Sarmāj “Dukkān”: A Gathering Place for the World’s Kings

There are some remains of a stone-masonry building lying buried beneath the modern village of Sarmāj-e Hosseinkhāni, located in the southern vicinity of Bisotun, in Kermanshah Province of Iran. Aerial photographic investigations, topographic survey, and the detailed examination of the remaining parts of the building indicate that the building is almost square in plan, with dimensions of about 288 m × 295.50 m. It is fortified with four square bastions at the corners. This monument sits on the summit of a natural hill that stands almost 20 m higher than the surrounding terrain. The monument was once surrounded by a rather deep and very wide moat, which filled with water supplied by a nearby stream running along the northern side of the monument. The construction technique of the walls is in a manner that the smooth-sided ashlars were set one beside another on the exterior of the walls. These stones were used in their unchanged, ‘natural’ shape which was that of a large coarsely undressed, large-sized ashlar. Almost all of these stones were laid in vertical position with chips between the joints. The core of the walls was filled with smaller rubble stones embedded in generous quantities of gypsum mortar. Here, a row would initially be laid down, and the top of the wall would then be finished with a rough layer of mortar, in order to make it smooth and level. After this had dried sufficiently, it became the base for the construction of the second course. This second course would be set on top of the first course in the same manner as the previous, and so on, continuing until the final row. As Luschey and Trümpelmann have documented, there existed, until fairly recently, remains of a wall on the summit of the mound. The wall was part of a much larger architectural complex which is now buried beneath the modern village. The remaining wall consisted of four courses built with cut-stone block masonry. The stones were of different sizes and dressed with utmost precision. Historical and archaeological evidence indicates that the Sarmāj monument was constructed in the late Sasanian period, most likely at the reign of Khosrow II (590-628 C.E), and could be identified with “Dukkān”, where the Sasanian King of Kings, Khosow II Parviz, hosted the world’s kings including the king of China, the Roman emperor, the Türk Khāghān and Dāhir (identified with a king of India). Primary textual sources explicitly suggest that the site of Sarāmj was also a stronghold built by the Kurdish ruler Ḥasanwayh (Ḥasanūya) Barzekānī (d. 369/980). Sarmāj was the center of the Ḥasanuyid principality that has played important political, social, and cultural roles in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. Muslim geographers and historians report the legendary fabulous wealth and treasures of Ḥasanwayh dynasty held in the stronghold of Sarāmj. This material wealth was one of the motivations that provoked Buyid rulers to lunch military campaigns against Sarāmj. Upon the death of Badr ibn Taher (439 AH), the last ruler of Ḥasanwayh dynasty, the castle of Sarāmj was conquered by Ibrahim Yanal, the brother of Ṭoḡrel Beg Saljok, the first sultan of Saljuq. The Numerous monumental inscriptions in engraved Kufic found in the site, one of which bears the date 370 or 390 AH. The Quranic verses on the inscriptions indicate that they may have once embellished a religious building, i.e., a mosque or most likely a mausoleum. If the latter identification proves valid, it is reasonable to assume that the inscriptions under discussion belong to the mausoleum of Ḥasanwayh, the Kurdish ruler who died in Sarmāj in 369 AH. It is likely that the mausoleum was built at the order of Badr, the son of Ḥasanwayh, in 370 AHS.