Tabriz
I decided to skip sitting in the car for hours today and driving to Khandovan as I’ve been to Cappadocia, and we will see Azar Shah on the way to Tahkti –el –Soliemann on Friday. I spent the day in town visiting the bazaar and museums instead and was glad I did.
Our first stop was the Arg, the ruins of the ancient citadel and former Ilkanhid mosque. Right next to it the government is building a brand new Jameh mosque, tying the new with the old. The old is much taller, but the new one when complete is going to be huge. Amir said that these kinds of mosques are being built by the government across the country.
We then went to the Azerbaijan Museum, which was excellent. It has a wonderful collection of pre-Islamic artifacts downstairs and some fabulous 3rd M. BCE, Achaemenid, and Sassanian seals. Outside in the courtyard there were some statues that are reminiscent of the ones in Gobekli Tepe in Turkey and the Bulbans in Kyrgyzstan. They also had a 2nd M. goddess in excellent shape and some 13th C Islamic bowls with nicely painted figures. When coming to Tabriz, it is definitely a museum to visit.
The next stop was a garden with picnickers around a statue of a local medieval poet. The garden is adjacent to the Blue Mosque. As in Istanbul, the mosque is named for the blue tiles inside, but that is where the similarities end. This one is much more heavily laden with blue rather than the lighter Iznik style of the Turkish mosque. Shah Jahan (not the one from India) who built the mosque (1485) and his wife are supposedly buried in the crypt. The mosque was destroyed in the 18th C earthquake that devastated the city.
From the Blue Mosque we had to walk around the large city block to get to the Iron Age Cemetery as the direct door through the commercial center was closed.
The Iron Age Cemetery was discovered when bulldozers were digging to create the recent commercial center by the mosque. Construction on the center stopped for three years while the government haggled with the people who own the house near the cemetery. They finally sold their property this year and an expansion is planned as soon as there are sufficient funds…. The woman at the cemetery was incredibly helpful and knowledgeable about the site. Amir luckily translated; what I learned was that they believe the people were followers of Mithrism, with their faces pointed east if they died before noon and west if they died after noon following the sun. The only one who was pointing south was one with a cracked skull. There were 11 men, 16 women and a number of children found so far. Two of the men were giants, over 2 meters tall and relatively old, late 50s early 60s. They found they ate goat and sheep meat, lentils, herbs, honey and nuts and the skeletons indicate they were healthy. The cemetery has a few bodies that were buried in the river that flowed through the area; the silt protected them. There are 29 geological strata that have so far been identified, with bodies buried on top of each other over the at least 4 centuries the site was considered a Holy burial ground. It is interesting that Shah Jahan built his mosque unknowingly almost on top of this site.
From the Iron Age museum we went to the Armenian church on the other side of the bazaar. It was a bit difficult to locate, but Amir was good about asking for directions. It’s down an alley off of a lane off a main street. The iron gate at the alley has fleur de lys on it. The big brown doors that wall off the complex have images from pre-Islamic times on a narrow strip by the key hole and door opener. Amir rang the bell a few times before the caretaker, a wizened old fellow, finally opened the door to let us in to take photos of the church that Marco Polo had visited. We found a delightful rundown garden filled with weeds, but right in the middle of a bunch of high-rises. Surprisingly, the caretaker reappeared with the keys to the church in hand and opened it for us. It was a beautiful small structure with a marvelous Maria and child painting above a life-sized painting of Jesus where the altar would normally be. The church is still used for services.
After filling our souls with holy sites, we headed to the bazaar to find a tea shop. Amir had bought some pasteries at one of the places we had asked for directions, so we intended to have tea and sweets sitting down someplace nice. Well, there wasn’t any place to sit, so we opted for a cement wall in a courtyard that did have a tree offering shade and a tea vendor using clear plastic water cups. It was good to sit for awhile as my back was hurting from all the standing and city walking. After imbibing and filling our sweet tooth, we wandered around the bazaar. I bought some dates from Bom that we can eat in the car on our excursion tomorrow and the next leg of the journey the day after. Amir bought some cheese to take home to his family in Shiraz. While looking at the various shops we came across carpet sellers who were sleeping on their wares, artisans redoing the carpets that had come in which were crooked and needed straightening, and others that were clipping the weave so that it was all even. Everyone was very friendly and acted like they were pleased to be asked about their crafts even though I was clearly not buying anything. As I was looking in the window at one shop with only three pictorial carpets on the wall and a few regular ones on the ground, the shopkeeper winked us in to see the carpet on the wall we couldn’t see from the window. It was an amazing picture of evolution, the three religions, the path from life to death – all in the carpet weave. I hope my photos come out and I can blow it up to make prints as this is one I would like to have hanging on a wall in my house.
The last stop of the day was at the Jameh Mosque by the bazaar that had been closed earlier in the day as Pres. Rouhani is in town. We watched someone open the gate and go in, but then we watched him lock it up behind him, so all I could get was a photo of the façade.
It was a good and full day. I’m glad we didn’t try to go anywhere else as we would have missed some amazing interactions with caretakers, shopkeepers and artisans.
Tomorrow it’s off to the River of Gidon from the Bible - the Aras River as it runs by the Armenian –Azerbaijan border with Iran, and St. Stephanous Church near Jolfe.
