By Ivan Kesic

• The two slender stone columns at Khorheh, long interpreted as part of a Seleucid temple of Dionysus, are now understood to belong to a Parthian aristocratic residence, making the site a case study in how excavation can overturn a long-accepted scholarly interpretation.
• Qajar excavation at Khorheh in 1859, driven by the monarch's dual passion for antiquities and photography, made the site one of the earliest archaeological digs anywhere to be documented with photographs, predating the Austrian use of the technique at Samothrace in 1875.
• The columns themselves preserve a distinctive local adaptation of the Ionic order, with bases resembling Achaemenid precedents, shafts proportioned eleven diameters high rather than the Greek eight to ten, and simplified capitals whose volutes have been compared to rolled curtains or tied standards, documenting the transformation of Classical forms in Parthian Iran.

In a fertile valley northeast of Mahallat, between the cities of Arak and Kashan in central Iran, two slender stone columns rise above the vineyards that surround the village of Khorheh.

For nearly a century, these columns have been the subject of one of the most persistent interpretive debates in Iranian archaeology.

Ernst Herzfeld, who visited the site in the 1920s, identified the ruins as a Seleucid temple of Dionysus, an interpretation that shaped scholarly discussion for decades. Excavations beginning in 1955 and resumed in the 1990s gradually dismantled that theory.

The evidence now points to a Parthian aristocratic residence, a secular building adapted to Iranian domestic traditions while borrowing selectively from Hellenistic architectural vocabulary.

This archaeological site—along with a bridge and a caravanserai from the later Islamic period, as well as mausoleum shrines, gardens, natural landmarks, and a pristine environment—attracts many tourists.

Valley and its setting

Khorheh lies at the western edge of the Iranian plateau, roughly seventy kilometers southwest of Qom, in a small valley set slightly apart from what was once an important caravan route.

The village sits at the foot of mountains exceeding two thousand meters, among them the Haftad Qolleh range to the northwest and the Naynay heights at the junction of the two principal ridges.

The plain itself is enclosed by mountains on two sides, forming what has been described as a basin set within a triangle.

The cultivated fields and orchards occupy the meeting point of these elevations, watered by a river that flows close to the southern mountain and by a network of qanats and springs.

The produce of the district has long included wheat, pulses, and temperate fruits such as grapes, peaches, apricots, cherries, plums, and walnuts.

Water has shaped the settlement's history. The river that passes south of the village and the ancient remains has itself changed over time, its bed becoming sandier and its level falling over the decades, prompting the observation that two thousand years ago the water would have stood at a more convenient level for the needs of the people.

The valley's vineyards, which figured prominently in early interpretations of the site, remain a defining feature of the landscape.

The location was significant in antiquity for its connections to the major centers of the period. Khorheh was linked to Hamadan, Nahavand, Qom, and the southern regions, and its position near the road between Qom and Isfahan gave it strategic value.

The surrounding district also contains other ancient remains, including the Sasanian fire temple of Atashkuh, the Parthian building at Hajjiabad, and the Seleucid fortress near Aliabad, forming a network of military, civil, and religious establishments.

History of investigation

The site entered Western scholarship through nineteenth-century travelers, at the same time that local Iranian archaeological interest in the site also emerged.

Edward Stack, journeying northward from the Persian Gulf, was the first Westerner to visit and describe the monument, reaching it several years after a visit by Naser al-Din Shah, who appears to have been the first excavator there.

The Qajar monarch's interest in antiquities combined with his enthusiasm for photography, and the work at Khorheh in 1859 became one of the earliest archaeological excavations for which photography was used to record the finds, preceding the Austrian use of the technology at Samothrace in 1875.

The choice of Khorheh for Iran's first archaeological excavation was shaped by the Qajar court's political self-fashioning, since the court historian E'temad al-Saltaneh identified the site as Parthian Arsacid

He further suggested to Naser al-Din Shah that the Qajars were descended from that dynasty, prompting the king to commission the first Persian-language history of the Arsacids and to align his dynasty with a long-forgotten empire rather than the Achaemenids or Sassanids.

