Tāq Kasrā (), also transcribed as ''Taq-i Kisra'' or ''Taq-e Kesra'' (, romanized: ''tâğe kasrâ'') or Ayvān-e Kesrā (, meaning

Iwan An iwan (, , also as ''ivan'' or ''ivān''/''īvān'', , ) is a rectangular hall or space, usually vaulted, walled on three sides, with one end entirely open. The formal gateway to the iwan is called , a Persian term for a portal projecting ...

of Khosrow) are the remains of a

Sasanian The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranians"), was an Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign ...

-era

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

monument, dated to c. the 3rd to 6th centuries, which is sometimes called the Arch of Ctesiphon. It is located near the modern town of

Salman Pak Salman Pak (, ) is a city located approximately south of Baghdad near a peninsula formed by a broad eastward bend of the Tigris. It is named after Salman the Persian, a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad who is believed to be buried i ...

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

. It was the facade of the main palace in

Ctesiphon Ctesiphon ( ; , ''Tyspwn'' or ''Tysfwn''; ; , ; Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Ctesiphon — ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified July 28, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/58.) was an ancient city in modern Iraq, on the eastern ba ...

, and is the only visible remaining structure of the ancient capital city. The archway is considered a landmark in the

history of architecture The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates. The beginnings of all these traditions is thought to be humans satisfying the very basic need of shelt ...

, and is the second largest single-span vault of unreinforced

brickwork Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called '' courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by ...

in the world after the

Gavmishan Bridge Gavmishan Bridge is a historic bridge in Darreh Shahr County, Ilam Province, Iran. The bridge was built in the late Sasanian era on Karkheh River, parts of which constitute the modern-day border of Ilam and Lorestan provinces. It is in length ...

in Iran.

History

The exact time of the structure's construction is not known with certainty. Some historians believe it was constructed under

Shapur I Shapur I (also spelled Shabuhr I; ) was the second Sasanian Empire, Sasanian King of Kings of Iran. The precise dating of his reign is disputed, but it is generally agreed that he ruled from 240 to 270, with his father Ardashir I as co-regent u ...

who ruled Sassanian Persia from 242 to 272 AD and some other believe that construction possibly began during the reign of Anushiruwan the Just (Khosrow I) after a campaign against the Byzantines in 540 AD. The arched

iwan An iwan (, , also as ''ivan'' or ''ivān''/''īvān'', , ) is a rectangular hall or space, usually vaulted, walled on three sides, with one end entirely open. The formal gateway to the iwan is called , a Persian term for a portal projecting ...

hall, open on the facade side, was about 37 meters high, 26 meters across and 50 meters long, the largest man-made, free standing vault constructed until modern times. The arch was part of the imperial palace complex. The

throne room A throne room or throne hall is the room, often rather a hall, in the official residence of the crown, either a palace or a fortified castle, where the throne of a senior figure (usually a monarch) is set up with elaborate pomp—usually raised, ...

—presumably under or behind the arch—was more than 30 m (110 ft) high and covered an area 24 m (80 ft) wide by 48 m (160 ft) long. The top of the arch is about 1 meter thick while the walls at the base are up to 7 meters thick. The

catenary arch A catenary arch is a type of architectural arch that follows an inverted catenary curve. The catenary curve has been employed in buildings since ancient times. It forms an underlying principle to the overall system of vaults and buttresses i ...

was built without

centring Centring, centre, centering"Centering 2, Centring 2" def. 1. Whitney, William Dwight, and Benjamin E. Smith. ''The Century dictionary and cyclopedia''. vol. 2. New York: Century Co., 1901. p. 885., or center is a type of falsework: the temporary s ...

. In order to make this possible a number of techniques were used. The bricks were laid about 18 degrees from the vertical which allowed them to be partially supported by the rear wall during construction. The quick drying cement used as mortar allowed the fresh bricks to be quickly supported by those that were previously laid. The Taq Kasra is now all that remains above ground of a city that was, for nine centuries—from the 2nd century BC to the 7th century AD—the main capital of the successor dynasties of the Persian empire:

Parthians Parthia ( ''Parθava''; ''Parθaw''; ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Medes during the 7th century BC, was incorporated into the subsequent Achaemen ...

and

Sassanids The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranians"), was an Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign ...

. The structure left today was the main

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

of the audience hall of the Sassanids who maintained the same site chosen by the Parthians and for the same reason, namely proximity to the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

, whose expansionist aims could be better contained at the point of contact. The structure was captured by the Arabs during the conquest of Persia in 637. They then used it as a mosque for a while until the area was gradually abandoned. In the early 10th century, the

Abbasid caliph The Abbasid caliphs were the holders of the Islamic title of caliph who were members of the Abbasid dynasty, a branch of the Quraysh tribe descended from the uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib. The family came ...

al-Muktafi Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Ṭalḥa ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Muktafī bi'Llāh (; 877/78 – 13 August 908), better known by his regnal name al-Muktafī bi-Llāh (), was the caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate f ...

dug up the ruins of the palace to reuse its bricks in the construction of the

Taj Palace The Taj Palace () was one of the principal caliphal palaces in Baghdad of the Abbasid Caliphate. The palace was begun by the sixteenth Abbasid caliph, al-Mu'tadid (), as part of the building projects begun when the capital of the Caliphate was mov ...

