By Ivan Kesic

• The Do Dehak Caravanserai, paired with the nearby historic bridge over the Qom River, shows how a roadside inn could not function independently of the wider travel infrastructure of crossings, water sources and settlements that sustained it.
• The Khanak Caravanserai departs from the standard four-iwan formula, with its simpler layout and long animal shelters reflecting the practical demands of a mountain route tied to livestock raising and orchard production.
• The Majd al-Mamalek Caravanserai in Dowlatabad, commissioned in 1895 with an inscription citing service to pilgrims travelling toward Karbala, challenges the assumption that Iranian caravanserai construction ended with the Safavid period.

Across the plains, valleys and mountain passes of Markazi province in central Iran, the remains of historic caravanserais tell the story of a region that once connected some of Iran’s most important commercial and pilgrimage routes.

Their courtyards, vaulted chambers, monumental entrances and fortified walls preserve a world in which travelling was slow, journeys were uncertain, and a secure place to spend the night could be essential to the success of a caravan.

Today, these buildings range from substantial restored complexes to remote ruins that have lost much of their original fabric.

Some stand beside villages that developed around historic roads; others occupy exposed locations where travellers once found shelter between settlements.

Their architectural differences reflect variations in geography, patronage, period and function. Together, they offer a way to explore Markazi’s history beyond its better-known towns, including Arak, Saveh, Delijan, Naraq and Tafresh.

The province’s position helps explain the concentration of such buildings. Located in west-central Iran, Markazi lies between the central plateau and routes leading towards the Zagros region.

Roads passing through the area linked settlements and markets with Qom, Isfahan, Hamadan and other destinations.

Merchants carried agricultural products, textiles and manufactured goods; pilgrims travelled towards religious centres; and local communities depended on the movement of people and animals for trade and services.

The provincial heritage administration has reported more than 23 caravanserais in Markazi, although not all are equally well preserved, documented or accessible.

The buildings commonly associated with the province include Do Dehak, Shah Abbasi of Kahak, Haj Mehdi in Naraq, Majd al-Mamalek in Dowlatabad, Bagh-e Sheikh, Aveh, Abdul Ghaffar Khan in Majidabad, Khoshkeh Rud, Varde, Khanak, Mashhad Miqan and the caravanserais around Arak and Khorheh.

Architecture designed for the road

A caravanserai was more than an inn. It was a controlled environment in which people, animals and merchandise could be accommodated within a defensible enclosure.

Travellers needed shelter and water, merchants needed somewhere to store goods, and pack animals required space to rest and feed. The architecture had to meet these needs while protecting occupants from weather, theft and other dangers associated with travel.

Many Iranian caravanserais were organised around a central courtyard, with rooms or chambers arranged along its sides. Four-iwan plans—featuring a large vaulted hall or porch centred on each side—are particularly prominent in the architecture of the Islamic period.

Other buildings have simpler or less symmetrical plans, reflecting local conditions, earlier architectural traditions or particular practical requirements.

The entrance was often a major architectural feature. A passage through a substantial portal led into a vestibule and then the courtyard, allowing movement to be controlled while separating the interior from the outside world.

In some examples, projecting towers, thick outer walls and elevated parapets gave the building a fortified appearance.

These features could improve security, although the presence of towers does not automatically mean that a caravanserai was designed primarily as a military fortress.

The rooms facing the courtyard generally served travellers and commercial activity, while larger spaces and side passages accommodated animals and stored merchandise.

Stables, loading areas and service rooms were essential parts of the complex. Wells, cisterns or connections to nearby water sources were equally important, especially in drier districts.

Construction materials varied according to what was available locally. Brick and mud brick were widely used, often combined with stone foundations and plaster or gypsum-based mortar.

Vaults and domes provided durable roofing and helped create large interior spaces without requiring extensive timber. Roof openings could admit daylight and assist ventilation, while thick walls moderated temperature fluctuations.

These practical elements also produced a distinctive architectural language. The rhythm of vaulted bays, the symmetry of courtyards, the scale of entrance portals and the play of light beneath domes gave many caravanserais a monumental character.

They were utilitarian buildings, but their builders frequently invested in visual composition and craftsmanship as well as function.

Fortified stations on the river routes

The Do Dehak Caravanserai in Delijan County stands beside the eastern bank of the Qom River, its setting explaining the importance of water and transport infrastructure to the old road network.

