TEHRAN - Fakhr-e Davoud Rabat is among the most prominent roofed caravanserais of the Khorasan region with special architecture and an unique geographic circumstance in the Silk Road route.It was signed up on UNESCOs World Heritage List in September 2023 as a historical monument dating back to the Timurid era.Rajabali Labbaf-Khaniki, a scientist and archaeologist from the Khorasan area, told ISNA that numerous kinds of caravanserais or rabats used to be constructed with special building products in proportion to the geographical situation.For example, a caravanserai situated on a mountainous road was a roofed structure built with stone and mud mortar, he said.
While a caravanserai situated in a plain were larger and accommodated more tourists, he added.He stated royal caravanserais (Rabats) were integrated in hectic roadways which linked big cities to each other.
They were palaces to accommodate kings and high-ranking officials, he added.Fakhr-e Davoud Rabat is one of the most gorgeous and roofed caravanserais along Silk Road in Khorasan area, he said.It lies near southern part of Fakhr-e Davoud town, 56 kilometers southwest of Mashhad and 400 meters off the Mashhad-Neyshabur roadway, he added.This caravanserai has actually been developed with building and construction materials like brick, gypsum mortar, sand, limestone, and mudstone, he explained.Labbaf-Khaniki added that there are 4 cylindrical towers at four corners of the caravanserai.
Apart from empowering the monument, the towers were used as watchtower and defense tower to safeguard the security of caravanserai.He continued that the interior area of the caravanserai includes a square-shaped hall in which four brick columns have actually been integrated in the middle and ivanches have actually been constructed on side walls.
There is a dome on top of every ivanche to cover it.Labbaf-Khaniki also stated that Fakhr-e Davoud Rabat has actually been extremely observed by travelers and visitors.Henri Ren dAlmany, French historian, has called it Hassanabad Rabat.Hotham Schindler, an orientalist, composed in his travelogue that Fakhr-e Davoud Village has a roofed caravanserai which has actually been fixed twice.Also, Afzal al-Molk, a travel writer in 1899, saw Fakhr-e Davoud and the caravanserai in this method: The village of Fakhr-e Davoud is the place where caravans dock.
There are 20 peasant households here.
The caravanserai of Shah Abbasi was built here.Sani al-Dawla, the minister of impressions of Nassereddin Shah Qajar, who saw this structure often times, wrote an in-depth description of it and after stating its geographical area, he mentioned in the beginning of Al-Shams: There is a caravanserai in Fakhr-e Davoud village, an equilateral square 20 cubits by 20 cubits, consisting of 4 towers.
Inside the caravanserai is a square platform one cubit high, with a roof constructed above it.
On this platform is a location for pilgrims and passersby, and 8 other roofing systems have been constructed around this platform, under which the products of the caravans are stored.This Khorasani scientist and archaeologist specified: Although Schindler and Afzal-ol-Molk have attributed Fakhr-e Davoud Rabat to Shah Abbas Safavi, there is no engraving or evidence to support this.
Thinking about the architectural style of the structure and its similarity to the covered space of the Alaqband caravanserai and the covered part of the Amir Alishir Navai caravanserai in Sangbast, it can be expected that this structure was founded in the Timurid period and was later on renovated.Fakhr-e Davoud Rabat was signed up under the number 2108 on National Heritage List.KD.
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