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The Ilkhanid Palace at Takht-1 Sulayman: Excavation Results

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The Ilkhanid Palace at Takht-1 Sulayman: Excavation Results THE ILKHANID PALACE AT TAKHT-1 SULAYMAN: EXCAVATION RESULTS DIETRICH HUFF The residence that the Ilkhan Abaqa (1265- 1282), the second Mongol ruler of Iran, built on present day Takht-i Sulayman in Azerbaijan, then called Shiz by the Persians and Sughurluq (Saturiq) by the Mongols, is briefly but precisely described by the Persian l:lamdallah Mustawfi of Qazwin, a long serving state accountant of the llkhanid administration. Mustawfi compiled his Nuzhat al-qulub under the last Ilkhan Abu Sa'Id (r. 1316- 35), continuing probably after Abu Sa'Id's death into the 1340s, during the period of the Ilkhanid empire's dissolution. 1 Mustawfi writes: In the Anjarud district is a city which the Mongols call Satilriq; it stands on the summit of a hill and it was originally founded by King Kay Khusraw the Kayanian. In this town there is a great palace, in the court of which a spring gushes forth into a large tank, that is like a small lake for size, and no boatman has been able to plumb its depth. Two main streams of water, each in power sufficient to turn a mill, continually flow away from this tank; but if they be dammed back the water in the tank no wise increases level; and when the stoppage is removed the water again runs as before in being at no season more or less in volume. This is a wonderful fact. This palace was restored by Abaqa Khan the Mongol, and in the neighbourhood there are excel­ lent pasture grounds. Its revenues amount to 25,000 aznars. 2 The site lies about 100 kilometers distant as the crow flies south­ east of Maragha and northwest of Bijar. 3 It is accessible from the small town of Takab or by a new track from the Zanjan-Bijar road westward via Dandi. Geographically and administratively for most periods it belonged to Azerbaijan, although it has been temporarily ascribed to the province of Jibal. 4 Located at an elevation of over 2100 meters in a wide valley at the foot of a mountain ridge of more 1 Krawulsky (1978), 18-39. 2 Mustawfi: (1915-19), 69. 3 Adamec, ed. (1976), 639, map 1-21-A. 4 Le Strange (1905), 223- 24 (page citations are to the 1930 reprint edition). ILKHANID PALACE AT TAKHT-1 SULAYMAN 95 than 3000 meters, crowned by the late Sasanian fortress of Takht-i Bilqis, 5 the site is surrounded by picturesque rock formations and rolling meadows (fig. 11 ). In order to understand the choice of a remote place like that for building a palace, one has to recall the political situation of the Ilkhanid empire in its early phase. Under Abaqa's father, Hiilegii, the first Ilkhan of Iran, the Mongol armies had advanced through northern Iran- southern Iran had submitted- into eastern Anato­ lia, the Caucasus, and Mesopotamia. Baghdad was conquered, the Caliphate extinguished, and the armies had advanced into Syria. 6 As the natural hinterland and as the headquarters of the ongoing westward campaign, the northwestern Iranian province of Azerbaijan had become the political center of the Ilkhanid empire. Geographical advantages of the province certainly played a part in this develop­ ment: the high but gently sloping mountains with lowland plains of mild climate around Lake Urmia and the Mughan steppe nearby offered ideal pasture ground for the flocks of the nomadic Mongol warriors, whose families could easily move their tents and household between qishlaq andyqylaq, winter and summer camps. Although the Mongol conquerers, from common warrior up to the Ilkhan, stuck for a while to the traditional tent encampment as their proper residences, at least the nobility began rather quickly to adopt also the settled Persian way oflife. The Ilkhans started building palaces in cities as well as at their ordus, their royal encampments. 7 Hiilegii's favorite residence was his ordu at the lower Zarrina-Rud, a river called Jaghatu by the Mongols, which flows into Lake U rmia, south of Maragha, in the area of Miyandoab. No palace is men­ tioned there, but Hiilegii had built palaces in the ordu at Alatagh north of Lake Van, in the cities of Tabriz, Khoi, and Maragha. In Maragha, close to his main ordu, he employed alchemists in the futile hope for production of gold, and here he had built an observatory, r(]Jadkhana, by and for Na$ir al-Din Tusi, the most famous scientist and philosopher of his time and also among Hiilegii's foremost political 5 Naumann, Huff, et al. (1975), 196- 204. 6 For detailed discussion of the subject of the Mongol armies, see the contribu­ tion ofJohn Masson Smith,Jr. in the present volume. 7 Rashid al-Din (1836), 401 - 2 (page citations are to the 1968 reprint edition); Spuler (1939), 449. See also Melville (1990a); Blair (1993b); O'Kane (1993); Masuya (2002), 84-103. .
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