Jahān-namā Palace and the Entrance to Chahār-bāgh Avenue of Isfahan A Reflection on the Textual and Visual Sources from Safavid to Pahlavi Period

On the outskirts of the old fortification of Isfahan, the Chahār-bāgh avenue was built during the expansion of the city in the reign of Šāh ʻAbbās I. At the starting point of Chahār-bāgh, the Jahān-namā palace was built by his command as well, which was the entrance monument of the Dowlat-xāneh. Chahār-bāgh and Jahān-namā, like many other monuments of Isfahan, were destroyed after Safavid's collapse, particularly during the reign of Ẓel al-Solṭān, the Qajar governor of Isfahan. In some travel books of European travelers in Safavid era, and the textual and visual sources of Qajar, this district of Isfahan is mentioned and illustrated. The remaining visual sources of Safavid and Qajar era, and the documents of Dowlat-xāneh district in Pahlavi period, give us keys to find the location of the palace, and shed light on some of the architectural aspects of the complex that cannot be deciphered from textual sources. The present article is an attempt to a concurrent analysis of textual and visual sources. The extracted data helped in the development of the archaeological project of the Jahān-namā palace, and the northern and southern parts of the palace, which belong to the periods before Safavids, and after them.