Ruined citadel seen as huge loss

TEHRAN — Conservation specialists are dismayed by the destruction of the citadel at Bam — a highly prized archaeological site that had been painstakingly restored and maintained by successive governments since 1958.

Rising from the desert like a giant sand castle, the citadel crumbled within minutes in the powerful earthquake that struck Friday morning, killing more than 25,000 people.

“It’s a cultural catastrophe,” said Iraj Afshar Sistani, a Tehran historian and writer of many books. “This historical city constituted one of the wonders of Iran’s heritage.”

Masserat Amir-Ebrahimi, a Tehran cultural expert, likened the citadel’s destruction to the 2001 demolition of the giant Buddhas in central Afghanistan by the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban.

The impressive reddish-gray castle compound — made of sun-dried mud bricks, palm-tree trunks and straw — was the greatest mud-brick structure in the world, dominating the Kavir Desert in southeastern Iran, an arid and mountainous area near the Afghan and Pakistani borders.

Tens of thousands of tourists visited each year, including one U.S. citizen who reportedly perished in the quake.

At least 2,000 years old, the citadel of Bam was subject to countless invasions during its history and was sacked completely on several occasions.

Although it lay upon a major trade route, it was too far south to be part of the ancient Silk Road connecting Europe to China.

Bam became one of the first places in Iran to adopt Islam, its Zoroastrian inhabitants building the first mosques found in Iran, said Bernard Hourcade, a geographer and Iran specialist at the National Research Center in Paris.

The citadel last was rebuilt during the Safavid dynasty, which ruled Persia — now Iran — from the 16th to the 18th centuries. It was abandoned in 1722 after an invasion by Afghanistan.

“It’s like a city frozen in time that gives the perfect picture of ancient cities of the old Iranian plateau,” said Remy Boucharlat, a University of Lyon archaeologist specializing in Iran.

Spread out over 4 square miles, the citadel was perched on a 200-foot-high rock and dominated by 38 towers, some rising as high as 120 feet. Four walls protected the city within from potential invaders.

Mr. Boucharlat described Bam as a perfectly preserved specimen of an ancient fortress city with its high walls, residential quarters and administrative buildings, mosques, bathhouses and wind towers.

“In short,” he said, “it’s a true lesson in architecture.”

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