Armenians cemetery in Isfahan
RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) –Armenians cemetery is named one of the oldest cemeteries in Isfahan. Lying to the south of the city and skirt of a high hill known as Sofe Mountain, it was registered in the list of national works of Iran in 2001.
Based on available researches, the oldest graves in Julfa Armenians` cemetery dates back to 1551. The cemetery with 30 hectares’ area has more than 50 thousand graves.
According to some researchers, there were as many graves as those survived that have been either destroyed or buried under the other graves.
“Over the past five centuries, the cemetery has experienced lots of changes and destructions” local said
For example, in 1936, when Reza Khan Pahlavi traveled to Isfahan to visit the national army`s barracks, to avoid the king not passing over the graves, an alley passing through the graves was built so some graves were removed from the cemetery and a wall of 2-meter height was built on both sides of the alley. The action known as the biggest destruction to the cemetery.
Beside Armenians, the cemetery serves as a burial place of some notable figures like “Johan Northumber, the British envoy in Shah Abbas 1 court”, “ Johann Rudolph Steindler, the famous watchmaker in Safavid era”,” Ernst Holtser, head of British Telegraph House in Isfahan and one the Pioneers of photography in 19th century” and many of polish displaces people who between 1942 and 1945(during the World War II) had escaped to Iran and died there.