Arg-e Bam

Ancient plan of the Bam citadel

The Citadel of Bam
Ancient plan of the citadel, plan of a popular residence, plan of a stately home, plan of the Zur Khaneh
Arg-e Bam before the 2003 earthquake was the largest adobe brick building in the world. It was located in Bam, a town in the province of Kerman in southeastern Iran. It is mentioned by UNESCO as a work belonging to the World Heritage Site “Bam and its cultural landscape”. Wikipedia

Bam is located in a desert environment on the southern edge of the Iranian plateau. The origins of Bam can be traced back to the Achaemenid period (6th-4th century BC). Its heyday was from the seventh to the eleventh century, when the city found itself at the crossroads of important trade routes and became known for the production of silk and cotton garments. Life in the oasis was based on the underground irrigation canals, the qanat, of which Bam has preserved some of Iran’s oldest examples. Arg-e Bam is the most representative example of a fortified medieval city built with the local technique using overlapping mud layers (Chineh).