Hamadan
— the city written into the stone.
Not only on a wall.
“Ancient Ecbatana, capital of the Medes by the seventh century BC and summer capital of the Achaemenids after them. Modern Hamadan sits at about 1,850 metres in the western Zagros, ringed by snow into spring. The tomb of Esther and Mordecai stands in the bazaar quarter; the mausoleum of Avicenna anchors the central square; the Ganjnameh cuneiform inscriptions wait at the mountain's foot, cut for Darius and Xerxes.
Hamadan, 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.
Hamadan lies in the western Iranian highlands, in the foothills of Mount Alvand in the Zagros range, at an elevation of about 1,850 metres. The city covers roughly 90 square kilometres and holds about 580,000 residents. It is identified with ancient Ecbatana, capital of the Median Empire in the seventh century BC and later a summer residence of the Achaemenid kings. The modern street grid radiates from Imam Khomeini Square in six arms, laid out by the German engineer Karl Frisch in 1928 and now one of the recognised circular plans of the early twentieth century.
The Ganjnameh inscriptions sit five kilometres southwest of the city, cut into the granite face of Mount Alvand in two panels, one for Darius I and one for Xerxes I, in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian cuneiform. The Tomb of Esther and Mordecai, one of the most significant Jewish pilgrimage sites in Iran, stands under a brick dome dated to the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The Avicenna Mausoleum, designed by Hooshang Seyhoun and completed in 1952, holds the polymath Ibn Sina, who died in the city in 1037 and is buried beneath a tower drawn from Seljuk forms.
Hamadan's elevation gives it the coldest winters of any Iranian provincial capital, with January means below freezing and snow holding on the Alvand ridge into May. Summers run dry and mild, with daytime highs around 31°C in July. The Alisadr cave, about 75 kilometres north of the city, runs cool through the year; visitors row through roughly 11 kilometres of mapped underground waterway, often called the longest water cave in the world. The thin high-elevation air softens the late-afternoon light over the bazaar and the Alvand ridge above.