In this blog series we will be taking you on a whistle-stop tour of various Persian architectural styles, from the Achaemenids to the present day:
We’ll begin at Persepolis by exploring the lavish imperial architecture of the Achaemenids. Then we will venture to northwest Iran (Tabriz, Marāghe, and Soltāniye) to look at the old capital cities of the Ilkhanids. Turning to the east, the third blog post in our series will describe the beautiful Timurid architecture of Samarqand. For our fourth and fifth blogs we will explore the exquisite Safavid and Qajar architecture of Isfahan and Shiraz. Finally, we will finish by discussing contemporary Persian architectural styles, using Tehran as a focal point.
This particular blog post, the second in our series, focuses on the three former capital cities of the Ilkhanids, looking at a different large-scale brick building project from each city, commissioned under Ilkhanid rule. We will begin by exploring how the Ilkhanate came into being in the wake of the Mongol Empire, before looking more closely at the architectural styles used by the Ilkhanids and the legacy they have had upon Persian design, especially Persian tilework.
Before we begin, we need to set the scene a little bit. The 13th and 14th centuries were an extremely tumultuous time in history, and we cannot hope to understand the legacy of the Ilkhanids without first discussing a little about the mighty Mongol Empire and what led to its disintegration and later downfall.
The Mongol Empire was founded by Temüjin, the eldest son of a regional Mongol chieftain. You may not recognise the name Temüjin, but you will surely know him by his other name: چنگیزخان Chengiz Khān ‘Genghis Khan’. Genghis Khan managed to unite the various warring tribes in Mongolia, before setting his sights on China and the West. His military campaigning was ferocious and brutal, conquering vast areas of steppe land and beseiging cities across Asia. In 1215 AD he conquered Beijing. In 1220 he conquered Bukhara. A year later, the Central Asian city of Merv, believed by some to be the largest city in the world at the time, was completely destroyed by the invading Mongols. In 1240 the Mongol armies took Kyiv. In 1258 Genghis Khan’s successor, Möngke Khan, besieged and conquered Baghdad. Ultimately, by the end of Möngke Khan’s reign, he was ruling over the world’s largest ever land empire: stretching from the Black Sea to the East China Sea.
The success of the Mongols did not last long; not soon after they had conquered their vast empire did things start to unravel. This slow decline began with the death of Möngke Khan as well as the relocation of the Mongol capital to Beijing, which proved controversial and unpopular. In the 1260s the empire shattered into pieces, and four autonomous or break-away states, called ‘khanates’, emerged in its wake: the Yuan dynasty, the Golden Horde, the Chagatai Khanate, and the Ilkhanate.
The Ilkhanid dynasty was founded by هولاکو خان Hulāku Khān ‘Hulagu’ or ‘Hülegü’, the grandson of Genghis Khan. The word ‘Ilkhanid’ comes from the Turkic ایلخان il-khān meaning ‘khan of the realm’. The Ilkhanate was one of the four ‘remains’ of the Mongol Empire, and roughly corresponded to the region of Iran and Iraq, with parts of the khanate reaching Afghanistan and Tajikistan to the northeast. The Ilkhanid state existed from around 1256 AD until 1335 AD. The city of Marāghe was briefly the capital, followed by Tabriz, and finally Soltāniye.
The Ilkhanids are most famous for their bookwork and lavish printed manuscripts, such as the famous Great Mongol Shāhnāme commissioned in the 1330s. However this time period is also worth exploring from an architectural perspective, especially if we turn to sites found in the northwest of Iran (Iranian Azerbaijan). The time of the Ilkhanids is particularly interesting as it can be seen as a ‘reorientation of Iran toward Central Asia and away from the Arab lands of the Fertile Crescent with which it had been so closely associated since the rise of Islam in the seventh century’ – Charles Melville.
The Ilkhanids’ power and influence over Iran was not equally distributed. There was some regional fragmentation within the Ilkhanate itself, which allowed cities such as Shirāz to enjoy relative cultural autonomy. This allowed poets such as Sa’di, a native of Shirāz, to flourish during this time period.
