Current Time in Marāgheh, Iran

Set in the north-west of Iran, Maragheh occupies a fertile valley on the eastern side of Lake Urmia, in the province of East Azerbaijan. The volcanic mass of Sahand rises behind it, feeding springs and a small river that waters terraced gardens and orchards on the outskirts of the town. At roughly fifteen hundred metres above sea level the city has a highland climate, with snowy winters, long sunny springs and warm dry summers that ripen the grapes and apricots for which the district is famous.

Some one hundred and seventy-five thousand people live in the city, most of them Azerbaijani speakers, and it ranks among the larger towns of the province after Tabriz. Fruit growing, juice and preserve factories, quarrying of decorative stone and regional trade sustain the economy, and the city serves as the market and service centre for a wide farming district around the southern shores of the lake.

Few Iranian towns of this size carry so much history. Settlement here goes back to antiquity, and the town appears in early Islamic sources as a provincial capital of Azerbaijan. Its most celebrated period began in 1256, when the Mongol conqueror Hulagu Khan chose Maragheh as the seat of the new Ilkhanid state that ruled Persia. The court attracted administrators, artists and scholars, and libraries were assembled from books gathered across the conquered lands. Although the capital later moved to Tabriz and Soltaniyeh, and the city suffered from war and earthquakes in later centuries, its monuments survived.

The best known of them stands on a rocky hill west of the town: the remains of the observatory established by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, where a team of astronomers worked for decades with instruments larger and more accurate than any before them. Their star catalogue and planetary tables were consulted throughout the Islamic world, in China and in Europe, and modern scholars regard their mathematical models as an important step towards a new understanding of the solar system. Today a protective structure shelters the excavated foundations, and a small museum displays instruments and manuscripts.

In the streets below, several medieval mausoleums of baked brick reward exploration. The tower known as the Blue Dome, with its geometric brick patterns and turquoise tilework, and its companions the Red Dome and the Ghaffariyeh, are among the finest examples of tomb architecture in Iran. Outside the city, hillsides expose a famous bed of fossil bones from a prehistoric savanna, studied by palaeontologists since the nineteenth century, and roads lead to hot springs, waterfalls and villages on the flanks of Sahand.

Everyday life is warm and traditional, centred on family, the bazaar, tea houses and gardens where people picnic on summer evenings. Regional cooking features herb-filled dishes, lamb kebab, dolma and thick yoghurt, and hand-woven carpets from the villages are sold in the covered market.

A railway and good roads link Maragheh to Tabriz and the wider network, and the local university educates several thousand students.

Maragheh remains a rewarding destination for anyone drawn to the scientific and artistic achievements of medieval Persia.