Twin Towers of Kharaghan
The art of architecture culminated during Seljuk period. A lot of artists and architects produced masterpieces of architecture in this period. Mosques, schools, caravanserai, mausoleums and towers are among the main monuments of this glorious period.
Twin Towers of Kharaghan are two brick towers dating back to Seljuk era. They are the burial place of two Seljuk Turk persons, named Abu Saeed Bijar, the son of Sa’d, and Abu Mansour Iltaiti, the son of Takin. These two monuments are located one kilometer before Hesar village, a neighborhood in west Kharaghan rural strict, and thirty-two kilometers before Qazvin-Hamedan Road. The architecture of the two is similar, located on a west-east axis with twenty-nine meters distance between them. Towers were constructed in hexagonal form.
The inscriptions on the entrance façade of the towers include some information about the construction date and its architect. According to them, the eastern tower is older than western one. the former was built in 460 A.H by Mohammad ibn Makki Zanjani while the western inscription introduces the date of 486 A.H and Abu al-Moali ibn Makki Zanjani as the architect.
The eastern tower is fifteen meters high with an eleven-meter diameter. There is a shrine inside the tower. The internal decorations include different kinds of paintings of a male peacock with fan-shaped bangs, six or eight-pointed stars and two peacocks facing each other. A motif of pomegranate tree with two birds on two sides is seen between two arcades inside the building. The inner surface of dome has been adorned with Kufic inscriptions.
Unlike the eastern tower, the builders did not use the coverage of stucco and painting in order to decorate the western one. The internal walls of the tower are composed of a simple brickwork. There are some geometric motives along with Quranic Kufic inscriptions in the margin of the dome. The shrine inside this tower is in the same size as the one which is located inside the eastern tower. The names of twelve Imams have been carved in Naskh scrip in the upper margins.
The visitors would encounter the first emergence of double-shell dome in this place the outer shell of the eastern dome has been ruined while the inner one is complete. Two spiral stairs would lead one to the top of the dome.
The art of brickwork, Girih and geometric motives using brick have been culminated in these buildings in Seljuk period. The style of brickwork used in the towers is interpreted to be the model of other monuments like Gonbad-e Sorkh in Maragheh. More than fifty patterns have been used in decorating these towers.
The best time for taking a visit to these architectural masterpieces of the fifth century A.H, which is placed in a mountainous region in the west of the historical castle of Shemiran, is during spring and summer.