فلک الافلاک | دژ شاپورخواست | Falak-ol-Aflak | Sabr-Khast fortress | Dezbaz | Khoramabad castle

-by Amir Esmaili

Overview
The Castle of Alamut, serving as a mountain fortress, is perched atop a natural hill. Typically, fortresses of this nature are not constructed with a regular design or plan, but instead, they are built in a way that complements the natural conditions of their location. The number of towers found in these fortresses varies; however, they all contain military and guard towers erected at unspecified intervals along the rampart wall. These fortresses are designed for defense and can be viewed as exemplars of military architecture.

Over the course of history, the Castle of Shapur Khast has undergone a multitude of changes and transformations, all in response to the conditions and demands of their respective periods. During each period, rulers implemented significant modifications and alterations to the castle's main plan, which subsequently led to substantial changes to its original appearance. Despite this, remnants of the castle's initial structure and appearance still remain discernible to some extent.

Century Built: 3rd Century CE
Builder: Shapur II (?)
Castellan(s): House of Sāsān
Use: Military Fortress
Location: Shapur Khast | Khoramabad, Luristan, Iran

Exterior Structure of the Castle

A) Size and Area
The area of the ancient enclosure, which is the true seat of historical developments, is approximately "400×300" square meters, and the height of the hill, including the height of the walls of the building, is about 40 meters above the surface of adjacent streets. The area of this castle on the hill is now about 5300 square meters.

B) Building Materials
The building materials used in the construction are mostly made of clay, bricks, stones, and mortar, and in some parts, plaster and gypsum have also been used. Undoubtedly, the durability and survival secrets of this castle can be found in its high-quality materials and technical structure, which, according to the available materials, has a special strength.

C) Towers
The castle has eight circular towers built at various corners of the hill. The towers and battlements of the castle are built vertically and slope towards the hill and have turrets. These towers, which are often different from each other in terms of height and volume, have played a defensive and surveillance role in the past.

"The walls and towers of the castle are designed and built in a way that if enemy forces reached the foot of the hill, holes were made on top of the walls, from which castle guards would drop spears, arrows, stones, and ultimately molten materials or boiling water onto the enemy below, causing their demise."

One of the northern towers of the castle collapsed in 1949 and was later reconstructed by the army. Later, the southwestern tower was also destroyed, which was then restored by the former Ministry of Culture and Arts (the current Cultural Heritage Organization).

Interior of the Castle

The internal structure of the castle can be generally divided into two courtyards or spaces, surrounded by four relatively large halls and several small and large rooms. The castle courtyards are connected to each other by a corridor. In the past, the entire castle had one courtyard, but later, with the construction of several rooms in the middle, it was divided into two parts. The specifications of each of the castle courtyards are as follows:

A) The first courtyard
The first courtyard is 22.5 x 31 meters and its length is from north to south. It has eight rooms. The entrance to the western rooms, the northern hall, and the southwestern renovated towers are opened in it.

B) The second courtyard
The second courtyard is rectangular and its area is 29 x 21 meters, its length is from east to west, and it has sixteen rooms and eleven alcoves outside the rooms. The floors of the rooms are one and a half meters higher than the courtyard floor. The entrances to the western, northern, eastern, and southern halls are opened around this area.

C) The well
To supply the water needed by the castle residents, a 40-meter-deep well was built inside the castle, the end of which reaches a spring called Golestan, which flows under the hill. This well is located in a limited area inside the castle in the northeast. An anonymous author of the geography of Golestan who visited this castle in the Qajar period writes about this well: "In the middle of the castle, there is a well that its mouth is three arm-lengths wide. They have cut the waist and cut the stone to bring water to it, and they have drawn water from a spring that is at the bottom of the hill and poured a lot of expenses into the well for the use of the castle residents, garden, and bath. It has been very useful and beneficial for the times when the kings of the tribes and disorder were everywhere."

Other Structures