Noushijan is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology a ...

in the west of

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 ...

near

Malayer Malayer ( fa, ملایر, Malāyer), formerly Dowlatabad ( fa, دولت‌آباد, Doulatābād, also Romanized as Dowlatābād and Daūlatābād), is a city and capital of Malayer County, Hamadan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its populati ...

. According to excavations from this site this area was not inhabited earlier than 800 B.C.. The discovered features of this Tappe are as follows: * a building in the west of the Tappe (the first fire temple) * a columned hall (

Apadana Apadana ( peo, 𐎠𐎱𐎭𐎠𐎴) is a large hypostyle hall in Persepolis, Iran. It belongs to the oldest building phase of the city of Persepolis, in the first half of the 6th century BC, as part of the original design by Darius the Gre ...

) * a central

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

(the second temple) * rooms and storerooms * a

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

* a

rampart Rampart may refer to: * Rampart (fortification), a defensive wall or bank around a castle, fort or settlement Rampart may also refer to: * "O'er the Ramparts We Watched" is a key line from "The Star-Spangled Banner", the national anthem of the ...

Building in the west of Tappe

According to the plan of the discovered building and according to the archaeological and architectural investigations, the building was built before Apadana. The entrance of the building is in its eastern side like a central temple. It has two connected space. The inner space of the building is

rectangular In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is a quadrilateral with four right angles. It can also be defined as: an equiangular quadrilateral, since equiangular means that all of its angles are equal (360°/4 = 90°); or a parallelogram containin ...

and its entrance is in the neighboring room. The rest of a coal bowl in the southern side of the main room proves, that the fire ceremony was carried out (secretly). It can be suggested that the first fire temple was in a covered space in Noushijan Tappe and undoubtedly the ceremony had a connection with the developing religious ceremony in the median era. On the southern and western wall, there are ruins of two niches with egg-shaped vaults.

Columned hall

The hall was built on an adobe platform. Its foundation is from loam mortar. The hall is 20 m long and 15 m wide. Its eastern side is not completely right-angled. The central space of Apadana has three column rows. Each row has four columns. The space has totally twelve columns, which carried the heavy weight of ceiling. The columns were

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...

en. Each column had a diameter of 25 cm. The eastern wall has two decorative niches. but on the western side there is no decorations. Under the ceiling, there are some windows for lighting, which provides enough light for the space.

Main temple

The main temple (or central temple) is an adobe

semicircular In mathematics (and more specifically geometry), a semicircle is a one-dimensional locus of points that forms half of a circle. The full arc of a semicircle always measures 180° (equivalently, radians, or a half-turn). It has only one line o ...

octagon. This building is one of the most valuable median buildings.

Room and storerooms

The second important building in Noushijan are the rooms and storerooms. The castle includes an enclosure wall, towers and four weapon storerooms. It is totally 25 m long and 22 m wide. The outer walls have 6 towers in the width and 7 towers in the length. The only entrance is in the middle of the eastern wall.

Tunnel

In the northern part of Apadana, there is an artificial cellarlike pit, which leads to a

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

in the depth of 3 m. This pit has stairs. Its height is 170 cm and its width is 180 cm. According to its form, it can be realized that the tunnel has never reached the end and because of unknown reasons it was abandoned incomplete. The tunnel was built in the last phase of region's inhabitation.

Rampart

In the southern and eastern part of the room and storerooms there is a rampart, which encloses the buildings in the eastern part with a particular curve.

References

{{Authority control Fire temples in Iran Castles in Iran Medes castles Archaeological sites in Iran Architecture in Iran Hamadan Province 8th-century BC architecture National works of Iran