Starting from Isfahan
In 1601, Shah Abbas the First started by walking northwards from his new and still only partly built capital, Isfahan, up to the busy trading city of Kashan. He was then guided across 30km of fearsome salt desert, using pillars of black stones; before embarking across another 30km of challenging salt mud.
Using a mix of current local knowledge and data from Google Earth, the Shah’s halts are comparatively easy to identify. Western travellers’ accounts from Shah Abbas’ Iran can then be used to provide near-contemporary descriptions for many of the stopping places.
A Polish carpet merchant, Sefer Muratowicz, had dinner with Shah Abbas the night before the thousand-kilometre walk started and reported: “Starting the next morning, having put on a simple robe and shoes, the Shah set out on foot and walked for three days and with six hundred handsome young men”.
More details are available in my paper: Shah Abbas and the Pilgrimage to Mashhad: Update 1: from Isfahan to the Khurasan highroad (Mawer 2010a).
