2,200 years ago, the Safavid dynasty set its sights on a city that had already risen during the Parthian empire, Bam. Located in the southeast of present-day Iran, in the western foothills of the harsh Baluchi desert, a wall was built and inside it, an entire city, using only mud.
On December 26, 2003, a very powerful earthquake left not only the adobe citadel, but a good part of the modern town, reduced to rubble. It took months to count the human losses, which in the end rose – according to official statistics – to 46,000. In addition to them, irreparable, the ancient mud monument had disappeared, only a few walls remained standing. The recognizable silhouette of the crenellated wall, the defensive bastions, the palaces inside and the enigmatic cooling towers were pure dust.
Being a world heritage site and, without a doubt, the main tourist objective of southern Iran, the government began a faithful reconstruction of the adobe citadel, which has already reached a notable percentage. Bam is recognizable again. Now the mud is darker, as it takes the passing of the years and the wear and tear of the sun and the wind to pale, but one can now cross the imposing portal that leads to a maze of alleys. You ascend the hill and visit the old Safavid palaces, as well as the cooling towers, in the style of those found in the also wonderful Yadz.
These watchtowers took advantage of the pressure and temperature differences between the air underground and the hot air outside. They urgently needed the participation of the ghanats, excavated canals that served for agricultural irrigation and storage in cisterns, from which the inhabitants of Bam drank. The air currents created by the conjunction of the ghanats and the cooling towers kept some of the most notable buildings in Bam cool, in a system that sophisticated that used by some of the Rajasthani palaces in India.
Bam's rebuild has forced some tough decisions to be made. On the one hand, they wanted to achieve an exact replica of the ancient town, using only wooden structures and adobe attached to them. On the other hand, that another earthquake – they are frequent in the region – would not ruin everything that was rebuilt. It seems that the commitment of the technicians has achieved a middle ground, although they warn that if the earthquake were to return to the magnitude of that of 2003 – 6.6 degrees on the Richter scale – a new collapse would have to be expected.
Hoping that this will not happen again, the tourists gradually return to Bam. Iran has never been a well-publicized destination in the West, nor has it been sufficiently reported that Bam is once again sporting some of its past splendor. The province of Kerman is usually far from the major centers of interest, even though the capital itself and the Kaluts desert, with rock formations that guarantee a “trip to Mars”, are worth the trip.
Bam is more than 1,100 kilometers from Tehran, the journey by land is endless and exhausting. The most convenient thing is to fly to Kerman and from there use a good road that in just over two hours leaves you at the gates of the astonishing mud citadel. Bam also has an airport.
