Bam and its Cultural Landscapes

Cultural Landscape is representative of humans’ effects on their natural environment through their adopted life style. Sometimes these effects are such old and rich that can be considered as a world heritage. Given its historical background, as well as rich and inimitable civilization and culture, Bam is recognized among the world’s well-respected cultural landscapes.

About two hundred kilometers far from Kerman city, Bam is the tourism capital of southeast Iran. The origin of life in the region dates back to the realm of Achaemenid Empire and even beyond. Nonetheless, the zenith of Bam ranged from the 7th to 11th centuries CE, being at the crossroads of key trade routes, recognized for the production of cotton and silk garments.

Hence, Bam and its cultural landscapes are exceptional testimony to the development of a trading settlement in the harsh desert environment of the Central Asia region. In addition, Bam, the-used-to-be the most massive adobe citadel of the world, well represent fortified medieval constructions using mud layer technique combined with mud bricks. Since the past two millennia, the existence of life in the region has been dependent on the utilization of qanats. Qanats are the gently sloping underground channels to transport water from water wells or aquifers to surface for drinking and irrigation.

Bam citadel or Arg-e Bam entails an area of 180,000 square meters surrounded by gigantic walls is one of the excellent symbols of civilization in the central Iran. The citadel was surrounded by a residential area of around four hundred houses, schools, and bazaars. Residents had been continuing their life regardless of the associated hardships until a destructive earthquake with a moment magnitude of 6.6 at 05:26 utterly destroyed the citadel and its surrounded town, with 26,271 death tolls.