Nearby, the historic Do Dehak Bridge provided a crossing over the river, linking the caravanserai to a wider route through the region.

The building is commonly attributed to the Safavid period, although its architectural features have prompted comparisons with earlier Seljuk traditions, so its precise chronology should be approached cautiously rather than inferred from style alone.

Its substantial enclosure, central courtyard and prominent entrance are accompanied by towers along three sides that give it a fortified appearance, while the internal arrangement reflects the practical requirements of accommodation, storage and animal handling.

The combination of caravanserai and bridge is particularly revealing, since a roadside inn could not function independently of the route it served, and river crossings, road surfaces, water sources and nearby settlements formed part of the same travel infrastructure.

The Shah Abbasi Caravanserai at Kahak, also in Delijan County, represents another Safavid-era roadside station in a mountain setting, identified by the provincial heritage administration as a candidate for restoration, investment or renewed use.

Its enclosure, courtyard and surviving architectural elements reflect the practical pattern of a roadside station, and its location near other attractions in Kahak offers an opportunity to understand how travel infrastructure fitted into a wider settlement landscape.

Urban commerce and merchant patronage

Naraq offers a different perspective on the caravanserai tradition, since the town preserves a network of historic commercial buildings, including the Haj Mehdi Caravanserai and Merchant House, alongside its bazaar and other traditional structures.

The complex was built and endowed by Haj Mehdi Naraqi, a local merchant, and its distinctive wooden doors, decorated with intricate interlaced patterns, are among its notable features.

The building reflects the close relationship between accommodation, commerce and charitable endowment in traditional Iranian towns, since a caravanserai in an urban setting could serve functions that overlapped with those of a merchant house or commercial warehouse.

Traders needed places to receive goods, negotiate sales, store merchandise and accommodate people arriving from elsewhere, and the distinction between a roadside caravanserai and an urban merchant's complex was therefore not always absolute.

Local accounts describe services that grew around passing caravans, including the provision of bread and other necessities, details that help convey the scale of activity that caravan traffic could generate for a small town.

The Bagh-e Sheikh Caravanserai in Majidabad is associated in local accounts with Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a regional notable from the 18th century.

It is a large four-iwan complex, commonly dated to the late Zand or early Qajar period, with an approximately quadrangular plan, a central courtyard and a monumental entrance, its corner towers reinforcing an imposing exterior while the vaulted spaces and rooms around the courtyard reflect the requirements of travellers and merchants.

The wider complex has been described as including associated facilities such as a cistern and a religious gathering space, ancillary structures that matter because the caravanserai was part of a larger system of roadside services rather than simply a building in which people slept.

Mountain routes and the wider network

Aveh, in Saveh County, was historically positioned within a district whose importance derived from its connections to commercial routes and its own settlement history, and the Aveh Caravanserai is generally attributed to the Safavid period.

Its central courtyard and four-iwan layout belong to a familiar architectural tradition in Iranian caravanserais, consistent with a commercial and accommodation function rather than a purely military one, and its position within a historically active settlement zone helps explain why a caravanserai was useful there, since travellers could connect with local markets and services while continuing along longer-distance routes.

The Shah Abbasi Caravanserai at Khoshkeh Rud, in Zarandieh County, represents a more exposed roadside setting, a Safavid-era four-iwan building with a central courtyard whose exterior walls and use of brick, mud brick and stone reflect construction practices suited to the region.

Older accounts describe it as an important place of rest on the route between Saveh and the direction of Buin Zahra, and its isolated location once made it especially useful to travellers who could not depend on a nearby town for accommodation.

But isolation has also made preservation difficult, and reports have described substantial deterioration and the use of the building for livestock, illustrating the vulnerability of monuments whose original economic function has disappeared.

The Khanak Caravanserai in Tafresh County is particularly interesting because it complicates the assumption that all caravanserais followed the same architectural formula.

Archaeological research has examined the building in the context of the mountainous route between Tafresh and Saveh, arguing that it should be considered in relation to the region's pastoral and agricultural economy and the movement of products between mountain communities and nearby markets.

Its layout differs from the standard, fully developed four-iwan plan, including a central yard, chambers near the entrance and long animal shelters on either side, a simpler arrangement that may reflect a different emphasis on animal accommodation and the practical demands of a mountain route.

The surrounding region supported livestock raising and orchard production, and the passage between Tafresh, Saveh and neighbouring settlements provided a means of transporting local products.