German archaeologist Herzfeld visited the site twice in the 1920s. Observing the two standing columns with their Ionic-style capitals, the worked stones scattered across the mound, and the vineyards covering the surrounding plain, he visualized a Hellenistic peripteral temple with a cella, and suggested that the building had been dedicated to Dionysus.

His reasoning rested on the architectural affinities with Greek forms and on the environmental association between vine cultivation and the god of wine.

He conceded that the temple proper, inside the colonnade, would require excavation to be determined, and that the standing columns belonged to the peribolos rather than the temple front.

This interpretation, elaborated in his major publications, became the standard view throughout most of the 20th century. The Iranian Department of Archaeology decided in 1955 to excavate the building precisely to test Herzfeld's opinion.

Ali Hakemi directed the work, which continued for three months and uncovered a substantial portion of the complex.

His report, published only in 1990, described three connected structures: a main southern building with a colonnaded portico, rooms, and a courtyard; a northern building with corridors and a central square room; and a western structure with rooms and a hall.

The finds included pottery, large jars, a blue-glazed vessel, and an agate seal engraved with a female figure, discovered in a grave beneath the portico pavement.

Mehdi Rahbar resumed excavations in 1996 and continued through several seasons. His work refined the plan, corrected details of Hakemi's reconstruction, and established a firmer chronology based on the pottery.

The diagnostic "clinky" ware, characteristic of the Parthian period, appeared in the earliest occupation levels, and the building's use was traced from the Parthian era through the Sasanian period, followed by reuse as an Islamic cemetery until roughly the 14 century.

Architecture uncovered

The excavated portion of the complex occupies an area of approximately 49.6 by 33.5 meters, oriented at 45 degrees to the cardinal points.

The main structure consists of a large colonnaded portico on a high podium, connected on its northwestern side to a series of rooms and passages.

The portico measured 19.28 by 6.48 meters and originally comprised twelve columns and four pillars in two rows, of which only two columns remain standing.

The podium rises about 1.72 meters above the level of the front yard, and its facade is built with three courses of large white stone blocks.

The columns themselves are instructive. Their bases consist of two square plinths, one smaller and one larger, surmounted by a thick round torus.

This configuration differs from genuine Ionic practice, where the height and diameter of the torus are closer together; at Khorheh the torus is notably thicker.

The shafts, composed of drums set without mortar, have a slightly curved profile and measure 5.9 meters from the top of the torus to below the capital, with a diameter tapering from 0.75 meters at the lower part to 0.45 meters at the top. The total height of the portico is 7.33 meters.

The capitals are the most distinctive element. They are in a simplified Ionic style, measuring 0.45 meters in height, with a square abacus above supported by two bobbin-shaped volutes.

The face of each volute consists of a single molded string that curls at either end into two symmetrically opposed scrolls, and the narrow center of the bobbin is decorated with two diagonal lines forming an X.

In profile, the capital has a butterfly shape, and the overall effect has been described as resembling curtains or standards rolled up and tied in the middle.

The carving is precise and skillfully executed, though the softness of the stone and its vulnerability to cold weather have left the surface rough and pockmarked, stripping it of its original elegance.

The proportions of the columns diverge markedly from Greek norms. The height of genuine Ionic columns is conventionally eight to ten diameters; the height of the Khorheh columns is eleven.

This elongation has been interpreted as a consequence of habituation to slender wooden columns, an Iranian architectural habit carried over into stone construction.

The bases, too, have been compared with Achaemenid precedents, particularly the rock tomb of Da-o-Dokhtar in Fars and the tomb of Fakhrigah in Atropatene, suggesting that despite political separation, the western Iranian regions continued to share a common architectural culture.

Behind the portico, the main building contains a large central room measuring 7.6 by 6.6 meters, flanked by two smaller rooms each measuring 6.6 by 3.15 meters.

