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Shah Abbasi System of 999 caravanserais in Persia

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Cyrus Shahmiri View Drop Down
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Shah Abbasi System of 999 caravanserais in Persia
    Posted: 12-Apr-2007 at 08:08
Shah Abbas the Great built a system of 999 caravanserais in Persia,  Each caravanserai is approximiately 30-50 km from the next.
 
This is the map of Persian caravanserais and caravan routes: http://www.unesco.org/culture/silkroads/images/img5.jpg

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  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Apr-2007 at 08:21
Very nice! Smile
What exactly are they for: Are they marketplaces, or just stops to rest and spend the night? And how many still remain, do you know?
They look intruiging...

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  Quote DayI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Apr-2007 at 17:30
Originally posted by Aelfgifu

Very nice! Smile
What exactly are they for: Are they marketplaces, or just stops to rest and spend the night? And how many still remain, do you know?
They look intruiging...


its like modern hotel but its only for traders IIRC.


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  Quote Zagros Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Apr-2007 at 17:46
They are stop overs for refuelling (in the organic sense).
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Apr-2007 at 09:42
There are still several caravanserais in Iran but unfortunately most of them have been abandoned and are being destroyed!
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  Quote Maharbbal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Apr-2007 at 11:29
What do you mean "are being destroyed"? You mean willingly by promotors or people in need of stones?

T's shame though it really is lovely. But I sure that these regions ought to be full of the ghosts who long before us were using these routes and I'm sure they won't let this happen.
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Cyrus Shahmiri View Drop Down
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Apr-2007 at 12:45
There can be many reasons for destroying a caravanserai, such as building roads, railway, factories, ... and of course natural causes.
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  Quote Suren Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2008 at 05:40
Nice topic. Is there any kind of place like caravanserai in other countries? (except Turkey)
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  Quote xi_tujue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2008 at 08:29
Yeah All over Central Asia along the Silk Road
I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage
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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2008 at 17:58
The Seljuks built caravansarays everywhere they ruled.
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  Quote Reginmund Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Nov-2008 at 08:32
Why 999? Did construction happen to stop at that number by chance or did they decide on it beforehand because it would sound cool? Tongue
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  Quote Theodore Felix Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Feb-2009 at 14:22
Caravanserai were known as Khans (or Qans, not the Turkic type of Q, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_palatal_plosive) in Albania and were used up to the point of communist control. In which then they were alll demolished as part of the greater goal of the eradication of the Ottoman memory. The term still survives in the language however, we call a store dyqan.
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  Quote Styrbiorn Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Feb-2009 at 14:40

Originally posted by Suren

Nice topic. Is there any kind of place like caravanserai in other countries? (except Turkey)


They seem to correspond pretty much to inn systems in Europe, at least by looking at Zagros's short explanation. Starting in the Middle ages, regular tavernas were required by law to have supplies for travellers and merchants, with fresh horses etc. These inns (in Sweden called 'gästgiveri', dunno what other terms are) were nothing like the organised system Cyrus is describing though, and were generally not constructed by the state (though some were), but normal tavernas forced to be a part of the system. They were compensated by for example vodka production monopoly. In Sweden those laws were not removed until the 20th century.

Swedish "gästgiveri", in the borderlands on the pilgrim route to Trondheim, Norway.
 



Edited by Styrbiorn - 24-Feb-2009 at 14:46
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