Читать книгу Monument Future - Siegfried Siegesmund - Страница 154

The UNESCO World Heritage Site Takht-e Soleymann (“Throne of Solomon”) is situated in the West Azerbaijan Province of Iran. The site lies 2200 m above the sea level and has a dry continental climate. In the 6th century AD under Sasanian rule a Zorastrian fire temple and palace complex was built at an artesian lake over the ruins of Achaemenid and Parthian buildings. After the end of the Sasanian dynasty in the 7th century AD the complex fell derelict. In 1221 the Mongols started the invasion of the Islamic world and about 1275 the site was used once again for the construction of an Ilkhanid summer palace. The greatest building within the palace complex was the west iwan, a vaulted audience hall, 11,5 m wide and 27 m long and closed on three sides (Naumann 1977, Huff 2006) which was lavishly decorated inside. With the decline of the Ilkhanid empire the buildings were abandoned and fell into ruin again. Beginning in 1956, the area was investigated by archaeologists and a restoration program was initiated with German support. A huge scaffold was erected on the east side of the west iwan in order to stabilize the ruinous north wall and stop the progressive decay. What was meant as a temporary measure is still in place and actually became an iconic landmark (Figure 1).

Since 2016 the preservation of the remains of the west iwan is part of a restoration project funded by the Cultural Preservation Program of the Federal Foreign Office. Experts are working on the reinforcement of the badly cracked north wall by strengthening the historic masonry with injection anchors and filling voids and cracks in the wall structure by mortar injections (Fucke, Hansen 2012, Bräunel 2016, Burkert et al. 2019). Gypsum mortar was used for the repair work because plaster is present in Sasanian as well as in Ilkhanid wall structures and its reaction with hydraulic cement mortar may cause the problem of sulphate attack. The project is aiming to strengthen of the wall so that it can withstand earthquakes in a seismically active region and the dismantling of the scaffold which is then no longer required.