Shushtar

After the rather lifeless sites of Susa and Tchogah Zanbil which we explored under the scorching summer heat of 2017, Shushtar's watermills and waterfalls delivered a most refreshing sight. No other visitors while we were there, so we enjoyed it very much. Water pressure was not at its best, but it was still okay. The presence of some waterfowls was also a delight especially for bird lovers like us. Two adjacent components of this WHS are the Gargar canal and Gargar bridge-dam. A section of the Karun river -- believed to be one of the four rivers of the Garden of Eden -- is part of the inscribed area and it is lined by the Band-e Mizan (in photo), Farangi tower, and Salasel castle. The river is eventually crossed by the ruins of impressively long Band-e Kaiser to the west (another interesting ancient Roman bridge in the region is Dezful bridge, the oldest functioning bridge in the world). I explored Salasel castle on my own and I was surprised to see that no one was manning the ruins at all, considering that it is the "most important" component of the entire water management system. Salasel hardly looks like a castle now, but the promontory offers great views of the river. Taking the advice of the previous review, we no longer took the effort in seeing the other components.  

Iran is far from being short of exemplary sites displaying mastery of water use and water control. It also has …

Despite reading the documents for this WHS prior to our visit in Apr 2016 I still didn’t feel that I had gained a good understanding of what it really was – and those pictures of a ruined bridge with a river or of some waterfalls, together with Wiki’s description of Shushtar as “an Island city”, didn’t exactly help. Having now been there, however, I find the UNESCO short description “spot on”. But how to bridge the gap for someone who hasn’t been there?

The description of the site as being a “Hydraulic System” perhaps needs some explanation. The UNESCO map lists 13 elements (and the locally available tourist map pushes this up to 26!). In its broadest sense, the totality (which spreads far beyond the inscribed 240 ha) indeed constitutes a “system” of man made structures started under the Achaemenids, c2500 years ago, and developed most significantly under the Sassanids (c300AD), for managing the waters of the River Karun (which Wiki states to be “Iran’s most effluent river”) around the town of Shushtar for a range of purposes – particularly agriculture and milling. These structures include dams, bridges, canals, mills etc. It developed across many centuries and, in fact, the most recent inscribed element is a hydraulic power station and ice factory dating from “1323 Solar Hejira” (1905??)!! And what of the “island city”? It is true that the canals do indeed create an “island” on which old Shushtar sits, before they rejoin the Karun, but this isn’t really a …