Mahmoud Ebrahimi · "Our" Office

When the name Kerman is mentioned, you will likely recall the Shazdeh Garden, the Bam Citadel, the Jiroft civilization, the village of Meymaneh, and the old bazaar of Kerman — yet these are only a portion of the heritage surviving from the various historical periods of this city. Apart from the other counties of the province, the city of Kerman alone contains a great many precious monuments, among them Kuh-e Qal'eh Dokhtar, the Mausoleum of Khajeh Atabak, the Masjed-e Malek, the Gonbad-e Sabz, the Gonbad-e Jabeliyeh, and several other historic structures. One of the most singular of these is the Gonbad-e Jabeliyeh — Kerman's only surviving historic stone building. This dome stands on the slope of Saheb-ol-Zaman Hill, beside the Qaem forest. The Kuh-e Qal'eh Dokhtar, recently attributed to the Achaemenid period, lies on the other side of the building.

Age · Unfortunately, no precise information survives regarding the date of this structure's construction; certain historians and archaeologists attribute it to the late Sasanian period.

Others believe it was built at the beginning of the Seljuk period, inspired by Sasanian architecture. Regarding its use and the purpose behind its construction, precise and clear information is likewise lacking; some believe it was a fire temple or the mausoleum of a person named Seyyed Mohammad Tabashiri. In earlier texts this dome was also called the Gonbad-e Gabri. The word "Gabri" is the same as "Jabali," in which the Arabic rendering transformed the "g" to "j" and the "l" to "r." This very circumstance raises the probability that the building was constructed in the pre-Islamic era and belonged to the Zoroastrians and the Sasanian Gabryan. The oldest text in which the Gonbad-e Jabeliyeh is mentioned is the book Mazarat-e Kerman, composed between the lunar years 925 and 939; subsequent texts also contain references to it. Sir Percy Sykes, who around 1900 CE established the British consulate in Kerman, wrote in his travelogue:

Photograph by Hamid Sadeqi

The marked portion indicates the location of the Gonbad-e Jabeliyeh, which lies between Saheb-ol-Zaman Hill and Qal'eh Dokhtar.

"Passing through an abandoned cemetery you will see an octagonal stone building surmounted by a dome in the form of two crescents, its interior diameter 28 feet, each side also 28 feet, its apex of brick, its termination circular. This place is called Jabeliyeh and this dome is the only stone building in Kerman." Likewise, in the Persian translation of the History of Persian Art by Dr. G. Christie Wilson, it is written: "The Jabal of stone in Kerman is a remarkable and grand structure; as its name implies, it is built of stone rather than brick. Considering the great dome raised upon the multi-sided octagonal structure, it is unrivaled in this period."

Architecture · Examining Sasanian architecture, one notices the great similarity of the Gonbad-e Jabeliyeh to the fire temples of that era. The fire temples of Bazeh Hur, the Kheyrabab Gachsaran fire temple, and the Niassar fire temple in Kashan, for example, share many common features with this dome. All of them are built of rubble stone laid in courses with lime and plaster between them. There are of course local traditions regarding the Gonbad-e Jabeliyeh suggesting that camel's milk was used in its construction instead of water in order to make it more durable. Another shared characteristic of these buildings is their siting — on the slope of a hill and upon hard ground for greater stability. 1. One of the principles of Sasanian fire temple architecture is the square plan with a round dome. At each corner of the square, arches were used to connect the walls to the dome. In the Gonbad-e Jabeliyeh, however, the plan has been changed to an octagon, and a sixteen-sided ring and an octagon — each with a progressively smaller diameter than the layer below — connect the body to the dome. One might say that the Gonbad-e Jabeliyeh was built more elaborately than comparable structures of its time, and that geometry played a more prominent role in shaping it. The body of this building bears extensive decoration and detail. On each of the sides, a large blind arch contains a light opening and a door two meters wide. On either side of each blind arch stand two niches that serve both to ornament the building and to reduce the weight of the facade. The dome is built of brick, though it is possible that the builder intended to make it double-skinned but left it unfinished or that the outer layer was gradually lost. To prevent damage and strengthen the structure, the doors of all the sides except one — which is used as the entrance — have been sealed with stone. Inside the building there was once plasterwork and decoration that has gradually been destroyed, though the plaster coating has been preserved and restored.

Current condition · The building today stands within an open precinct that in the not-so-distant past was a cemetery.

Old photographs of the Gonbad-e Jabeliyeh — archive of the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization of Kerman

Bazeh Hur Sasanian fire temple, Mashhad

Kheyrabab chahar-taqi · Masjed-e Saheb-ol-Zaman

Niassar Sasanian fire temple, Kashan

Plan 1 · Plan 2 · Plan 3 · Plan 4

After recent restorations, the precinct has been converted to a green space, which appears to be a positive development. The Gonbad-e Jabeliyeh has now been turned into a stone museum, and many grave markers and historical inscriptions discovered in the province are kept there. However, it appears to have become not so much a stone museum as a place for stacking and abandoning these precious artifacts. A number of the stones lie on the ground and others have been leaned against MDF tables against the wall, which does not seem a proper or principled method of preservation. Shelving units of the same material installed in the interior niches in place of the former doors lack the appropriate proportions and other required qualities, and obstruct the proper viewing and comprehension of the building. The lighting of the space is also of poor quality. Setting aside these details, it seems that this place has far greater value and potential than its current state reflects, and with proper thinking it could yield much more. In its present condition, neither is the interior space properly understood and utilized, nor is the presentation of the stones commensurate with their worth; in fact, the building and the stones are working against each other and causing mutual harm instead of synergy. The stones require a museum in the true sense of the word. For a city like Kerman, with these precious artifacts surviving from the past, one would expect a museum with sound architecture and up-to-date international standards to exist, so as to properly preserve this valuable heritage and display it to visitors and tourists.

Footnote: 1 — All these buildings have a dome that is symmetrical, and usually one or two rings connect the dome to the walls.

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