TELL
KASRA
![](taqkasra.jpg)
Tell
Kasra location in Ctesiphon, modern Iraq
![](640px-Ctesiphon,_Iraq,_1932.jpg)
Ruins
of Ctesiphon, photographed in 1932 (from the United States Library
of Congress)
Location
: Asbanbar quarter of Ctesiphon, Al-Mada'in, modern Iraq
Coordinates
: 33°5'37 N 44°34'51 E
Height
:
37 m (121 feet)
Built
:
ca. 3rd-6th century AD
Architectural
style(s) :
Iranian architecture
Taq
Kasra (Arabic: romanized: taq kisra, also transcribed as Taq-i Kisra
or Taq-e Kesra or Ayvan-e Kesra (Persian: romanized: 'iwan-i-husraw,
meaning Iwan of Chosroes) are the remains of a Sasanian-era Persian
monument, dated to c. the 3rd to 6th-century, which is sometimes
called the Arch of Ctesiphon. It is located near the modern town
of Salman Pak, Iraq. It is the only visible remaining structure
of the ancient city of Ctesiphon. The archway is considered a landmark
in the history of architecture, and is the largest single-span vault
of unreinforced brickwork in the world.
History
:
The exact time of construction is not known with certainty. Some
historians believe the founder is Shapour I who ruled Persia from
242 to 272 AD and some other believe that construction possibly
began during the reign of Anushiruwan the Just (Khosrow I) after
a campaign against the Byzantines in 540 AD. The arched iwan hall,
open on the facade side, was about 37 meters high 26 meters across
and 50 meters long, the largest man-made, free standing vault constructed
until modern times.
The
arch was part of the imperial palace complex. The throne room—presumably
under or behind the arch—was more than 30 m (110 ft) high
and covered an area 24 m (80 ft) wide by 48 m (160 ft) long. The
top of the arch is about 1 meter thick while the walls at the base
are up to 7 meters thick. It is the largest vault ever constructed
in the world. The catenary arch was built without centring. In order
to make this possible a number of techniques were used. The bricks
were laid about 18 degrees from the vertical which allowed them
to be partially supported by the rear wall during construction.
The quick drying cement used as mortar allowed the fresh bricks
to be quickly supported by those that were previously laid.
The
Taq Kasra is now all that remains above ground of a city that was,
for seven centuries—from the 2nd century BC to the 7th century
AD—the main capital of the successor dynasties of the Persian
empire: Parthians and Sassanids. The structure left today was the
main portico of the audience hall of the Sassanids who maintained
the same site chosen by the Parthians and for the same reason, namely
proximity to the Roman Empire, whose expansionist aims could be
better contained at the point of contact. [citation needed]
The
structure was captured by the Arabs during the conquest of Persia
in AD 637. They then used it as a mosque for a while until the area
was gradually abandoned. In the early 10th century, the Abbasid
caliph al-Muktafi dug up the ruins of the palace to reuse its bricks
in the construction of the Taj Palace in Baghdad.
The
monument is also the subject of a poem by Khaqani, who visited the
ruins in the 12th century.
Modern
era :
In 1851, French artist Eugène Flandin visited and studied
the structure with Pascal Coste who remarked "the Romans had
nothing similar or of the type".
In
1888, a serious flood demolished the greater part of the edifice.
In
1940, Roald Dahl, then undergoing pilot training at RAF Habbaniya
near Baghdad took an award-winning photograph using a Zeiss camera
of the Arch of Ctesiphon in Iraq which was subsequently auctioned
by the Dahl family to raise funds for the Roald Dahl Museum and
Story Centre. The photo made £6,000. In his autobiography
Boy he writes :
You
may not believe it, but when I was eighteen I used to win prizes
and medals from the Royal Photographic Society in London, and from
other places like the Photographic Society of Holland. I even got
a lovely big bronze medal from the Egyptian Photographic Society
in Cairo, and I still have the photograph that won it. It is a picture
of one of the so-called Seven Wonders of the World, the Arch of
Ctesiphon in Iraq. This is the largest unsupported arch on earth
and I took the photograph while I was training out there for the
RAF in 1940. I was flying over the desert solo in an old Hawker
Hart biplane and I had my camera round my neck. When I spotted the
huge arch standing alone in a sea of sand, I dropped one wing and
hung in my straps and let go of the stick while I took aim and clicked
the shutter. It came out fine.
The monument was in the process of being rebuilt by Saddam Hussein's
government in the course of the 1980s, when the fallen northern
wing was partially rebuilt. [citation needed] All works, however,
stopped after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. From 2004 to 2008 the Iraqi
government cooperated with the University of Chicago's Diyala Project
to restore the site at a cost of $100,000. The Ministry of Culture
also invited a Czech company, Avers, to restore the site. This restoration
was completed in 2017.
On
March 7, 2019, a partial collapse further damaged the Taq Kasra,
just two years after its latest restoration was completed.
In
January 2021, Iranian Minister of Cultural Heritage Ali Asghar Mounesan
mentioned that a credit of about $600,000 would be required for
the restoration of Taq Kasra.
Documentary
film :
In 2017, Pejman Akbarzadeh, based in the Netherlands, made the first
full-length documentary film about Taq Kasra: Taq Kasra: Wonder
of Architecture. The monument had been in danger of ISIS attacks
in 2015-2016; Akbarzadeh feared that it might be destroyed soon,
and therefore felt urgency to film his documentary. The film explores
the history and architecture of Taq Kasra with prolific scholars
and archaeologists in various countries.
Gallery
:
Taq Kasra Gallery
![](Tagkasra.jpg)
1824
drawing by Captain Hart
![](640px-Ctesiphon-ruin_1864.jpg)
Photo
from 1864
![](Stamp_Iraq_1923_3a.jpg)
1923
Iraqi postage stamp, designed by Marjorie Maynard, featuring the
arch
![](640px-Ctesiphon,_Iraq,_1932.jpg)
Photo
from 1932
![](taqkasra1.jpg)
Photo
from 1950
![](640px-Arch_of_Ctesiphon_assessment_DVIDS221914.jpg)
Photo
from 2009: Iraqi officials and American military officers discuss
plans to renovate the existing structures
![](Ctesiphon_01.jpg)
Photo
from 2016
![](Narodn%ED_muzeum_%CDranu.jpg)
The
National Museum of Iran, the architecture of which is adopted from
that of Taq-i Kasra
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Taq_Kasra