Maragheh
Encyclopedia
Maragheh also Romanized as Marāgheh and Marāghen) is a city in and the capital of Maragheh County
, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran
. At the 2006 census, its population was 146,405, in 38,891 families.
Maragheh is situated on the bank of the river Sufi Chay
. The Azeri-speaking
population form majority in the city. It is located 130 kilometres (80.8 mi) from Tabriz
.
Maragheh is an ancient city situated in a narrow valley running nearly north and south at the eastern extremity of a well-cultivated plain opening towards Lake Urmia
, which lies 30 km to the west. The town is encompassed by a high wall ruined in many places, and has four gates. Two stone bridges in good condition, said to have been constructed during the reign of Hulaku Khan (1217-1265), who made Maragheh the capital of the Ilkhanate
. Shortly thereafter it became the seat of the Church of the East
Patriarch Mar Yaballaha III. The place is surrounded by extensive vineyards and orchards, all well watered by canals led from the river, and producing great quantities of fruit. The hills west of the town consist of horizontal strata of sandstone
covered with irregular pieces of basalt
.
One of the famous burial towers, the Gonbad-e-Kabud (Blue Tower, 1197) is decorated with decorative patterns
resembling Penrose tiles.
Its marble
, which is known throughout Iran as Maragha marble, is a travertine
obtained at the village of Dashkasan near Azarshahr
about 50 km north-west from Maragheh. It is deposited from water, which bubbles up from a number of springs in the form of horizontal layers, which at first are thin crusts and can easily be broken, but gradually solidify and harden into blocks with a thickness of about 20 cm. It is a singularly beautiful substance, being of pink, greenish, or milk-white color, streaked with reddish copper-colored veins. It is exported and sold worldwide under such names as Azarshar Red or Yellow.
Late Miocene
strata near Maragheh have produced rich harvests of vertebrate
fossil
s for European and North American museums. A multi-national team reopened the foissil site in 2008.
On a hill west of the town are the remains of the famous Maragheh observatory
called Rasad Khaneh, constructed under the direction the Ilkhanid king, Hülagü Khan for Nasir al-Din al-Tusi
. The building, which no doubt served as a citadel as well, enclosed a space of 340 by 135 meters, and the foundations of the walls were 13 to 2 meters in thickness.
Maragheh County
Maragheh County is a county in East Azerbaijan Province in Iran. The capital of the county is Maragheh. At the 2006 census, the county's population was 227,635, in 57,612 families. The county is subdivided into two districts: the Central District and Saraju District...
, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
. At the 2006 census, its population was 146,405, in 38,891 families.
Maragheh is situated on the bank of the river Sufi Chay
Sufi Chay
Sufi Chay is a river in northwest Iran, flowing into Maragheh and Bonab, which finally meets the Lake Urmia....
. The Azeri-speaking
Azerbaijani language
Azerbaijani or Azeri or Torki is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken in southwestern Asia by the Azerbaijani people, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran...
population form majority in the city. It is located 130 kilometres (80.8 mi) from Tabriz
Tabriz
Tabriz is the fourth largest city and one of the historical capitals of Iran and the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. Situated at an altitude of 1,350 meters at the junction of the Quri River and Aji River, it was the second largest city in Iran until the late 1960s, one of its former...
.
Maragheh is an ancient city situated in a narrow valley running nearly north and south at the eastern extremity of a well-cultivated plain opening towards Lake Urmia
Lake Urmia
Lake Urmia , ancient name: Lake Matiene) is a salt lake in northwestern Iran, near Iran's border with Turkey. The lake is between the Iranian provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan, west of the southern portion of the similarly shaped Caspian Sea...
, which lies 30 km to the west. The town is encompassed by a high wall ruined in many places, and has four gates. Two stone bridges in good condition, said to have been constructed during the reign of Hulaku Khan (1217-1265), who made Maragheh the capital of the Ilkhanate
Ilkhanate
The Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate , was a Mongol khanate established in Azerbaijan and Persia in the 13th century, considered a part of the Mongol Empire...
. Shortly thereafter it became the seat of the Church of the East
Church of the East
The Church of the East tāʾ d-Maḏnḥāʾ), also known as the Nestorian Church, is a Christian church, part of the Syriac tradition of Eastern Christianity. Originally the church of the Persian Sassanid Empire, it quickly spread widely through Asia...
Patriarch Mar Yaballaha III. The place is surrounded by extensive vineyards and orchards, all well watered by canals led from the river, and producing great quantities of fruit. The hills west of the town consist of horizontal strata of sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
covered with irregular pieces of basalt
Basalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
.
One of the famous burial towers, the Gonbad-e-Kabud (Blue Tower, 1197) is decorated with decorative patterns
Girih tiles
Girih tiles are a set of five tiles that were used in the creation of tiling patterns for decoration of buildings in Islamic architecture...
resembling Penrose tiles.
Its marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
, which is known throughout Iran as Maragha marble, is a travertine
Travertine
Travertine is a form of limestone deposited by mineral springs, especially hot springs. Travertine often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, and cream-colored varieties. It is formed by a process of rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, often at the mouth of a hot...
obtained at the village of Dashkasan near Azarshahr
Azarshahr
Azarshahr and Dekhvareqan , also Romanized as Dehkhvāreqān) is a city in and the capital of Azarshahr County, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran...
about 50 km north-west from Maragheh. It is deposited from water, which bubbles up from a number of springs in the form of horizontal layers, which at first are thin crusts and can easily be broken, but gradually solidify and harden into blocks with a thickness of about 20 cm. It is a singularly beautiful substance, being of pink, greenish, or milk-white color, streaked with reddish copper-colored veins. It is exported and sold worldwide under such names as Azarshar Red or Yellow.
