dubai, fly Emirates or Iran Air to Tehran. Iran Air is subsidised so internal flights are cheap. Coaches are even cheaper.


Spring or autumn. It's better not to go during Ramadan, as some attractions will be closed.


magnifying glass Search the Fairfax archives for related stories
(*Fee for full article)