Coin of Shapir II, circa 240 A.D., showing fire-altar
Various Zoroastrian
Coin of Shapir II, circa 240 A.D., showing fire-altar
Out of Asia came the Big Four faiths, the four great monotheistic
religions of the world--Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam--and a
fifth, Zoroastrianism. This last is very old: its prophet, Zarathustra or Zoroaster having lived
(probably) at about the same time as the Buddha, circa six hundred B.C.--but no one knows
exactly when or where Zoroaster lived or died; there are only traditions. Equally, the names
of Zoroaster's contemporaries are unknown to history.
Fire was holy to Zoroastrians. It was ranked according to its uses: that is, from the lesser
fires of potters and goldsmiths, through cooking-fires and hearth-fires up to the three great
eternal fires of Sasanian Persia. These fires were the Farnbag, the Gushnasp and the Burzen-Mihr flames, sacred respectively to the three classes of priests, warriors, and farmers. The
Farnbag fire was at first located in Khwarism, but (according to tradition) removed to
Kabulistan by Zoroaster's patron, King Vishpaspa; and relocated again, circa 500 A.D., by
King Khosrow to the sanctuary of Kariyan in the Persian province of Fars. The Gushnasp
fire was located in the city of Shiz. The Burzen-Mihr fire appears to be of dubious location.
Fire-temple of Baku
At the city of Baku, on the shore of the Caspian Sea, there was for a long time a very old
fire-temple; this particular fire-temple was probably older than recorded history. (Other
fire-shrines dotted the whole area of Baku, which in the present day is a major petroleum
source.)
According to Haxthausen (who wrote about Baku in a book published in 1863) this Atish-gah
or Atish-jah--that is, the Place of Fire; in Persian, 'fire-temple' is atash kuda--had been
recently rebuilt: the holy flame issued from a central opening and also from four hollow pillars
in the temple, which was a building of triangular form, about one hundred and ninety paces to
the side, constructed by a Hindu merchant in the eighteen hundreds. He described the flame
as about four feet high, bright, and a wondrous sight as it waved heavily to and fro against a
dark sky - ie, the temple was unroofed.
In 1876, the English traveler James Bryce also visited the fire-temple, and remarks that its
maintenance and the upkeep of the one attendant priest was paid for by the Parsee
community of Bombay, whose members also visited Baku on pilgrimage.
And in 1784, by the account of George Forster of the Bengal Civil Service, the Atish-gah was
a square structure about 30 yards across, surrounded by a low wall and containing many
apartments, in each of which was a small jet of sulphurous fire issuing from a funnel
"constructed in the shape of a Hindu altar." The fire was used for worship, cookery and
warmth. On closing the funnel the fire was extinguished, at which time a hollow sound was
heard accompanied by a strong and cold current of air. Exclusive of these, there was a large
jet from a natural cleft, and many small jets outside the wall, one of which was used by the
Hindus (of which there was a large trading community at Baku just then) for burning their
dead.
The Fire-fountain of Hit
At the town of Hit or Hid, near Baghdad in Iraq, there were famous and ancient naphtha
springs: the ground was yellow limestone covered with a layer of crystalized gypsum, from
which issued springs with salt or bitterly sulphurous water; various gases escaped in large
bubbles from these springs, and bitumen flowing on the surface of the upwelling resembled
dirty scum. Deposits of salt rimmed the springs. The bitumen issued from these springs with
a peculiar sound, was scooped up with palm leaves, stored in large pieces, then diluted with
lime and exported by boat. Harvesting bitumen was a local business. There were many
pitch or bitumen springs in the vicinity, and naphtha springs as well. (That's understandable;
we're talking about the Persian Gulf here.)
In Assyrian times the ancient name of Hit was Id. "At Id there were the usmeta stones, and
great gods spoke there also." (From the account of king Tukulti Enurta II's campaign of
about 889 BC--the earliest surviving mention of Hit.) The word iddu in Babylonian meant
'bitumen spring'. The word usmeta may have meant 'hardened bitumen', or else the golden
limestone of the area which was quarried near Hit.