The Ilkhanids, being of Mongol origin and accustomed to inhabiting the dry steppe land of Central Asia, were still semi-nomadic. Due to this somewhat nomadic lifestyle, the only architectural remains we have from this period are immense large-scale building projects. This is because the Ilkhanids’ smaller or more day-to-day structures are thought to have been semi-permanent, so their remains have not survived to the present day. In this blog we will be looking at the three most famous immense building projects commissioned by the Ilkhanids: 1) the observatory of Marāghe, 2) the Arg of Tabriz, and 3) Öljaytü’s mausoleum at Soltāniye.
Of all of the sites we will look at in this blog series, unfortunately the Marāghe observatory is the one that is the least well-preserved. Nonetheless the Marāghe observatory (rasadkhāne-ye Marāghe رصدخانه مراغه) is an important site whose legacy shaped the course of astronomy for centuries, long after the demise of the Ilkhanids.
The observatory was built in the 13th century AD under the patronage of Hulagu and under the supervision of the scientists Nasir od-Din Tusi and Mu’ayyad od-Din ‘Orzi. Tusi convinced Hulagu of the need for a new purpose-built observatory for the Ilkhanate, so a hilltop outside the town of Marāghe was chosen for the project. Hulagu Khan trusted Tusi in these matters, as he believed that part of the reason for his military success was thanks to Tusi’s expert astronomical advice.
The site consisted of numerous buildings centered around a large astronomy tower. The complex included a blacksmith’s workshop and an astronomy school. The workshop allowed for astronomical equipment to be made on site, and the most important archaeological remains we have from Marāghe are instruments such as quadrants and celestial globes.
After the observatory complex was completed, Tusi became its first director. It became an important site of astronomical learning, as evidenced by the ‘Zij’ manuscript (زیج ایلخانی zij-e ilkhāni) that was written at Marāghe, which tracks the movement of the stars and planets using astronomical tables. Tusi also predicted in his notes that the milky colours in the sky are caused by clusters of stars, a good 350 years before Galileo spotted the milky way with his telescope!
The observatory at Marāghe has also inspired and influenced the design of other observatories across Asia. Of particular interest is the Digamsa Yantra observatory in Jaipur, which has been studied extensively by Prof. Javad Shekari Niri, who shows that the observatory in Jaipur was clearly modelled after Marāghe, despite it being built in the early 18th century AD (500 years later). The Digamsa Yantra observatory in Jaipur is in much better condition, so gives us a much clearer idea of what the Marāghe observatory would have looked like in its heyday.
The Arg of Tabriz is a massive brick structure built in 1322 AD. Originally it was constructed to be the Ali Shāh Mosque, but today most of this site has been destroyed except for one large brick archway standing in the centre of Tabriz city. The original Ali Shāh Mosque complex would have closely resembled in design and layout the famous Registān complex in Samarqand. At its peak, the Ali Shāh Mosque was larger than any of the European cathedrals from the same time period and is believed to have been the largest brick structure ever built. The Ali Shāh Mosque remains are the perfect example of the monumental scale preferred by the Ilkhanids, and it is believed to have been designed to overshadow the equally gargantuan arched palace of Ctesiphon in Iraq, called the ایوان خسرو Ivān-e Khosrow in Persian.
At some point during the construction project, the central dome collapsed, which eventually led to the whole building project being abandoned. The remains we can see today are just one side of a large four-sided courtyard, so hopefully that will help you appreciate the vast size of the original mosque! In the Qajar period (1789-1925 AD), the Arg of Tabriz was used as a fort and for weapons storage. During the Russian invasion of Tabriz in 1911, the Arg was used as a military base by the Russian troops. Architecturally speaking, the Arg of Tabriz is most famous for its great ایوان ivān. An ivān is a large vaulted hall, usually walled on three sides with the fourth side left entirely open.
