Robat Sharaf

Robat Sharaf is a caravanserai standing alone on the steppe between Mashhad and Sarakhs, close to the modern border with Turkmenistan. A robat (or ribat) was a fortified roadside station where travellers, merchants and their animals could rest in safety, and this one stood on the great road that ran from Nishapur to Merv, one of the main arteries of the Silk Roads. It is widely regarded as one of the finest surviving buildings of the Seljuk period in Iran.

It was built in the early twelfth century, in the time of the Seljuk sultan Sanjar, who ruled Khorasan from Merv. An inscription records a restoration in 1154–55, ordered by Sanjar's wife Terken Khatun, after the turbulent years in which Ghuzz tribesmen had overrun Khorasan and taken the sultan captive.

From outside, it presents a long, fortress-like wall with a single monumental entrance. Inside are two courtyards, one behind the other. The outer one would have served the caravans and their beasts; the inner, finer one, surrounded by four iwans, vaulted halls open to the court, appears to have been reserved for important guests. Behind the arcades are rooms, stables, a small mosque and cisterns for storing water.

The glory of Robat Sharaf is its decoration in brick and carved stucco. Bricks are laid in patterns of interlacing stars, zigzags and knots, and the plaster surfaces are carved with geometric designs and inscriptions in Kufic script, the angular early form of Arabic calligraphy. All of it is the colour of the earth around it, so that the building's richness only reveals itself as the light moves across its walls.