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

. The Arabic poet

Al-Buhturi Al-Walīd ibn Ubaidillah Al-Buḥturī () (821–97 AD; 206–84 AH) was an Arab poet born at Manbij in Islamic Syria, between Aleppo and the Euphrates. Like Abū Tammām (), he was of the tribe of Tayy, This references the Biography in McG. de ...

wrote a famous poem about the ruins in the 9th century. The monument is also the subject of a poem by the Persian poet

Khaqani Afzal al-Dīn Badīl ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿOthmān (), commonly known as Khāqānī (, , – 1199), was a major Persian poet and prose-writer. He was born in Transcaucasia in the historical region known as Shirvan, where he served as an ode-wr ...

, who visited the ruins in the 12th century.

Modern era

In 1851, French artist

Eugène Flandin Jean-Baptiste Eugène Napoléon Flandin (15 August 1809 in Naples – 29 September 1889 in Tours), French orientalist, painter, archaeologist, and politician. Flandin's archeological drawings and some of his military paintings are valued mor ...

visited and studied the structure with

Pascal Coste Xavier Pascal Coste (26 November 1787 – 8 February 1879) was a French architect. He was at one time a personal architect for Muhammad Ali Pasha. As a seasoned traveller, his travels to Qajar Iran, aroused the interest of King Louis Philippe I ...

who remarked "the Romans had nothing similar or of the type." In 1888, a serious flood demolished the greater part of the edifice. In 1940, the British writer

Roald Dahl Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British author of popular children's literature and short stories, a poet, screenwriter and a wartime Flying ace, fighter ace. His books have sold more than 300 million copies ...

, then undergoing pilot training at

RAF Habbaniya Royal Air Force Habbaniya, more commonly known as RAF Habbaniya (), (originally RAF Dhibban), was a Royal Air Force station at Habbaniyah, about west of Baghdad in modern-day Iraq, on the banks of the Euphrates near Lake Habbaniyah. It was dev ...

near

took an award-winning photograph using a Zeiss camera of the Arch of Ctesiphon in Iraq which was subsequently auctioned by the Dahl family to raise funds for the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre. The photo made £6,000. In his autobiography ''

Boy A boy is a young male human. The term is commonly used for a child or an adolescent. When a male human reaches adulthood, he is usually described as a man. Definition, etymology, and use According to the ''Merriam-Webster Dictionary'', a boy ...

'' he writes: : You may not believe it, but when I was eighteen I used to win prizes and medals from the Royal Photographic Society in London, and from other places like the Photographic Society of Holland. I even got a lovely big bronze medal from the Egyptian Photographic Society in Cairo, and I still have the photograph that won it. It is a picture of one of the so-called Seven Wonders of the World, the Arch of Ctesiphon in Iraq. This is the largest unsupported arch on earth and I took the photograph while I was training out there for the RAF in 1940. I was flying over the desert solo in an old Hawker Hart biplane and I had my camera round my neck. When I spotted the huge arch standing alone in a sea of sand, I dropped one wing and hung in my straps and let go of the stick while I took aim and clicked the shutter. It came out fine. The monument was in the process of being rebuilt by

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

's government in the course of the 1980s, when the fallen northern wing was partially rebuilt. All works, however, stopped after the 1991

Persian Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...

. From 2004 to 2008 the Iraqi government cooperated with the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

's Diyala Project to restore the site at a cost of $100,000. The Ministry of Culture also invited a Czech company, Avers, to restore the site. This restoration was completed in 2017. On March 7, 2019, a partial collapse further damaged the Taq Kasra, just two years after its latest restoration was completed. In January 2021, Iranian Minister of Cultural Heritage Ali Asghar Mounesan mentioned that a credit of about $600,000 would be required for the restoration of Taq Kasra.

Documentary film

In 2017, Pejman Akbarzadeh, based in the Netherlands, made the first full-length documentary film about Taq Kasra: '' Taq Kasra: Wonder of Architecture''. The monument had been in danger of

ISIS Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom () as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her sla ...

attacks in 2015–2016; Akbarzadeh feared that it might be destroyed soon, and therefore felt urgency to film his documentary. The film explores the history and architecture of Taq Kasra with many scholars and archaeologists in various countries.

Gallery

File:Tagkasra.jpg, 1824 drawing by Captain Hart File:Ctesiphon-ruin 1864.jpg, 1864 drawing File:Stamp Iraq 1923 3a.jpg, 1923 Iraqi postage stamp, designed by

Marjorie Maynard Marjorie Josephine Maynard, Lady Garbett (23 January 1891 – 23 October 1975)Calendars of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration, via was a British artist and farmer who designed some of the first set of postage stamps issued in ...

, featuring the arch File:طاق كسرى، العراق.jpg, 1950 photograph File:Arch of Ctesiphon assessment DVIDS221914.jpg, 2009: Iraqi officials and American military officers discuss plans to renovate the existing structures. File:Ctesiphon 01.jpg, 2016 photograph File:Národní muzeum Íránu.jpg, The

National Museum of Iran The National Museum of Iran ( ) in Tehran hosts some of the world's most important monuments dating back through preserved ancient and medieval Iranian antiquities. It is an institution formed of two museums; the Museum of Ancient Iran and the ...

, the architecture of which is adopted from that of Taq-i Kasra File:001125-TaqKasra-Iraq-IMG 7945-2.jpg, Taq Kasra, Madain,

File:001125-TaqKasra-Iraq-IMG 7919-2.jpg, Taq Kasra, Madain,

File:001125-TaqKasra-Iraq-IMG 7940-2.jpg, Taq Kasra, Madain,

File:001125-TaqKasra-Iraq-IMG 7916-2.jpg, Taq Kasra, Madain,

File:001125-TaqKasra-Iraq-IMG 7914-2.jpg, Taq Kasra, Madain,

File:Ctesiphon, Iraq, 1932.jpg, 1932 photograph

References

External links