The jewel of Ilkhanid architecture is without a doubt the domed mausoleum of Sultan Mohammad-e Khodābande سلطان محمد خدابنده, an Ilkhanid ruler who is also known by the name Öljaytü اولجایتو (meaning ‘blessed’ in Mongolian). Öljaytü’s tomb is located in the town of سلطانیه Soltāniye, which lies roughly halfway between Tabriz and Tehran. The domed mausoleum built for Öljaytü was completed in 1312 AD to rival similar mausoleums built by earlier Seljuq rulers such as the tomb of Ahmad Sanjar, built in Merv 1157 AD. To give you an idea of the scale of Öljaytü’s design, his mausoleum at Soltāniye remains to this day the third largest brick dome in the world, behind only the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and the Duomo in Florence. Brunelleschi, the Italian architect who designed the Florence Duomo, is said to have taken inspiration from Öljaytü’s mausoleum when designing his own structures, such as the Florence Duomo’s octagonal wall design mirroring that of the dome at Soltāniye.
Öljaytü’s blue dome is ‘built solely of bricks, without buttresses, pinnacles, or shoulders of any kind, which stands simply by the virtue of a perfectly conceived and constructed profile. The blue dome, vivid and gleaming with its brilliant crown of minarets, seems to float in the sky.’ – Andre Godard
Soltāniye (meaning ‘imperial’ in Persian/Arabic) was supposed to be Öljaytü’s new purpose-built Ilkhanid capital city, and the domed mausoleum would be the city’s star attraction. The founding of this new city is thought to have been a celebration of Öljaytü’s conversion to Shi’a Islam, and it did indeed become the Ilkhanid capital for a time, but this did not last long following the death of Öljaytü. The city of Soltāniye was not located on any of the main East-West silk road trade routes so did not stand the tests of time as a viable trading centre. However, the domed mausoleum still holds Öljaytü’s remains and is celebrated today as one of Iran’s most important UNESCO sites.
In order to better understand a unique Ilkhanid style, it’s best that we turn our attention to کاشیکاری kāshi-kāri ’tilework’. It is through the intricate luster tiles found at Soltāniye and other sites at this time that we can appreciate the formation of a distinct Ilkhanid style that draws influence from across the lands of the Mongol Empire.
Tilework from this time period is known for its luster (meaning ‘having a reflective sheen’) and its bright blue or turquoise colours. A popular style of this time was lajvardina tiling, which is when a blue underglaze is later painted over with a gold glossy coating to create a reflective effect. The centre of tile production was the Iranian city of کاشان Kāshān, and it is believed that the word for ‘tile’ in Persian, کاشی kāshi, is actually a corruption of the word کاشانی kāshāni ‘from Kāshān’. Many of these Kāshāni luster tiles contain Chinese-style animal motifs, such as dragons and phoenixes/سیمرغان simorghs. This serves to highlight the vast extent of the Mongol Empire at its height, that artistic styles from China were making their way across to Persian cities such as Kāshān. Depictions of dragons and phoenixes are especially interesting because in Chinese tradition these motifs were reserved for rulers as a marker of their sovereignty. Their use in the Ilkhanid court shows that to some extent the Ilkhanid rulers were still respecting the sovereignty of the ‘Great Khan State’ (the Yuan Dynasty back in China).
The Eastern/Chinese influence upon Ilkhanid tilework is especially apparent if we look at some examples:
All images taken at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London by the author.
There’s a lot we didn’t have time to discuss in this blog, but I hope you learnt something new about the Ilkhanid rule of Iran. If this is a period of history you are interested in, I highly recommend you to read the book The Legacy of Genghis Khan (2002), edited by L. Komaroff & D. Carnoni, which was an important reference for this blog post.
– Sam
Subscribe to the Persian Language online mailing list to receive details of forthcoming events and other relevant information.
© 2024 Persian Language Online. All Rights Reserved
For more information contact us at:
info@persianlanguageonline.com