Herodotus refers to the town of Is, eight days from Babylon; past this town, he says, flowed a
little river also called Is, which joins the Euphrates; its waters carried bitumen such as was
used in building the fortifications of Babylon. Isidore of Charax mentions Hit as the
waystation of Ispolis; Ptolemy's Geography calls it the town of Idikara (presumably from id
and kara, respectively the Babylonian and Aramaic-Arabic words for bitumen). At the time of
Xenophon, Hit was known as Diacira, from Du Kir, meaning 'giving bitumen' - another ancient
name for the town.
(All of the following accounts come from Professor A. V. Williams Jackson, a scholar of Indo-Iranian languages who traveled through Persia in the year 1906.)
The Ash-hills at Urumiah
At Lake Urumiah in Azerbaijan, a former center of the Zoroastrian faith, there are as many as
sixty-four large hills scattered around the lake, each hill being composed of ashes mixed with
earth. Each hill is built up on a small natural elevation, and each is supposed to have been
formed from the heaped-up ashes of a fire-shrine. None of the fire-shrines remain; there are
only the ash-hills. A dozen mounds are in the immediate vicinity of the city of Urumiah, and
Professor Jackson examined them in 1906. They were called 'hills of the Fire-worshipers' by
the local people. (The original meaning of the name Azerbaijan is something close to 'place of
the holy flame'.)
The hill of Degalah, close to the city, was one such ash-hill. It was three or four hundred
yards long, nearly as broad, and a hundred feet high . . . and easy to examine, since it had
been excavated all over by the neighboring farmers, who had lately taken to using the ashes
to fertilize their fields and make saltpetre with. (Apparently many similar ash-hills near other
Persian cities had already vanished, dug away for fertilizer.) Professor Jackson thought at
first that the hill was made of soft earth with many strata of solid ash, each several feet thick;
but on close examination he decided it was clay, with ashes mixed in. He was informed that
within local memory, stone buildings had stood on the hill, but they had all been pulled down to
build the local village (whose name was also Degalah).
A foundation-wall of burnt brick had been found near the bottom of the hill; the bricks were
about six inches thick by eighteen to twenty-four inches long, this shape being typical of the
old fire-temples investigated by the professor. Also found in the ashes were thousands of
fragments of pottery, terra-cotta figurines, and coins. Some of the pots had figures of men
and horses drawn on them. There were some large jars; Professor Jackson himself examined
a shattered amphora found twenty-feet down a shaft in the hill. It had been buried upright
and there were pieces of bone and grains of parched corn in the debris around it, as well as a
great deal of ashes. He writes he could not find anyone who had found any inscribed tablets
or cylinders in the excavations, though.
Another hill named Lakki was located seventeen miles north of Urumiah; it too was made of
ash.
Another hill called Termani was six miles east of Lakki. This mound was fairly intact, shaped
like a cone, and the outline of an old building's foundation could be traced on the ground
nearby. What stones remained from this building were large enough to make the villagers
wonder how they could have been moved into place. They remarked that in the 1880's, a well
had been sunk into the hill and a large image found buried in the ashes; afterward the local
Muslims destroyed this statue, since idol-making is forbidden by the Koran. The ground
around was strewn with potsherds.
Another hill named Ahmat was just southeast of Termani. Large urns were found in this hill,
and human skeletons were found in the urns. The local farmers also found graves with stone
slabs over them, buried in the ashes.
Yet another hill, named Geog Tapah (or Gog Tepe) was east-southeast of Urumiah. A large
Nestorian church crowned the summit. When the workmen were excavating the foundations
of the church, they came across an underground chamber built of stone, containing a carved
hollow cylinder three or four inches high. They filled in the chamber (to make the church
foundations more secure) and the cylinder, at the turn of the century, was in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York. This cylinder is shaped like a large napkin-ring of translucent
alabastar. Professor Jackson examined it in New York, and describes it: "The design of the
carvings, in the opinion of this authority, is archaic Babylonian <showing> the sun-god,
Shamash, emerging from the portals of the east and accompanied by other divine personages.
