Abarkuh

Abarkuh sits on the desert road between Yazd and Shiraz and is worth the stop for three things. The cypress of Abarkuh is a very old tree, commonly given an age of four thousand years and treated as a national monument, standing in a walled enclosure in the town; the figure is traditional rather than dated by measurement, but it is unquestionably ancient and very large. The Aqa Zadeh mansion is a Qajar house with a tall badgir wind tower and painted rooms. And the yakhchals, conical mud-brick ice houses, stand at the edge of town: domes up to eighteen metres high over sunken pits, where winter ice was made in shallow channels and stored through the summer.

History

Hamdallah Mustawfi in 1340 derived the name from bar kuh, "on the mountain", saying the town had first stood on a hill before moving down to the plain. In the 10th century Abarkuh was where the roads from Shiraz, Isfahan and Yazd met, in the 11th it was ruled by the Kakuyid dynasty, and just before 1043-44 the Buyid ruler Abu Kalijar took it from Abu Mansur Faramarz, who regained it in 1051 (Wikipedia, Abarkuh).

What you'll find

• The ancient cypress - a very old tree kept as a national monument.
• Conical yakhchal ice houses - mud domes over sunken ice pits.
• The Aqa Zadeh mansion - a Qajar house with a tall wind tower.
• Desert road setting - the town on the route between Yazd and Shiraz.

When to go

March to May and October to November. Two to three hours as a break on the drive. Mornings are cooler for walking to the ice houses, which are on the edge of the settlement.

Things to know

The cypress is fenced and viewed from a distance. The four-thousand-year age is a traditional claim rather than a measured one. Site opening hours are loose and buildings are sometimes locked. The town itself has little else.

Nearby

Yazd is north-east; Shiraz lies south-west on the same road.

Key facts