Bibliography

Ahmad Ashraf, Neẓāmhā-ye bahra-bardāri-e kešāvarzi dar Irān, a monograph, Plan and Budget Organization, Institute for Regional Planning and Training, Tehran, 1353 Š./1974.

Eckard Ehlers, “Die Turkmenesteppe in Nordpersien und ihre Umrandung: Eine landeskundliche Skizze,” in Strukturwandlungen im nomadisch-bäurlichen Lengensraum des Orients, erdkundliches Wissen, Geogrrafische Zeitschrift 26, Wiesbaden, 1970, pp. 1-51.

Manṣur Gorgāni, Eqteṣād-e Gorgān o Gonbad o Dašt, Tehran, 1350 Š./1971.

Horst Kopp, Städte im östlichen iranischen Kaspitiefland, Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten 33, Erlangen 1973.

Mohandesin-e mošāwer-e ṭarḥ o meʿmāri, Ṭarḥ-e jāmeʿ-e šahrestān-e Gonbad-e Kāvus, Tehran, 1375 Š./1996.

ʿAbd-al-Ḥamid Naẓari, “Maḥalla-bandi-e qawmi-e šahr-e Gonbad-e Kāvus,” Rošd-e āmuzeš-e joḡrāfiā 11/43, 1997, pp. 29-34.

Shoko Okazaki, The Development of Large Scale Farming in Iran: The Case of Gorgan, The Institute of Asian Economic Affair, Tokyo, 1968.

(E. Ehlers, M. Momeni, and EIr.)

 

ii. POPULATION

Because of changes to the boundaries of the sub-province (šahrestān) of Gonbad-e Qābus (Kāvus) and its constituent rural districts, which culminated in the separation of the district of Minu-Dašt, the sub-province’s population data for the census years are not comparable. Comparable data are, however, available for the city of Gonbad-e Kāvus (Table 1).

The high rate of growth in the period 1956-1966 is partly explained by an influx of immigrants from the province of Sistān. This was brought about by the push factor of drought in Sistān and the need for manpower in the rapid expansion of cotton cultivation, a highly labor-intensive crop, in the region. As a result, a plantation-like organization of agricultural production emerged in the region with a fairly large number of immigrant cultivators who lived on the cultivation site. Furthermore, the development of related industries such as cotton seed oil processing in the city attracted more immigrant workers to the region. Large scale immigration to Gonbad-e Qābus from other provinces continued, and between 1986 and 1996 over one-third of the immigrants of this sub-province, as well as the immigrants to its urban areas, were born in other provinces. Of the immigrants to the urban areas in this period, women accounted for only 22 percent. The population of other cities of the sub-province in 1996 were as follows: Āzādšahr, 33,000; Rāmiān, 11,000; Ḵānbeben, 10,000; Daland, 7,000.

Economic and social characteristics. In 1996, over 85 percent (90 percent for men and 80 percent for women) of the 6-years-old and over population in the city of Gonbad-e Qābus were literate; 45 percent of this figure was composed of students, of which 3 percent (1,173 persons) pursued higher education. In that year, 65 percent of men in the age group of 15 years old and over and 51 percent of the women in the age group of 10 years old and over were married; 95 percent of women 10 years old and over were married before the age of 35, which shows the high incidence of marriage among them.

In 1996, 34 percent of the city population in the age group of 10 years old and over were active, of which 89 percent were employed and 11 percent unemployed. Of the employed, 65 percent were engaged in services, 27 percent in industry, just over 7 percent in agriculture, and the rest in unclassified activities. Of the 11 percent unemployed, 15 percent were women and 85 percent men.

The distribution of household amenities and utilities in 1966 were as follows: 98 percent of the households had electricity and were supplied with pipelined water, and 75 percent were supplied with pipelined gas. Over one-third of the households had telephones. Over 69 percent of the households were owner-occupiers, 19 percent were tenants, and 13 percent occupied their dwellings under other conditions.

