Castle Map

Palace

Sun Palace

Iran · 18th century

Founded
1738
Style
Afsharid architecture
Heritage status
Iranian National Heritage
Location
Kalat County
Coordinates
36.99508°, 59.76692°
Open on the map →Wikipedia ↗
Sun Palace in Iran
Photo: Moshtaba.m1363 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Description

The Nader Palace (Persian: کاخ نادر), also the Kalat Palace (Persian: کاخ کلات) or the Sun Palace (Persian: کاخ خورشید), is a palace in Kalat, Iran. Built in 1738–1739, it is one of the few buildings that were built during the reign of Nader Shah. Its construction was cut short after his assassination. It is currently used as a museum of anthropology.

Returning from his Indian campaign, Nader Shah brought with him captive Indian architects and engineers and ordered them to construct a palace in Kalat. The palace was meant to house the Shah's treasury, and the jewels he had taken from India. The namesake of the palace was apparently a wife of Nader, who was named "Khorshid", meaning "Sun". After Nader's demise the construction process was halted, which is clearly visible from the state of the building and the calligraphies and paintings.

Located in the middle of a large garden, it used to be 25 meters tall in 3 floors, but the third floor was ruined over time and the current height of the building does not exceed 20 meters.

There is evidence that the place was used as a residential headquarter in the early Qajar era.

It was listed in the Iranian national heritage sites list on 10 February 1940 with the number 329.

Text adapted from “Sun Palace” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

In the rankings

Sun Palace ranks #3,365 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #36 of the 172 mapped in Iran. Founded 1738, it is older than 18% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 685 atlas entries founded in the 18th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,872 times in the last 60 days, more than 68% of the atlas. 1 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how Iran compares in the castle statistics.

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