The entrance to the central room is on the central axis of the portico, and the side rooms are entered through doors corresponding to the spaces between the end columns and the pilasters.

In the middle of the northern wall of the central room, opposite the entrance, there is a niche or adytum.

The walls are exceptionally thick, reaching a maximum of 2.87 meters, and are built of clay and mud brick, suggesting either that they carried an unusually heavy roof or that parts of the structure behind the portico rose to two storeys.

The northern building, connected to the main structure by two corridors and staircases, measures 31.2 by 35.4 meters and is surrounded by wide walls.

It consists of a central courtyard with corridors and rooms on three sides, and its plan suggests a domestic or administrative function rather than a religious one. The western structure, though less clearly understood, comprises additional rooms and a hall.

Historiographical shift

The reinterpretation of Khorheh unfolded gradually and involved multiple scholars. Herzfeld's Dionysus temple was accepted widely but never unanimously.

Benjamin Rowland proposed a fire temple within the same Seleucid framework, but Klaus Schippmann considered the building Parthian.

Paul Bernard, in 1969, stated plainly that the sanctuaries of Khorheh and Kangavar were Parthian rather than Seleucid, and in any case far later than the temple of Ai Khanoum in Afghanistan.

Wolfram Kleiss, working from the architectural remains, suggested that the colonnade belonged not to a temple but to the vestibule of a palatial building of unbaked brick dating from the Parthian period.

The excavations supplied the decisive evidence. Hakemi's work revealed a complex whose plan did not match a Greek peripteral temple. The columns, while Ionic in inspiration, diverged from Greek proportions and details in ways that indicated local adaptation.

The pottery established a Parthian date. Rahbar's continued work confirmed and refined these findings, identifying the building as a manor house or aristocratic residence, possibly connected to the ruling Arsacid house, and divided into exterior reception spaces and interior family quarters in a pattern familiar from Iranian domestic architecture.

The consensus that emerged, reflected across the scholarly literature, is that Khorheh was a Parthian secular building—a palace, mansion, or station on a nearby route—whose architecture drew selectively on Greek forms while remaining rooted in Iranian traditions.

The Ionic columns represent a local, simplified adaptation rather than evidence of a Seleucid religious foundation. The building's later history, including its reuse as a cemetery, further distances it from the temple interpretation.

What remains unresolved is the precise function and the exact date within the Parthian period. The sources describe a range extending from the first century BCE onward, with continued use into the Sasanian era.

The building's destruction has been associated with the Sasanian victory over the Parthians, after which humbler structures were built on the ruins. These details await further excavation.

Other attractions and tourism

Beyond its best-known archaeological complex, Khorheh has several natural and other architectural attractions.

Among the most notable are Shah Bolbol Cave, located in the mountains between Khorheh and Delijan, and Lurakh-e Gav Cave, a natural and historical feature associated with a small spring near its far end.

Another local landmark is Vazvan Spring, also called Cheshmeh-ye Shureh. Its mineral-rich water can deposit minerals on surrounding surfaces, but it is not generally considered suitable for drinking.

These features give the village’s surroundings an appeal distinct from the more familiar archaeological attractions of central Iran.

The village’s built environment is another part of its character. Khorheh retains elements of its traditional rural fabric, including houses built from mud and wood.

Such buildings reflect local construction practices adapted to a mountainous setting, although their condition and survival vary.

The wider area also contains historical remains associated with different periods, including a route or passage attributed to the Parthian era and a Safavid-era bridge and caravanserai.

These structures illustrate the importance of movement and travel through the region in earlier centuries.

A further architectural attraction is Imamzadeh Haft-Ivan, a religious shrine noted for its distinctive conical dome. Its traditional religious function and unusual roof form make it a point of interest for visitors exploring the village’s built heritage

Tourism in Khorheh is best approached as an exploration of the landscape and village rather than a visit to a single monument.

The surrounding mountains, caves, spring, traditional houses and historic infrastructure can be combined into a short excursion from Mahallat or Delijan.