Damavand
— — the mountain at the back of every Persian story.
Not only on a wall.
“A dormant stratovolcano rising above the Alborz, the highest peak in Iran and the highest volcano in Asia. Visible from Tehran on clear winter mornings, snow-capped most of the year. Persian poetry returns to it again and again — Ferdowsi made it the prison of the tyrant Zahhak in the Shahnameh. The mountain appears on the reverse of the 10,000-rial banknote.
Damavand, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Damavand stands at 5,610 metres in the central Alborz range, about 66 kilometres northeast of Tehran. It is the highest peak in Iran, the highest volcano in Asia, and the second-highest volcano in the Northern Hemisphere after Mexico's Pico de Orizaba. The mountain is a dormant stratovolcano, last erupting roughly 7,300 years ago, with a small crater lake near the summit and active fumaroles around the rim. Most climbers approach from the village of Polur on the southern slope, where the main mountain hut is operated by the Iranian Mountaineering Federation.
The summit sits at 5,610 metres, high enough that acute mountain sickness is the limiting factor on most attempts. The standard south route is non-technical in summer, but the final 300 metres climbs through loose volcanic scree and fumaroles whose sulphur smell carries well down the slope. Most parties acclimatise at Camp 3, around 4,200 metres, and start for the summit before dawn. The view from the top on a clear morning reaches across the Caspian basin to the north and the Iranian Plateau to the south.
Damavand is the mountain at the back of Persian literature. In Ferdowsi's tenth-century Shahnameh, the hero Fereydun chains the tyrant Zahhak inside the mountain to wait out the end of time. The peak recurs in poems by Bahar and in modern Iranian song, and appears on the reverse of the 10,000-rial banknote. The standard climbing season runs from late June through early September. In winter the mountain becomes a serious ski-mountaineering objective, climbed mostly by Iranian and visiting alpinists.