He is sitting on top of the roof of the Ali Qapu Palace. Cool and quiet wind blows and scatters his handwritten notes. He is forced to hold tight the valuable notes by one hand and by another hand to hold the pen and to keep writing. In front of him there is a wide complex with royal buildings and gardens called by Iranians “the Government House”.
German doctor and traveler Engelbert Kaempfer is a lucky man to be able from the top of the Ali Qapu palace to look straight into the beating heart of the Safavid empire and to draw a map of it. Next to the massive royal buildings and delightful Safavid gardens, on the right corner of the map he draws a narrow passage running pass the northern side of the Government House.
This passage is open for everyone. Kaempfer does not know that after more than three hundred years, in the 4th of September in 1933, this passage after removing two chambers from the western part of the Naqsh-e Jahan square entered this square as one of the most important streets of the modern Isfahan.
In this way a previously small passage has saved the cultural heritage of Isfahan from the ruination and from being forgotten. An old passage now has become Sepah street. In the map of the Safavid Government House made by Kaempfer, in a place where today Sepah street runs, besides the Chehel Sotoun palace a narrow passage quietly passes by the beautiful Chehel Sotoun garden, goes by Cheharhouz square and Khosro Agha hammam and close to the square enters the royal caravanserai.
This caravanserai was called “Naqsh-e Jahan”, that according to the Jean Chardin’s Travelogue apparently this caravanserai was one of the biggest and the most beautiful caravanserais of the time located in Isfahan. After this caravanserai, the old passage enters the Naqsh-e Jahan square. The gardens, such as Farrashkhaneh, Jazayerkhaneh, Khayyatkhaneh and a section of the Badamestan garden, where today the central municipal buildings are situated, were demolished in order to change an old Safavid passage to the modern street.
Name Sepah Street
Archaism Safavid Era
Changes During 2nd Pahlavi’s Era
Other Name Sepah Street
Location the beginning of Darvazeh Dolat
National Heritage Registration No. 114 and January 6, 1932
