Arg-e Bam

Stand still for a moment and feel the ground. It is packed earth, fine and pale, the same colour as the walls rising around you. In the late afternoon the whole citadel turns the shade of warm bread. The desert air is dry against your skin. Somewhere beyond the walls, palm fronds move in the breeze. Almost everything you see here, from the towers to the stairways underfoot, was made from earth, water and straw.

This is Arg-e Bam, the citadel of Bam, in the southeast of Iran. The word arg means citadel or fortress. For centuries this was more than a fort. It was a walled town, with homes, a bazaar, a mosque, stables and barracks, all climbing a rocky rise toward the governor's quarters at the top. It is often described as the largest adobe complex in the world, and walking its lanes, that claim feels easy to believe.

Look closely at the walls. You will see two main techniques. One is mud brick, called khesht in Persian, shaped in moulds and dried in the sun. The other is chineh, which means layers of wet earth packed and stacked, one course after another. Straw was mixed into the clay to hold it together. The thick walls stay cool by day and release warmth at night. In a desert climate, this was not a poor man's material. It was the smart choice.

The origins of a settlement here go back a very long way. Some scholars link the earliest phase to the Achaemenid era, the Persian empire of Cyrus and Darius, roughly two and a half thousand years ago. That early history is still debated. What is clearer is that Bam grew into an important town in the centuries after the arrival of Islam. It sat on trade routes connected to the wider Silk Road network, the web of caravan paths that linked China, Central Asia and the Mediterranean.

Why here, in such dry country? The answer is underground. Bam is an oasis fed by qanats. A qanat is a gently sloping tunnel dug into the earth to carry groundwater from distant hills to the surface, without pumps. Wells were dug at intervals along the line for air and maintenance. These channels watered the date palms and gardens that surround the town. Without them, there would be no citadel at all. The qanats are part of the reason the whole landscape is protected today.

As you walk up the main lane, imagine it lined with shops. The bazaar ran through the lower town, and merchants traded textiles, spices and the famous local dates. Bam was also known in earlier centuries for its cotton and fine cloth. Off the main route, narrow alleys branch into residential quarters. The houses turned inward, around small courtyards. From the street, families kept their private life hidden behind blank earthen walls.

Higher up, the defences become more serious. The citadel had layered walls and gates, so an attacker who broke through one ring still faced another. At the summit stood the governor's area, with a building often called the Chahar Fasl, the Four Seasons house, designed to catch breezes and stay comfortable through the year. From up there, the view stretches across the palm groves and out toward the mountains. A commander could watch every road.

Those walls saw dramatic moments. One of the best-known stories concerns Lotf Ali Khan, the last ruler of the Zand dynasty, a Persian royal house of the eighteenth century. After his defeat, he fled to Bam in the 1790s and sought refuge. He was betrayed and handed over to his rival, Agha Mohammad Khan, founder of the Qajar dynasty. The capture at Bam marked the end of Zand rule in Iran.

Over time the old town emptied. Invasions in the eighteenth century and changing political fortunes pushed residents to settle outside the walls, in the newer town among the palms. The citadel lived on for a period as a military post. Slowly, the lanes went quiet. Here is something many visitors do not know. In the 1970s the empty citadel became a film set. Italian director Valerio Zurlini shot scenes for his film The Desert of the Tartars inside these walls.

Now we come to the hardest part of the story. Early on the morning of 26 December 2003, a powerful earthquake struck Bam. The modern town suffered terribly, and more than twenty-six thousand people lost their lives. The citadel was badly damaged. Towers collapsed, walls slumped into heaps of earth, and much of the skyline you see in older photographs simply came down. For Iran, and for the world, it was a moment of shock and grief.

What happened next is the second surprise. Instead of abandoning the ruins, Iranian specialists and international teams began a long programme of study and rebuilding. Teams from countries including Japan and Italy worked alongside local experts. In 2004, Bam and its cultural landscape were placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and at first also on the list of sites in danger. The restorers used traditional methods and local clay where possible. Some sections you see are original. Others are careful reconstruction.

So as you look around, try to read the walls. Fresher surfaces are often smoother and more even in tone. Older sections are rougher, with cracks, weathered edges and straw showing through the clay. You may also notice scaffolding, numbered bricks or areas closed to visitors. This is a working site. The restoration is not a finished chapter, and that unfinished quality is part of what you are witnessing today.

Before you leave, pause somewhere in the shade and listen. You might hear wind moving over the earthen parapets, birds in the palms below, footsteps on packed ground. Run your eyes along one wall from top to bottom, and notice how earth, water and human hands made all of this. As you walk back out through the gate and into the date groves, remember the water still running quietly underground, the same water that made this town possible in the first place.