The god ... carries a club on his right shoulder and holds a weapon in his left hand ... Two
bearded porters, with flowing hair and wearing low double-horned caps, fling open the gates
through which the god advances. Behind the left-hand gate-keeper stands the demigod,
Ea-bani, half man, half bull, facing full front and holding in his two hands a standard. Behind
him again are three figures, on the other side of the cylinder, approaching the sun-god. The
first of these is a man; the second a woman in a flounced robe ... the third, a bearded divine
figure clothed in a long skirted mantle." Also found in this hill were large earthen jars
containing bones (ie urn-burials) and two skulls with brass nails driven into the ears (ie the
skulls of two people who had been executed?).
At Sain Kalah
In the vicinity of Sain Kalah there was reported to be a mound of ashes, the remains of an
ancient fire-temple. (This was apparently mentioned or described in Bishop, Journeys in
Persia, vol 2 197.) This is on the road from Urumiah, crossing a high pass through the Mian
Bulagh mountains to Sanjud, and just beyond the Jagati river.
The Gushnasp fire at Shiz
(and the Sovar fire at Tus)
There was a defunct fire-temple at Takht-i Suleiman (the Throne of Solomon) a ruined city
near Mount Zindan, 'Solomon's Dungeon.' These ruins are about ninety miles from Lake
Urumiah. Mount Zindan itself is a volcano, with a crater at the peak and a long volcanic
ridge extending two or three miles from the peak. The volcano was extinct, but blasts of fetid
air apparently steamed from the ground of this ridge, and there were a score of tiny warm
springs bubbling up from miniature craters. Professor Jackson and his party rode up the
ridge to the volcanic cone, which was called Solomon's Prison Height; Jackson climbed right
up to the summit (about 45 feet above the plain) and tossed a stone into the funnel of the
crater. The rim of the crater itself was about 300 feet in circumference. Just north of Mount
Zindan is the mountain Takht-i Bilkis, 'Throne of the Queen of Sheba'; on its summit, legends
say, King Solomon built a summer palace for his beloved. To the east are lower ridges, but
they form a huge cauldron rimming the plain, from which rises a low hill crowned with the
fortified ruins of Takht-i Suleiman.
From Professor Jackson's account, the ruined city itself was surrounded by massive ramparts,
between thirty and forty feet high; there were once four huge gateways roughly aligned to the
cardinal points. The walls enclosed an oblong shape about three-quarters of a mile around.
Inside the walls were a number of buildings, including the abandoned fire-temple.
This fire-temple was called a bath-house by the locals, who know (of course) very little about
fire-temples. It was an arched and vaulted building with a dome, partly sunk below the
ground, and made from bricks nearly a foot square (as Professor Jackson found true of other
ruined fire-temples he examined). There were two arched portals, through which one
descended to the vaulted brick chamber below; the walls were four or five feet thick; inside
the chamber were arched wall-recesses. The interior had the air of a place built for the
preservation of precious treasure.
In Professor Jackson's opinion, these ruins were the ancient city of Shiz (as named by Arab
writers) and also the Gazna or Ganzah of the Persians, the Gazaka or Canzaca of classical
writers and the city of Ganjak named in the Pahlavi texts. If the city was Shiz, then the
fire-temple housed the holy flame named Adhargushnasp or Gushnasp. Shiz was described
as containing within its walls a lake which calcified all objects that were thrown into it;
Jackson describes such a lake inside the walls of Takht-i Suleiman.
Shiz was also supposedly the birthplace of Zarathustra.
Now, Shiz was described circa AD 1220 by the geographer Yakut. At this time, the
fire-temple was still in use. Yakut wrote of the city: "Shiz, a district of Azarbaijan. Its name
is a form of Chis, out of which the Arabs have made Shiz. It is said that Zaradusht, the
prophet of the Fire-Worshippers, came from there ... Here is what Mis'ar ibn Muhalhal
The city of Shiz was supposedly built by the legendary Persian king Kei Khosru. Various
Arab and Persian geographers all mention the city and its fire-temple, Adharjushnas.
Al-Hamadhani (writing about AD 910) adds that the fire of Adharjushnas or Adhargushnasp
belonged to Kei Khosru and was originally located elsewhere in Azarbaijan, but was removed
to Shiz.
One Masudi (died AD 951) wrote an account of various fire-temples titled Meadows of Gold.
