Markar Clock Tower

🕰️When was it built?

In 1934 the Yazd municipality decided to build a monument to Ferdowsi. The first site was changed, and in 1936 Markar Square was chosen. The clock was finished in the early 1940s, paid for by Peshotanji Markar.

🏛️What was it built for?

The clock was built to tell the people of the city the time and also to honour Ferdowsi. Its Zoroastrian benefactor lived in India and had also funded the Markar high school and orphanage. An endowment was set up to look after these institutions.

👀What you will see

• The tower stands on a square plan, and its main parts are the base, the shaft and the cap on top.
• The structure is about four metres high, and the clock sits at the top of the shaft.
• The poems on its sides are by Naser, a local Yazdi poet, and some of the lines refer to the date of construction.
• Stone inscriptions record the builder's name and details of the clock's history.

💡Something interesting

To wind the clock's mechanical movement, someone had to climb the wooden stairs inside the tower. The movement, made by an English company, sits at the top, and the clock has run on this mechanism from the start.

🎒Good to know before you go

• Take a look at the writing on the tower too; part of the story of how it was built is told in its poems and stone inscriptions.