Gonbad-e Alavian

Gonbad-e Alavian stands about 200 m west of the Hegmataneh mound, and Iranica calls it the most significant architectural monument of Hamadan¹. It is known as the mausoleum of the ’Alawiyan family, who, in the words of Sylvia Matheson’s archaeological guide to Persia, virtually ruled Hamadan for some two hundred years¹. Two members of the family are buried in its crypt, reached by a staircase inside the building¹. Mohammad-Taqi Mostafavi believed that it was first built as the family’s khanaqah, a Sufi lodge, in which some of them were later buried, and Archnet describes it only as assumed to be a mausoleum^1,2.

No dated inscription survives, so the date rests on comparison¹. Iranica places the building in the 12th century because of its close likeness to Seljuk monuments such as Gonbad-e Sorkh in Maragheh, dated 542 AH (1147-48)¹. Ernst Herzfeld published it in 1922 in a study of the architecture of the Ilkhans, and Donald Wilber proposed a date of about 1315^1,2. R. Shani’s 1996 monograph on the building, A Monumental Manifestation of the Shi’ite Faith in Late Twelfth-Century Iran, places it in the late 12th century³. Archnet sums up the range as late 12th-century Seljuk to 14th-century Ilkhanid².

The building is a square, fairly massive block of baked brick, square inside as well, with an unusual star-shaped flange projecting from each outer corner and rising lower than the main mass^1,2. Its facade was once covered with stucco in high relief, with leaves, blossoms, vines and tendrils in interlaced patterns; Arthur Upham Pope called it the most complete example of stucco encrustation that survives in Persia¹. Terracotta and stucco also form inscriptions on the exterior, set among geometric patterns and patterned brick bonding².

The single chamber measures 8 m by 8 m¹. Its walls are plastered and richly decorated with carved stucco, in places in high relief^1,2. A staircase inside the building leads down to the crypt with the tombs of two members of the ’Alawiyan family¹. The dome that once covered the chamber is lost².