Robat Castle

Iran, Iran

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“Robat Castle” in Iran can refer to a few different historic sites, but most commonly it means either the Safavid-era Robat Castle in the town of Abarkuh in Yazd province or the Seljuk-era caravanserai known as Robat Sharaf (also called Ribat‑i Sharaf) in Razavi Khorasan province.

The Abarkuh Robat Castle is a large, fortified residential building on the western edge of the town, built during the Safavid period and noted for its nine round towers decorated with geometric ornaments and motifs in square, diamond, cross, and ellipse shapes, making it one of the most important castles in Abarkuh’s landscape of historic fortifications.

Robat Sharaf, on the other hand, is a spectacular Seljuk caravanserai dating to the 11th–12th centuries, located on the historic Silk Road between Nishapur and Merv near the Iran–Turkmenistan border; it is famous for its palace‑like appearance, two courtyards (an outer one for servants and animals and an inner one for the king and his court), cruciform terraces, mosques, stucco decoration, and especially.

Its varied brickwork, which has earned it the nickname “museum of brickwork”. Because “robāt” in Persian originally meant a frontier fort or caravanserai, several sites in Iran share similar names, but these two are the most prominent examples referred to as Robat Castle in different parts of the country.