Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
TUS (FERDOSI)يسودرف) سوط)
0512 / POP 5000 / ELEV 1182M
Just as Stratford-upon-Avon in England is synonymous with Shakespeare, so Tus is inex-
tricably linked with Persia's 11th-century epic poet Abulqasim Ferdosi (
Click here
)
. Do-
mestic tourists flock to the
Ferdosi Mausoleum
(admission US$1; 8am-6.30pm)
, set
in its own park and topped by a classically styled stone cenotaph. The current mausoleum
only dates from 1964 but there's been a tomb of sorts here since Ferdosi's death in AD
1020. He was originally interred in his own garden because the local Muslim cemetery
considered his writings too anti-Islamic for burial there. Similar extreme feelings resur-
faced very briefly during the earliest throes of the 1979 revolution during which the
mausoleum was damaged.
Beneath the main monument a series of reliefs represent Ferdosi's works. A nicely
presented but limited
Tus Museum
(admission an additional US$1; 8am-6pm)
, within
the mausoleum's gardens, displays gory paintings, exhibits 'warlike equipment' and sells
postcards. In the rear section of the park, the
Razan gate
shows how incredibly thick
Tus's original mud-brick city walls once were. Tus was Khorasan's foremost city before
being so comprehensively sacked by Tamerlane's forces (1389) that it was effectively
abandoned.
About 1km towards Mashhad, the
Boq
'
e-ye Hordokieh
'
(Gonbad-e Haruniyeh; ad-
mission US$1; 8am-4pm)
is a massive brick-domed 14th-century mausoleum that
looks especially impressive when floodlit at dusk. There are several theories as to the
structure's purpose. The most popular (and least likely) is that it was a prison for the as-
sassin of Imam Reza. The rather bare interior displays models of other tomb towers in-
cluding the impressive
Akhangan Tower
(12km northeast of Tus) with its recently added
blue-scalloped 'roof'.
Tus village is now almost a suburb of Mashhad. City buses (two US$0.50 tickets, 40
minutes) and minibuses leave around three times hourly from Falakeh Ferdosi using two
different routes. They terminate outside the mausoleum.
RADKANناکدار
About 75km northwest of Mashhad, the mysterious 25m-high
Radkan Tower
has baffled
visitors for centuries. A tomb? A coronation spot? According to Iranian archaeo-astro-
nomer
Manoochehr Arian
(
www.jamejamshid.com
)
, it was actually a highly sophistic-
ated instrument for studying the stars built in AD 1261 by astronomers led by Nasruddin
Tusi (Nasir Al-Tusi; 1201-74). The round, conical-topped brick tower was designed so
that the sun shines directly through its doors and niches on solstice and equinox days. It
was possibly with data collected here and at his more famous observatory at Maraqeh