Late Miocene
Miocene
The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...
strata near Maragheh have produced rich harvests of vertebrate
Vertebrate
Vertebrates are animals that are members of the subphylum Vertebrata . Vertebrates are the largest group of chordates, with currently about 58,000 species described. Vertebrates include the jawless fishes, bony fishes, sharks and rays, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds...
fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s for European and North American museums. A multi-national team reopened the foissil site in 2008.
Maragha observatory
Maragheh observatory
Maragheh observatory is an astronomical observatory which was established in 1259 CE by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, an Iranian scientist and astronomer...
called Rasad Khaneh, constructed under the direction the Ilkhanid king, Hülagü Khan for Nasir al-Din al-Tusi
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi
Khawaja Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan Ṭūsī , better known as Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī , was a Persian polymath and prolific writer: an astronomer, biologist, chemist, mathematician, philosopher, physician, physicist, scientist, theologian and Marja Taqleed...
. The building, which no doubt served as a citadel as well, enclosed a space of 340 by 135 meters, and the foundations of the walls were 13 to 2 meters in thickness.
Universities in Maragheh
- University of Maragheh
- Payam-e Noor University of Maragheh
- Azad University of Maragheh
Famous people born in Maragheh or who lived in Maragheh
- Bar Hebraeus
- Ala'uddin Qizil Arslan (†1191), ruler of Maragha, Nizami dedicated to him the "Haft Paikar"
- Mo'ayyeduddin UrdiMo'ayyeduddin UrdiMu’ayyad al-Din al-’Urdi was an Kurdish Muslim astronomer, mathematician, architect and engineer working at the Maragheh observatory...
(d. 1266), developed the Urdi lemma later used in the Copernican modelCopernican heliocentrismCopernican heliocentrism is the name given to the astronomical model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus and published in 1543. It positioned the Sun near the center of the Universe, motionless, with Earth and the other planets rotating around it in circular paths modified by epicycles and at uniform... - Nasir al-Din al-TusiNasir al-Din al-TusiKhawaja Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan Ṭūsī , better known as Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī , was a Persian polymath and prolific writer: an astronomer, biologist, chemist, mathematician, philosopher, physician, physicist, scientist, theologian and Marja Taqleed...
, (born in Tus) developed the Tusi-coupleTusi-coupleThe Tusi-couple is a mathematical device in which a small circle rotates inside a larger circle twice the diameter of the smaller circle. Rotations of the circles cause a point on the circumference of the smaller circle to oscillate back and forth in linear motion along a diameter of the larger...
later used in the Copernican modelCopernican heliocentrismCopernican heliocentrism is the name given to the astronomical model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus and published in 1543. It positioned the Sun near the center of the Universe, motionless, with Earth and the other planets rotating around it in circular paths modified by epicycles and at uniform... - Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-KātibīNajm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-KātibīNajm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī was a Persian Islamic philosopher and logician of the Shafi`i school. A student of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, he is the author of two major works, one on logic, Al-Risala al-Shamsiyya, and one on metaphysics and the natural sciences, Hikmat al-'Ain.-Logic:His work on...
(born in QazvinQazvinQazvin is the largest city and capital of the Province of Qazvin in Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 349,821, in 96,420 families....
) (d. 1277), described a heliocentric model - Qutb al-Din al-ShiraziQutb al-Din al-ShiraziQotb al-Din Shirazi or Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi was a 13th century Persian Muslim polymath and Persian poet who made contributions astronomy, mathematics, medicine, physics, music theory, philosophy and Sufism.- Biography :...
(1236-1311)(born in ShirazShirazShiraz may refer to:* Shiraz, Iran, a city in Iran* Shiraz County, an administrative subdivision of Iran* Vosketap, Armenia, formerly called ShirazPeople:* Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet* Ara Shiraz, Armenian sculptor...
) discussed the possibility of heliocentrismHeliocentrismHeliocentrism, or heliocentricism, is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around a stationary Sun at the center of the universe. The word comes from the Greek . Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center... - Ibn al-ShatirIbn al-ShatirAla Al-Din Abu'l-Hasan Ali Ibn Ibrahim Ibn al-Shatir was an Arab Muslim astronomer, mathematician, engineer and inventor who worked as muwaqqit at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria.-Astronomy:...
(1304-1375), (born in SyriaSyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
) his reformation of the geocentric modelGeocentric modelIn astronomy, the geocentric model , is the superseded theory that the Earth is the center of the universe, and that all other objects orbit around it. This geocentric model served as the predominant cosmological system in many ancient civilizations such as ancient Greece...
was later used in the Copernican modelCopernican heliocentrismCopernican heliocentrism is the name given to the astronomical model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus and published in 1543. It positioned the Sun near the center of the Universe, motionless, with Earth and the other planets rotating around it in circular paths modified by epicycles and at uniform... - Awhadi Maraghai, Persian poet (Father settled from Isfahan to Maragha)
- Ali Qushji (d. 1474) (born in Samarqand)
- Shams al-Din al-Khafri (16th century), the last major astronomer of Maragha
- Mohammad Sa'edMohammad Sa'ed-Early life and prime minister ship:Born in Maragheh, he studied at University of Lausanne, and became Prime Minister after the fall of Ali Soheili's cabinet in 1943....
(1883-1973), Prime Minister of IranIranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...