Iranian Three-Story Underground City Served As Haven
TEHRAN (CHN) -- Archaeologists believe that a
three-story underground city, recently unearthed in
central Iran, used to function as a collective shelter
for its residents in wake of relentless invasions.
The city, lying beneath the small town of Nushabad
near Kashan, features labyrinth-like architectural
structures, starting 2.5 meters under the surface and
running 18 meters deep. Nushabad residents had been
reporting about underground corridors and chambers
when they were digging wells in their yards for
sewage, since most Iranian cities lack a sewage
network.
Working on the tip-off, archaeologists started digging
the area, but to their chagrin, they failed to find
any clue, until during the second week of excavation,
an 18-year-old digger by the name of Ali Reza Khabbazi
did finally discovered something that turned out to be
an underground city, whose three stories are
interconnected by several flights of stairs.
“Over one month, we succeeded in finding the city
which has about 43 steps between each of its stories,”
said Zahra Sarokhani, head of the research team, made
up of archaeologists, architects and history and
geography experts.
The team is now working on two workshops on both ends
of the 170-hectare town of Nushabad. They have already
concluded the corridors are interconnected through the
maze-like city, but they still wonder if the whole
complex has three stories.
Referring to historical textbooks and documents,
Sarokhani proposed the theory that the newly-unearthed
city served as a collective shelter since Kashan, in
Isfahan Province, has been at a major trade
crossroads, thus very appealing to bandits and other
invaders including Seljuks and Mongols. She added
archeologists have also discovered some mill stones,
indicating the inhabitants used to live in the
sanctuary for several days or possibly weeks.
“The city is built according to a systematically
laid-out plan and it is likely all the residents had a
hand in building it, since it seems a gargantuan task
to me,” said Ehsan Zera’at, architecture scholar.
Archaeologists have so far dug out several earthenware
vessels and two fat-burning lanterns. The potteries
date from the Sassanid dynasty (226-651) to Safavid
era (1501-1722), said Sadat, a graduate archaeology
student, adding, “The city has been built during the
Sassanid era and has been dwelled and used till the
Safavid period, at most.”
Next year the research team intends to ask
sociologists and anthropologists for help to determine
the lifestyle of the inhabitants. Kashan is an oasis
city lying in a desert at the eastern foot of the
Central Iranian Range. Kashan was earlier an important
station on an important caravan route between Kerman
and Isfahan. Kashan has several ancient monuments.
Most famous are the mausoleum of Shah Abbas 1, the
12th century Friday Mosque and the Safavid royal
buildings southwest of the city center.
Tehran Times - 8/4/2004
