The Shahnameh atlas · The heroic age
Dehestan
دهستانWhere King Nozar made his last stand against Afrasiab; the point is approximate
- A real place the poem names
- Nozar, Afrasiab, Qaren, Barman, Tus, Gostahm
Dehestan is where the house of Manuchehr makes its last stand. When Afrasiab crosses the Jayhun, King Nozar and his general Qaren take the road to Dehestan and pitch the royal enclosure on the plain before its fortress. Afrasiab camps opposite. Here old Qobad, Qaren's brother, rides out against the Turk Barman and dies; here Nozar meets Afrasiab spear to spear and loses; and here he is shut up in the fortress while the Turks hold the roads. He breaks out to follow Qaren and is caught in the desert, and Afrasiab later beheads him with his own sword.
The poem treats Dehestan as a frontier. Pashang tells his son to trample 'Dehestan and Gorgan' under his horses' hooves, and after his victory Afrasiab marches from Dehestan to Rey and puts on the crown of Iran. Ferdowsi says nothing of the town itself beyond its fortress, its plain and its place on the road between Turan and the heart of Iran.
The name belongs to a real place. Medieval geographers used it for the country north of Gorgan, beyond the Atrek river, on the edge of the steppe, and its old capital is usually identified with the ruins on the Misrian plain in south-western Turkmenistan. The point is placed there approximately and stands for the poem's battlefield before the fortress.
The tales told hereداستانها
Nozar and the war at Dehestanنوذر و جنگ دهستان
Afrasiab invades, defeats Manuchehr's son at Dehestan and beheads him
More from the heroic ageشاهنامه
Mount Alborzالبرز کوه
On the heights of the Alborz the Simorgh raises Zal, the white-haired child his father abandoned. The poem's Alborz is a mountain at the edge of the world, traditionally identified with the range north of Tehran.
Kabulکابل
Kabul frames the life of Rostam. His mother Rudabeh is a princess of Kabul, and it is in the hunting grounds of a later king of Kabul that Rostam is betrayed and killed.
Zabulistanزابلستان
Zabulistan is the realm of the house of Sam: the court where Zal rules, Rostam is raised, and Esfandiyar comes to put Rostam in chains. Tradition places it in Sistan, around today's Zabol.
Kuh-e Khwajaکوه خواجه
A flat-topped black hill rising from the Hamun wetlands, crowned with the ruins of a Parthian and Sasanian palace that local people call Rostam's castle. It is the closest thing Rostam has to a home on the map.