Temple of Anahita, Kangavar

On the main road between Kermanshah and Hamadan, the town of Kangavar is built around the remains of an enormous stone terrace. Massive walls of cut limestone blocks, broad stairways and rows of thick column bases rise from the centre of the town. The site is widely known as the Temple of Anahita, after the ancient Iranian goddess of the waters, fertility and wisdom.

The identification goes back to the Greek geographer Isidore of Charax, who wrote around the turn of the Common Era of a temple of Artemis at a place called Concobar on the road through the Zagros. Greek writers often equated Artemis with Anahita, and Concobar has long been identified with Kangavar. The dating and purpose of the ruins, however, are still debated: some scholars see a temple of the Parthian period, while others argue that what survives is a Sasanian building, perhaps a palace or ceremonial complex.

Excavations by Iranian archaeologists, which began in the late 1960s, uncovered the full outline of the platform, its great double stairway, and finds from the Parthian, Sasanian and Islamic periods. Restoration has re-erected some columns and stones, giving a better sense of the vast scale of the original structure.

Whatever its exact story, the terrace at Kangavar is one of the largest ancient stone monuments in western Iran. For many Iranians it is also a powerful symbol of Anahita, whose name survives in the modern Persian name Nahid, and of the reverence for water that runs through the culture of the plateau.