He mentions Shiz: "A fourth fire-temple is found in the country of Shiz and Arran; it was
originally consecrated to those idols which Anushirvan destroyed. Others say that
Annushirvan, having found in this temple an altar on which the sacred fire was burning,
transported it to a place called al-Birkah ('the basin' near Shiraz). The <ancient Keianian>
king Kei Khosru built a temple which was known under the name of Kusujah <ie Ganjah>.
The fire itself, Gushnasp or Ataro-gushnasp, was the subject of legends. It was regarded as a
holy aura or numinous being: it was the triumphant fire Ataro-gushnasp, which aided Kei
Koshru while he was engaged in putting down idol-worship around Lake Chechast; according
to Zoroastrian tradition this occurred about 800 BC. The holy fire settled on the mane of Kei
Koshru's horse and drove away all darkness and gloom, so that the idol-temples could be
destroyed. In the same locale as the extirpated idol-temples, Gushnasp was then established
at an appointed shrine on Asnavand mountain
Also established near Lake Chechast was a second fire, Sovar, near a place called Tus.
Finally, one of the Byzantine church fathers, Georgius Cedrenus, describes the destruction of
Shiz circa AD 1100, by the emperor Heraclius during his war against the later Sasanian king
Khosru Parviz (King Chosres): "The Emperor Heraclius took possession of the city of
Gazaca, in which was the temple and the treasures of Croesus, king of Lydia, and the
imposture of the burning coals.
At Kermanshaw
There was a fire-temple at Kemish, near the rock carvings of Taki Dostan; both are close to
the city of Kermanshaw, which is at Lat. 34 degrees 26' N. (This is also near Hamadan, the
site of the ancient palace of Ecbatana.) More rock carvings are at Besittoon.
Temple of Anahita at Kangavar
There was a more modern fire-temple dedicated to the goddess Anahita at Kangavar (a small
but very old town, lying directly on the route between Bisitun and Hamadan or Ecbatana).
Kangavar was mentioned by the Greek geographer Isidor of Charax in the first century AD,
under the name of Konkobar; its name may be derived from the Avestan *Kanha-vara,
'enclosure of Kanha'. In 190, the town was surrounded by mounds and low hills, some of
them capped with buildings erected on the foundations of older buildings. There was a
modern brick citadel and one or two mosques. But near the heart of the town (on the main
road, close to a large caravanserai) were more interesting remains: the ruins of a wall of white
marble blocks of mammoth size, hewn with precision, crowned by broken columns and
pilasters; the whole formed the outline of a grand enclosure of buildings erected in Greek
style.
In the enclosure were two large buildings, one to the northwest lying directly on the main
street, and the second some distance southeast on the edge of a slope or hollow. The Arab
geographer Yakut wrote of Kangavar in 1220; he says the place was the haunt of bandits,
locally called either Kasr-i Shirin, 'castle of Shirin' after Khosru's favorite wife, or more often
Kasr al-Lasus, the 'Robber Castle'. He wrote: "The Robber Castle is a very remarkable
monument, and there is a platform some twenty cubits above the ground and on it there are
vast portals, palaces, and pavilions, remarkable for their solidity and their beauty."
In the nineteenth century, various Europeans investigated the ruins. Ker Porter in 1818
found them to form the foundations of a single huge platform - a rectangular terrace three
hundred yards square, crowned with a colonnade. Professor Jackson in 1906 found one very
well-preserved retaining wall at the NW corner of the enclosure, probably part of the
foundation of a single building; it was 12 to 15 feet high and runs north and south for more
than 70 feet. At right angles eastward from this extended the north wall of the temple,
equally massive, built of granite blocks some of which were more than 7 feet long and 4 feet
high - this north wall was partially buried in debris and hard to investigate. These walls were
capped with a heavy coping, which seemed to have supported a colonnade of pillars in the
Greek style. Three columns were still standing when Jackson saw them, on the cornice of the
NW wall; they were each about 6 feet in diameter and had been preserved by being built right
into the side wall of a modern building. A fourth broken column stood alone at the corner
where the north-south retaining wall met the east-west retaining wall. (Ker Porter in 1818
recorded eight intact columns.) Jackson found a jumble of immense blocks in the SE corner
of the ruins, and traced the general outline of a wall running about 100 feet north-south. In
his opinion, this was all that remained of the ancient Temple of Anahita.
