Meybod Caravanserai

🕰️When was it built?

The caravanserai is known as a Safavid building, though its architecture also has Qajar features. The exact year it was built is not known. The neighbouring water reservoir bears the date 1070 AH (1659–60), but that inscription belongs to the reservoir, not to the caravanserai.

🏛️What was it built for?

The building was a resting place for caravans and a store for their goods and animals. A post house, a water reservoir and an ice house stood next to it to meet travellers' needs on the road. Its covered spaces, storerooms and rooms were arranged together for that purpose.

👀What you will see

• The square courtyard has chamfered corners, small iwans all the way round and rooms behind them.
• In the middle of the courtyard is an octagonal pool house, fed by qanat water, with places to rest around it.
• Of the nearly one hundred inner and outer rooms, twenty-four face the courtyard.
• In the four corners of the courtyard, vestibule-like spaces lead to storerooms, stables and the stairs to the roof.
• The stables lie only behind the east and west sides, and long storerooms run behind the rooms on the north and south.

💡Something interesting

In September 2023 Meybod Caravanserai was inscribed on the World Heritage List with 53 other caravanserais as part of the Persian Caravanserai nomination, which covers caravanserais in many provinces of Iran.

🎒Good to know before you go