Mohandesin-e mošāwer-e ṭarḥ o meʿmāri, Ṭarḥ-e jāmeʿ-e šahrestān-e Gonbad-e Kāvus II, Tehran, 1996.

National Census, 1956, 1966, 1976, 1986, 1996.

Ḥabib-Allāh Zanjāni, Rāhnemā-ye jamʿiyat-e šahrhā-ye Irān, 1956-1370, Tehran, 1378 Š./1999.

(Habib-Allāh Zanjāni)

 

iii. MONUMENT

Gonbad-e Qābus is a tall tower that marks the grave of the Ziyarid ruler Qābus b. Vošmgir (r. 978-1012). It is the major monument (Iranian National Monument no. 86) of the town of Gonbad-e Qābus after which the town itself is named.

Figure 1. Plan of the Gonbad-e Qābus.

Plate I. View of the tomb.

In plan, the building is a flanged circle, with an interior diameter of 9.67 meters at the base and three-meter walls articulated with ten right-angled buttresses spaced regularly around the exterior. The single entrance doorway, set between two buttresses on the southeast, is surmounted by trilobed niches, some of the earliest evidence for the development of the moqarnas, or stalactite vaulting, in Persia. Formally, the building is therefore a simple and logical variant of the type of cylindrical tomb tower found along the Caspian littoral at sites such as Rādkān and Lājim.

What sets the Gonbad-e Qābus apart from its contemporaries is its extraordinary height: including the conical roof, it measures 52 meters, some three times its diameter. The verticality is enhanced by its position on a 10-meter artificial hillock. Like a skyscraper, the tower thus dominates the surrounding plain and can be seen as far away as 30 kilometers.

The tomb is entirely constructed of fine-quality baked brick whose pale yellow color has been turned golden by the sun. The technical quality of the construction is clear from its almost perfect survival despite the ravages of time, climate, and even reported shelling by the Russians. The only decoration comprises two inscription bands which ring the building above the doorway and below the roof. Each band is divided into ten panels, one set between each pair of buttresses. The text, which is repeated in the two bands, states that the amir Qābus b. Vošmgir ordered the building during his lifetime in the lunar year 397 (27 September 1006-16 September 1007) and the solar year 375 (15 March 1006-14 March 1007). The two dates allow us to bracket the date of commissioning between late September 1006 and mid-March 1007.

The patron was the fourth ruler of the local Ziyarid line which controlled Tabarestān and Gorgān during the so-called “Daylamite interlude” in the 10th and 11th centuries. Qābus, though reportedly a bloodthirsty tyrant, was also a noted patron of the arts. The philosopher and physician Ebn Sina (q.v. Avicenna) took refuge at his court; so did the scholar and polymath Biruni (q.v.), who wrote his first and best-known work, the calendrical treatise entitled Aṯar al-bāqīa (q.v.) there. Qābus himself was a poet and proponent of the new type of rhymed prose. His interests and talents are clear from the foundation inscription, which is composed in rhymed prose and uses two calendars, the Muslim lunar and Iranian solar. The sober style of the script—tall angular letters formed of cut bricks once covered with a plaster slip—contrasts with the decorative style found on many contemporary buildings and shows that the inscription, like the building itself, was designed to stand out from afar. The carefully planned text combines with the tower’s formal purity and soaring verticality to make it one of the most famous and memorable monuments in all of Iranian architecture.

Sheila S. Blair, The Monumental Inscriptions from Early Islamic Iran and Transoxiana, Leiden, 1992, no. 19, pp. 63-65.

C. Edmund Bosworth, “Kabus b. Wushmagir b. Ziyar,” EI2 III, pp. 357-58.

Ernst Diez, Churasanische Baudenkmäler, Berlin, 1918, pp. 39-43; 100-106.

André Godard, “Gunbad-i-Qabus,”in Survey of Persian Art, pp. 970-74.