The Kashaneh Tower (

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

: برج کاشانه) is a 14th-century structure in

Bastam Bastam ( fa, بسطام, also romanized as Basṭām; also known as Busṭām and Bisṭām) is a city in and capital of the Bastam District of Shahrud County, Semnan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 7,382, in 1,997 families ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. It is located to the south east of the Jama mosque of Bastam.

History

The inscription on top of the entrance of the tower attributes the building to the year 700 of the

lunar Hijri calendar The Hijri calendar ( ar, ٱلتَّقْوِيم ٱلْهِجْرِيّ, translit=al-taqwīm al-hijrī), also known in English as the Muslim calendar and Islamic calendar, is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or ...

. The local people however believe that the tower has been a

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic on ...

fire temple A fire temple, Agiary, Atashkadeh ( fa, آتشکده), Atashgah () or Dar-e Mehr () is the place of worship for the followers of Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Iran (Persia). In the Zoroastrian religion, fire (see ''atar''), together wi ...

during

Sassanian The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

times.

André Godard André Godard (21 January 1881 – 31 July 1965) was an archaeologist, architect and historian of French and Middle Eastern Art. He served as the director of the Iranian Archeological Service for many years. Life Godard was born in Chaumont. A ...

however, attributes the building to

Ghazan khan Mahmud Ghazan (5 November 1271 – 11 May 1304) (, Ghazan Khan, sometimes archaically spelled as Casanus by the Westerners) was the seventh ruler of the Mongol Empire's Ilkhanate division in modern-day Iran from 1295 to 1304. He was the son of A ...

, which is in agreement with the inscription on the building indicating its date of construction. Furthermore, André Godard claims that the structure was originally named Ghazaneh which was later corrupted into Kashaneh. The inscription on top of the building however, attributes it to

Öljaitü Öljaitü ( mn, , Öljaitü Qaghan, fa, اولجایتو), also known as Mohammad-e Khodabande ( fa, محمد خدابنده, ''khodābande'' from Persian meaning the "slave of God" or "servant of God"; 1280 – December 16, 1316), was the eigh ...

. At times, it was used as a watchtower. However, the tower's shape suggests that it might have had uses in astronomy, as it resembles an observatory in many ways. Others have suggested other uses such as

Adhan Adhan ( ar, أَذَان ; also variously transliterated as athan, adhane (in French), azan/azaan (in South Asia), adzan (in Southeast Asia), and ezan (in Turkish), among other languages) is the Islamic call to public prayer (salah) in a mos ...

tower or mausoleum for the building, the latter reflected in the official name of the tower in its registration in the national heritage sites of Iran as the "mausoleum tower near the Jama mosque". The tower's roof had at one point collapsed but was later repaired. It was enlisted among the national heritage sites of Iran with the registration number 69 on 6 January 1932.

Architecture

The tower is 24 meters tall from the inside, and 20 meters tall from outside. It's external shape is a

Triacontagon In geometry, a triacontagon or 30-gon is a thirty-sided polygon. The sum of any triacontagon's interior angles is 5040 degrees. Regular triacontagon The '' regular triacontagon'' is a constructible polygon, by an edge- bisection of a regular ...

. On top of the tower there are two outlines made of large bricks that have inscriptions on them.

Gallery

File:Kashaneh Tower 1.jpg File:Kashaneh Tower 4.jpg File:-Bastam, Tomb Tower (built 1313), Khorasan- MET DP202978.jpg File:برج و باروی بسطام.jpg

References

{{Short description, Tower in Iran Tourist attractions in Semnan Province Towers in Iran