Khanak thus illustrates that a caravanserai's form should be interpreted in relation to its function and landscape, since a design that appears less monumental than a major four-iwan complex may still provide valuable evidence of how travel and trade were organized in a particular environment.

The area around Arak also preserves caravanserais associated with routes that developed before modern roads and railways transformed travel.

The building commonly identified as the Shah Abbasi Caravanserai near Arak is generally attributed to the Safavid period, with descriptions recording a square or quadrangular plan, a central courtyard and four iwans, although its condition has been reported as poor.

The Mashhad Miqan Caravanserai, near the village of the same name, is close to the shrine of Imamzadeh Mohammad Abed, creating a local landscape in which religious destinations and travel facilities stood near one another, though the building is now described as a ruin.

The proximity of caravanserais to shrines, villages and markets was often practical rather than accidental, since religious sites attracted visitors, settlements provided supplies, and roads connected these destinations to wider networks, with caravanserais helping make movement between them possible while generating business for people living nearby.

Pilgrimage and the challenge of survival

The Shah Abbasi Caravanserai at Varde, in Saveh County, is among the province's most striking examples of the gap between architectural importance and physical condition.

Associated with the Safavid period, it has a four-iwan plan, an entrance vestibule, chambers around the courtyard and spaces originally used for animals, with descriptions recording towers at the corners and additional projections along its outer walls.

These features, together with the enclosed courtyard, show how caravanserai architecture combined accommodation with a degree of protection, and the surviving remains also preserve evidence of roof construction, access to the upper levels and the arrangement of service spaces.

However, local accounts have reported extensive deterioration and the reuse of the building for keeping livestock, changes that do not erase the monument's historical value but can accelerate damage when roofs fail, water enters the walls or structural elements are removed.

In Dowlatabad, Farahan County, the Majd al-Mamalek Caravanserai offers a particularly clear example of the connection between roadside architecture and religious travel.

According to descriptions of its dedicatory inscription, the building was commissioned by Mirza Hossein Khan Tushi, known as Majd al-Mamalek, in 1895, and the inscription identifies service to pilgrims travelling towards Karbala and the improvement of Dowlatabad among the purposes associated with its construction.

Its date places it in the Qajar period, when caravanserais continued to serve routes used by pilgrims and merchants even as transport technologies were beginning to change, and the complex is described as occupying a substantial plot with a large built area and a layout adapted to the relatively level terrain around the village.

Majd al-Mamalek challenges the idea that caravanserai construction ended with the Safavid period, since although many of Iran's most recognizable examples date from the Safavid era, roadside accommodation continued to be built and maintained under later dynasties.

The Safavid Khorheh Caravanserai, in Mahallat County, belongs to a wider landscape of villages, historic routes and archaeological remains, and its mountainous setting made the provision of places to stop and rest especially important.

From roadside shelter to heritage destination

Changes in transport, the growth of modern roads, railways and motor vehicles, and the disappearance of traditional caravan traffic reduced the need for many of these complexes.

Some were adapted as warehouses, farms, workshops or animal shelters; others were abandoned. In certain cases, the very scale and solidity that once made them useful helped them survive, even when their roofs and interior spaces deteriorated.

Today, restoration and adaptive reuse offer possibilities for preserving these buildings. Some can accommodate cultural events, visitor services or small-scale hospitality, provided the new function is compatible with the historic structure.

Others may be better preserved as archaeological or architectural remains, especially where substantial reconstruction would require assumptions unsupported by evidence.

The province’s heritage administration has promoted investment and private-sector participation in the restoration of several caravanserais, including Do Dehak, Khoshkeh Rud, Varde, Mashhad Miqan and Kahak.

Such programmes can help bring resources to neglected buildings, but the outcome depends on the quality of conservation, the suitability of the new use and the ability to maintain the site after restoration.

For visitors, Markazi’s caravanserais offer more than a sequence of old courtyards. They reveal the infrastructure that made long-distance travel possible, the relationship between architecture and geography, and the contribution of merchants, local patrons and religious endowments to regional development.

The best-preserved examples show the sophistication of Iranian vaulted construction; the damaged ones make visible the fragility of historic structures when their original purpose is lost.

Taken together, these caravanserais form an architectural record of movement across central Iran.

Their walls and courtyards preserve the memory of travellers who crossed plains and mountain routes, of merchants who connected villages to distant markets, and of communities whose livelihoods depended on the passage of people and goods.