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Safavid civic complex, begun 1596

Ganjali Khan Complex

مجموعه گنجعلی‌خان

A Safavid square, bathhouse and caravanserai in the bazaar of Kerman

At the heart of the old bazaar of Kerman lies a Safavid square framed by a bathhouse, a caravanserai, a mosque, a mint and a school. It is named after Ganj Ali Khan, who governed Kerman for Shah Abbas I from 1596, and who used his governorship to give the city a new civic centre in the same spirit as the shah’s great square in Isfahan. The design is credited to the architect Mohammad Soltani of Yazd.

The jewel of the complex is the Ganjali Khan bathhouse, its entrance passage leading down into a sequence of domed halls lined with tiles, painted plaster and stone. The dressing hall, with its octagonal platforms and central pool, was where the men of Kerman met, talked and did business. The bath is now a museum, with figures arranged to show how the rooms were once used, and its ceilings and tiled alcoves are among the finest of any bathhouse in Iran.

Across the square, the caravanserai carries a foundation inscription of 1598, and the small domed mint, begun in the same year, now holds a museum of coins. A little mosque, notable for its tile and marble work, completes the set. Around the square the long vaulted aisles of the bazaar continue, still lined with shops selling Kerman’s copper, spices and textiles.

The complex shows what a provincial governor could build in the Safavid golden age, and it remains one of the most complete Safavid public spaces anywhere in Iran.

Ganjali Khan Complex through time

Iranian history
  1. Elam and the first cities4000 BCE
  2. The Medes850 BCE
  3. The Achaemenids550 BCE
  4. Seleucids and Parthians330 BCE
  5. The Sasanians224
  6. The Arab conquest and the Persian revival636
  7. Seljuks, Mongols and Ilkhanids1040
  8. The Timurids1370
  9. The Safavids1501
  10. Afsharids, Zands and Qajars1736
  11. The Pahlavi century and after1925

1501–1736

The Safavidsصفویان

The Safavids made Twelver Shia Islam Iran's state religion and rebuilt Isfahan as one of the most admired cities in the world.

  • 1596 Ganj Ali Khan becomes governor of Kerman
  • 1598 Date of the caravanserai's foundation inscription

More in Kermanکرمان

Kerman

  • Arg-e Bam

    The great mud-brick citadel, under restoration since 2003

  • The Lut desert

    Dunes and wind-carved ridges, the kaluts, on the edge of the Lut

  • Shazdeh Garden

    A terraced Qajar garden in the desert at Mahan

Stories from the regionداستان‌ها

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The good religion of Zarathushtra

Zoroastrianism

Good thoughts, good words, good deeds: the faith of Zarathushtra, kept by its followers in Yazd, Kerman, Tehran, Mumbai and far beyond.

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Avesta

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The Wise Lord and the Hostile Spirit: the oldest Iranian account of a world in which every person takes a side, and the moral heart of a faith still practised today.

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A people named after a province, a language that travelled far beyond it

Persians

Persian speakers of Iran call themselves *Fars* or simply *Irani*. They are one people among many in Iran, and their language became a shared tongue for far more than themselves.