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Published: April 29th 2007
Jame Mosque
From the courtyard After spending the night in my hotel room packing the gifts and souvenirs I'd bought, the women came by for a visit to reopen them all over them and interrogate me for shopping information. Alas, after they rampaged through everything, I started to repack as I chainsmoked.
Our last visit around Esfahan was to the Friday, or 'Jome' Mosque. This, Seyed explained, was a transliteral error by westerners, for its original name is 'Jame' - 'large, everyone's' Mosque. This Mosque happened to be partially damaged from the bombings during the Iran-Iraq War.
JAME MOSQUE - Its entrance marked by the presence of hanging chains, signifying it as a sanctuary for all who seek it. Being the largest and oldest of the mosques in Esfahan, it housed numerous interesting architectural features. For instance, its original columns - each one of them were different in design. One of them had scale-like patterns moulded into it to provide an appearance of a palm tree. Timurid architectural elements were also present: there was a prayer hall with the thickest of walls I had seen supported by rectangular pillars, giving the room a feel of a nomadic tent. This hall was covered in
By the Jame Mosque
A sweet street vendor who asked for a jolly snapshot red hand-woven carpets, highlighting its horizontality and low-ceilings. This offered warmth during the winter and a cellar-like cooling effect during the hot months.
The Mihrab itself was designed in a rather unusual design, due to the absence of the usual blues and turquoise tiles. Later on, we were told that this part of the mosque was designed in the Timurid fashion from central Asia...of course, the beautiful blues dominated the rest of the mosque, especially the central courtyard where four iwans proudly faced us. Intricate mosaics and tiles were generously swirling their geometric patterns everywhere we looked.
By lunch, we had driven into a lonely landscape of bare mountains and sand. We enjoyed lunch at Naeen, where there was a small hotel with a little courtyard flanked with flowerbeds full of blooming pansies. The rooms themselves were designed in the local traditional style, somewhat like a pricey new york loft apartment with tribal decoration. Cute!
CARAVANSARAYE - back in the days of the prosperous Silk Route trade, travelling merchants found this an absolute necessity to use as restaurants and lodgings, and there are remains of them every 60 kms. Sadly however, there are so many of them that
Jame Mosque
Palm tree design column not all can be preserved and kept well. most of them are either left to crumble into the sand, or otherwise as free stables for their animals. One caravansaraye we stopped by had a CANAAT beside it (an underground water system, carrying water from the mountains in the far distance) and goats were everywhere.
Bathrooms? Oh heavens, ladies, look around you! we're in the middle of a bloody desert. So off you go to find some random shrubbery (o wait, right, no vegetation) or old monument and do your business there. Fine, i'll stand some feet away and keep guard while I chainsmoke - this was probably the only time they approved my cigarettes. Bravo. I heart Dunhill topleafs!
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