A temple of Anahita is not a fire-temple per se, but it was Zoroastrian (Anahita being one of
Ahuramazda's good angels) and was probably far more lavishly appointed than a normal
fire-shrine. According to classic historians, for example, the temple of Anahita at Ecbatana
was a vast palace, four-fifths of a mile (ie seven stades) in circumference, built of cedar or
cypress. In all of it, not a single plank or column stood but was covered by plates of silver or
gold. Every tile of the floors was made of silver, and the whole building was apparently faced
with bricks of silver and gold. It was first plundered by Alexander in 335 BC, then further
stripped during the reigns of Antigonus (BC 325-301) and Seleucus Nicator (BC 312-280) . . .
but when Antiochus the Great arrived at the city in 210 BC, he found columns covered with
gold and silver tiles piled up in the temple, along with gold and silver bricks. From these he
struck coinage amounting to about four thousand talents' worth.
Marabin fire, Isfahan
At the city of Isfahan was a deserted but largely intact fire-temple, locally known as the Atash
Kadah or Atash Gah. This deserted shrine stood atop of a hill which rises about 700 feet
sharply above the plain, at a distance of perhaps 3 miles from Isfahan. One ascended the hill
by a winding path with a series of natural stone steps. The ruined temple was on the very
crest of the hill; it was about 14 feet high and 15 feet in diameter, octagonal in form, and
composed of large unburnt bricks. The roof was once domed, but most of it had collapsed by
the time that Professor Jackson visited it. In the walls were eight doorways looking out
toward different points of the compass; that is, this building had eight sides, in each of which
was a door. Brick and stucco columns framed the doorways and supported the roof, giving a
pillared effect. There was no artificial foundation beneath the temple; its floor was living
rock, evidently unsmoothed, since Jackson remarked that part of it thrust itself upward into
the middle of the shrine.
Over the inner side of each doorway was a sunken niche, whose lines curved up to give an
arched appearance to the doors. Traces of brownish plaster clung in these niches, but no clue
to the original finish of the walls remained. There were no inscriptions, just a few graffiti of
modern Persian names scrawled in corners. The sanctuary floor was 13 feet 6 inches in
diameter, almost circular in shape, and in the center of it was a curved outline, probably of the
mortar base upon which a fire-altar rested. There were ashes in the debris.
Other ruined buildings stood on the same hill, surrounding the shrine at the summit. These
stand a little below the shrine and probably formed a temple precinct. Jackson wrote "The
design and arrangement reminded me of the ruined sanctuary of fire which I noticed near
Abarkuh on my journey to Yezd." He also described a series of arched recesses or cells
inset in the slope of the hill itself, partly constructed of sun-dried bricks.
Arab geographers called this place the fire-temple of Marabin or Maras. Masudi in
Meadows of Gold said the temple was originally devoted to idol-worship (that is, worship of
the sun, moon and five principal stars) and it was made into a fire-temple by King Vishtaspa,
Zoroaster's original patron.
According to local tradition at Isfahan, the temple went back to the time of the Achaemenian
king Artaxerxes, who reigned BC 465-425. An annal written by one Hamzah of Isfahan
(eleventh century AD) enlarged on this tradition: "He
Ali's Well, Shiraz
Near the city of Shiraz, outside the city's Allahu Akbar Gate and in the vicinity of the grave of
the poet Saadi (who wrote the Gulistan) are hills where lie a ruined fortress or castle, probably
Sasanian; its name was Bandar's Fortress. West of this was a large hollow in the rock of a
hill, partly artificial and partly natural; its origin and purpose are unknown. Its name was the
Kahvarah-i Div, Cradle of the Demon. Also near the castle were two very deep wells, one
called Ali's Well and supposedly the site of an old fire-temple. This, Ali's Well, was a pool at
the bottom of a series of steps, surmounted by a building which gaves the well a holy air;
according to legend, the water sprang up and quenched the flame of Zoroaster when the true
faith of Mohammed came into Persia. Professor Jackson wrote that local people also pointed
out to him the ruins of an ancient fire-temple on a hill overlooking the city.
