City of Siraf

Siraf

The remains of the ancient city of Sirāf are located near the Sirāf Kanuni port in the Kangān district (Bushehr region). What is left of Sirāf are stone cavities dug into the slope of the hills and it seems that, after the advent of Islam, they were also used as sepulchres.

In the heart of the mountains there are also piles of stone, wells, cobblestones and caves similar to fire temples. Once the port of Sirāf, with over three hundred thousand inhabitants, was the most flourishing international port of the country and because of religious tolerance it was the place where the followers of various religions such as the Zoroastrians, the Christians, the Manicheans, the Jews, converged. Buddhists and peoples like the Byzantines, the Greeks and the Chinese; a port that had close commercial relations with Rome and Greece in Europe and with Madagascar in Africa up to Beijing in Asia in the Sasanian and Islamic period.

The terracotta found with various images, the fabrics and jewels, the plaster architecture, the rooms decorated with works of art and the buildings with two or three floors are a part of the remaining heritage of that civilization. But the deadly seven-day earthquake of the year 367 of the lunar Hegira led to the complete silting of this port.

From that day Sirāf has been called the Pompei of Iran.

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