Investigation of the Old City Wall of Tabriz from Historical Sources.pdf (original) (raw)

Being selected as a capital city during Il-khanid dynasty (1256-1335), Tabriz confronted a large-scale immigration to the city. Very soon it caused the formation of several neighborhoods each as large as the old city area, by the city wall gates. Accordingly the land ownership in Rabaz became as important as Sharistan and gradually in the land registration documents as well as endowment documents the terms of "inner and outer quarters" and "inside and outside the city" could be found abundantly. Since the area of the old wall has been used as a criterion for separating the position of quarters and determining the area of the old city, the excavation within the boundaries of the old wall of Tabriz (construction: 435 A.H.) is an influential factor in the recognition of the physical development of the historic city. Therefore, the present research attempts to reconsider the structural system of the city of Tabriz during the Middle Ages by identifying the boundaries of the old wall of Tabriz, and the number and the locations of its gates. On the other hand, considering that the map of Dar al-Saltaneh-e Tabriz (Draw: 1297 AH /1880 A.D) indicates the position of the nine gates of the Najafqoli-Ḵāni Wall, this question arises that the boundary of the old wall of Tabriz to the recent wall of the city that after the earthquake of 1194 A.H. /1780 A.D. has been constructed, in which position has it been? Thus, by using historical sources, the name and number of the gates and the location of each one were studied separately. Then, in order to determine the locations of the gates of the old wall, the obtained data was compared to the data from the Dar-al-Saltaneh map. In order to achieve the research objectives, qualitative content analysis method for data analysis has been used. Data collection sources include written and visual documents such as historians’ books, endowments, and historical maps. Finally, the results were drawn up in the form of a sketch city map dating to the end of the 6th century A.H., indicating the overlapping of the area of the Tabriz’s old wall with the boundaries of the Najafqoli-Ḵāni Wall.