Professor Jackson seems to have been an eccentric authority, though; on his travels through
Asia--and he was an authority on Zoroastrianism, interested in nothing but fire-temples--he
passed through Baku but completely missed the fire-springs there. At several cities, he
mentioned being pointed toward fire-temples by the locals, but for some reason he never
visited these temples himself. He mentions images of fire-altars on ancient Parthian coins, a
strange mistake since there are no fire-altars pictured on Parthian coinage--only on Sasanian
coins, alas! Also, he carefully photographed Bactrian camels for posterity . . . and called
them dromedaries. However he can presumably be trusted on what he saw with his own eyes,
provided it did not involve the animal kingdom.
Fire of Nimrud, at Abarkuh
Outside the city of Abarkuh, on an elevation at the side of the road stood two buildings, ruined
edifices of mud and sun-dried bricks. Both were evidently temples. One closely resembled
the Shrine of Fire near Isfahan. Large heaps of ashes (like those at Urumiah) had also been
found in this vicinity, and were commented on by Arab writers as early as the tenth century; at
that time the people of Abarkuh called these the ashes of the fires of Nimrod, into which
Abraham was thrown. (A nice theory, but according to the Bible, Abraham never got near the
place. But that's folklore for you.) By the twelfth century, Abarkuh was calling itself the city
of Abraham, and local superstition claimed that rain never fell within the city walls, owing to
the prayers of Abraham; and cattle were never raised by the city's farmers, because Abraham
had once forbidden it.
Another legend claimed that Sudabah, daughter of Tubba and wife of Kei Kaus, fell in love
with her husband's son Kei Khosru (ie Siavash in the Avesta?) and tried to seduce him.
When he rejected her, she told his father he had tried to dishonor her, which was a lie. Then
Kei Khosru built a large fire at Abarkuh and said if he was innocent the fire could not burn
him, but if he was guilty he would surely burn; he walked right through the flames and was not
scorched, thereby disproving all Sudabah's accusations. The ashes of this fire formed a vast
hill, which came to be called the Mountain of Abraham.
Fire of Victory, at Yezd
In the city of Yezd, in 1906, there was a large Zoroastrian colony with four living fire-temples,
besides smaller fire-shrines in Zoroastrian villages spread around the city. The major temple
was the Atash-i Varahran or Atash Bahram, 'Fire of Victory'. The three minor temples were
designated either as Dari-i Mihr or Adarian.
Isfendiar's temple, Ardistan
At the city of Ardistan, there was a fire-temple supposedly founded by Isfendiar (the son of
King Vishtasp).
Shrine of Zoroaster, at the tomb of Darius
Two fire-altars are carved in the stone by the tombs of the Achaemenian kings, at Naksh-i
Rustam. This site is near the ruined city of Stakhra, forty miles south of Persepolis. Here,
cut into a cliff face, are the tombs of four succeeding kings: Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes I, and
Darius II. About five miles south is a great platform which once housed the royal palaces,
plus three other Achaemenian tombs of somewhat later date. At the foot of the cliff are
seven panels depicting Sasanian kings--five showing scenes of battle on horseback or kings
mounted receiving tribute, from which the site was mistakenly named Naksh-i Rustam,
Rustam's Horse.
Opposite the fourth tomb is a square building dating back to Achaemenian times, called
Ka'bah-i Zardusht, the Shrine of Zoroaster. By its resemblance to fire-temples at
Naubandajan (near Fasa below Fahliyan in Farsistan - the modern Fars province of Iran) and
Firuzabad--and to representations of fire-shrines on coins of the Parthian dynasty--this
building was a fire-temple. Professor Jackson's book shows a picture of this shrine. It is a
building of large stones or bricks (to a modern eye they look like masonry blocks) square in
shape, with a flat roof. In one of the two visible walls is a doorway with uneven sides. In the
second wall are three sets of two parallel niches which look like the windows in a three-storey
building; but Jackson says they are not windows, merely blank spaces. There is no
smoke-vent.
