Bam Citadel is located near the city of Bam in Kerman province in southeastern of Iran and it was the largest adobe structure in the world. As a result of the severe earthquake, on 25 December 2003, that struck the city of Bam and its suburbs, Arg-e Bam was almost completely destroyed. A few days after the occurrence of the earthquake, president of Iran Mohammad Khatami said that the castle will be reconstructed.

“Arg-e Bam and its cultural space” have already been registered in the UNESCO World Heritage List. This huge organ that is in the path of the Silk Road was created in 5 century BC and continues to be used till 1850 AD. It is not clear why it was not used anymore after this time.

A total of this building is a fortress great that the organ is located, in its heart, but because of the imposing castle, that is also the highest height of this collection, the entire building called Arg-e Bam.

Dimensions of Arg-e Bam

The area of this citadel is about 180, 000 square meters that are composed with walls as high as 6 to 7 meters and a length of 1815 meters surrounded. This citadel is composed of two separate sections, and each of them has its own characteristics.  There have been scattered 67 towers in the ancient city of Bam.

Design and Construction of the Bam Citadel

• Planting and architecture of Arg Citadel were evaluated from various aspects. According to the current appearance of the palace can say that the designer or designers, from the first steps of the production process, have been predicted the final shape of the building and the city. Each of the progress of made during the construction has a complete form and each additional part can easily add on to the existing.
• Arg citadel is located in the downtown of the military city in the best view spot from military security.
• The governmental part that is located in the inner wall contains fortress, Four Seasons Mansion, barracks, 40 meters water wells and stalls with the capacity of 200 horses.
• The peasant settlements around the governmental state, including the main entrance of the city, along with the main route that connecting the entrance to the castle and its market, there are nearly 400 homes and public buildings such as schools and places of exercise.
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There are 3 different types of house that there are significant:

• Smaller houses with 2-3 rooms for poor families.
• Larger homes with 3-4 rooms for the middle-classsociety families, which some of them has Ivan as well.
• Luxurious houses with more rooms that are located in different parts for different seasons, with a big yard and a nearby barn for animals. The house has a very low number in this citadel. Such as Sistaniand Jewish homes.

All the buildings were made from the baked clay bricks. Bam was probably the world’s largest collection of mud brick before the 2003 earthquake.

Security in Arg-e Bam

When the city door was closed human or animal could not entrance. Residents could continue them life for long periods because they had access to water wells, gardens, and pets inside the citadel. When the military town built residents could stay inside the city and the soldiers could defend it because the castle was surrounded by high walls and towers.

Air conditioning in Arg-e Bam

In addition to the outline view of watchtowers and high walls decorated castle in the skyline, the magnificent painting of these building’s is magnificent loom.  Winds protruding structures of the buildings that used to catch the wind and steer it into the buildings. Sometimes Water reservoirs were built inside the building that could cool the buildings and remove dust. Buildings used for a variety of different types of wind. For example, for smaller buildings single structure louvers, and for the bigger buildings used four structure louvers till can lead the wind from different directions into the building.

Earth quack in 2003 in Bam

2003 earthquake in Bam destroyed more than 80 percent of this citadel. As a World Heritage many countries participated in the reconstruction of this citadel and Japan, Italy and France participated from the first. Japan helps Iran for reconstruction with about 1. 3 million dollars, by sending the equipment and create a three-dimensional plan of Bam to increase the accuracy of modernization the project will support. Italy’s Ministry of Heritage and cultural activities with the implementation of the project, with a budget of 500,000 Euros for the restoration and strengthening of tower number one will participate in the restoration of historic Citadel. The project, in collaboration with a team of experts from Italy and Iran, ended in the summer of 2011. The map helped France Citadel of Bam in Iran. The World Bank also contributed a large sum of money to this project. Bam citadel, destroyed following the earthquake in Bam and was seriously on the danger list of heritage, but according to UNESCO done in recent years in the Persian date, Tir 1392 (2003) Bam was removed from the list of in danger monuments.

International assistance to rebuild Bam

After the destruction of the Citadel of Bam by the earthquake, many countries helped reconstruct it. Including, Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO visited the period of Historic Places on 28 April 2014 went to Bam. He said: “UNESCO is the first organization that came to the city after the earthquake. I know Monuments in the province of Kerman and Bam. Bam also started on experts actions and will continue until 2017. More than ever we try to attract financial support from foreign countries and in this regard, use the Trust Fund of Japan and other countries.