Seymareh (Darreh Shahr) Ancient City

On the southern edge of the town of Darreh Shahr, in the valley of the Seymareh River, lie the ruins of an ancient city covering some 200 hectares. Its streets and houses, built of rough-cut stone set in gypsum mortar, still stand in places to the height of walls and arches, so that one can walk along its lanes and look into its rooms. It is one of the largest ancient urban sites in western Iran.

The city reached its height in the Sasanian period, between the third and seventh centuries, and continued to be lived in after the Arab conquest, when Arab geographers knew the district as Seymareh. Its ruins include houses, large buildings with domed and vaulted rooms, and traces of a water system with clay pipes. Some scholars believe it overlies older settlements, possibly an Elamite city, and its exact identity in ancient sources is still debated.

Tradition and some early sources say that the city was destroyed by an earthquake and then abandoned, sometime in the early Islamic centuries; the exact date is uncertain. Whatever its end, it was never rebuilt, and the stone city was left to the river and the hills around it. Illegal digging for antiquities has been a continuing threat, and the police have made arrests at the site in recent years.

Finds from the site and the region are displayed in the archaeological museum of Darreh Shahr. The ruins are best seen in the soft light of morning or evening, when the stone walls glow against the green valley.