The two nearby fire-altars stand close together at the lower end of the bluff. They appear to
be carved out of the living rock, and look rather like squat chess-castles, about four feet tall,
with vaguely crenelated-looking tops. They are very much like the fire-altar shown on the
Shapir II coin.
Solomon's Prison, near the Tomb of Cyrus
Here we have a small conflict of opinion.
At Pasargadae, the site of the tomb of Cyrus the Great, is a stone platform which was
evidently the foundation of a palace's audience-hall; it is outlined in immense blocks of
masonry, over 250 feet long and 50 feet broad. The local people call it Takht-i Suleiman--ie,
yet another Solomon's Throne. Many other ruins are scattered over the vicinity.
According to Professor Jackson, near Solomon's Throne is a single remaining wall from a
square stone building, which is called Solomon's Prison, Zindan-i Suleiman. He claims that
his fellow scholars agreed with him that this building was a fire-temple.
He examined the site. According to later experts, this building--the Prison of Solomon--is
almost identical to the Ka'bah-i Zardusht near Darius' tomb. Both are described as high
towers with three rows of false windows and a single interior room, and apparently this
chamber is also very high up and access is by way of a grand staircase. Jackson thought they
were fire-temples, and explains away the lack of windows or smoke-vents by claiming the
magi would burn relatively smokeless fuel in their holy fires, since they considered smoke
unclean anyway. More recently, the two buildings were thought to be tombs, or perhaps to
have been used for special rituals in the initiation and coronation of kings.
Finally, here's one last description, of the fire-temple of Baku in 1879, from the description of
Edmond O'Donovan:
"After stumbling through the black naphtha mud . . . a hole roughly broken in a modern wall
gives entry to a small chamber, twenty feet by fifteen, adjoining which is a smaller one to the
right. In the opposite wall and to the left is another low door opening onto a semi-circular
yard, fifteen feet wide at its greater diameter. It is the remaining half of a once celebrated
fire temple, or rather of the small monastery connected with it. The exterior wall, eleven or
twelve feet high, on which is a parapeted walk, is composed of rough stone. From the
courtyard one can enter thirty-five roomy cells, accessible by as many doors. These were the
cells of the former devotees of fire, or perhaps the accommodation for the pilgrims who came
to visit the shrine, such as we see at celebrated religious tombs in Persia today. These cells
formerly enclosed a circular space, one-half of which has been demolished or has fallen to
ruin, and a modern wall through which one enters is the diameter of the circle. Looking
northward, and supported by three double sets of pillars, is the ancient chief entrance, above
which the parapet walk is continued. This entrance has been long walled up, and the only
access is given by the hole broken in the modern wall behind. The cells formerly occupied by
the monks or pilgrims are now rented at a moderate price to some of the workmen who belong
to the factories immediately surrounding, by the priest, the last of his race, who still lingers
beside his unfrequented altars. Near the western wall of the semi-circular enclosure is the
real fire shrine. It is a square platform, ascended by three steps, of a little over one foot each
in height. The upper portion of the platform is about sixteen feet square, and at each angle
rises a monolith column of grey stone, some sixteen feet high and seven feet broad at the
base, supporting a gently sloping stone roof. In the centre of the platform is a small iron
tube, where the sacred fire once burned. North, south, and east of this shed-like temple are
three wells with slightly raised borders, the contents of which could at a previous period be
lighted at will. Now, owing to the drain on the subterranean gases, this is no longer possible .
. . The priest is called for. He is the same
Fire-altar on reverse of coin of King Ardashir I, circa 226 A.D.
The images of coins are kindly provided by The Coins and History of Asia
Jewelled Button Courtesy of Ann:
Bibliography:
Bryce, James, Transcaucasia and Ararat, 1896 (brief mention of Baku).
DeJong, Albert, Traditions of the Magi, 1971 (brief mention of the shrine near Darius' tomb).
Jackson, Professor A. V. Williams, Persia Past and Present, 1906.
Musil, Alois, The Middle Euphrates (an account of a 1927 survey expedition up the
Euphrates, with mention of the naphtha springs at Hit).
O'Donovan, Edmond, The Merv Oasis, 1879 (detailed account of Baku).
Watters, On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 1904 (a description of Baku).
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Last Updated February 1st, 2000 by Sylvia and Lisa