Babak Castle

Jomhour castle which is known to Babak castle is placed in 50 Km of north of Ahar and on the high mountains near large river named Gara soo. This region’s name is Kaleybar.
Babak Khoramdin’s castle is on the top of the mountain whose height from sea is about 2300 to 2700 meters. This castle was constructed by brave and historical headed of Iran, Babak Khoramdin, against central government of Iran on the 3rd century.
The distance from kaleybar to castle is about 3km and you should pass dangerous and disastrous cervix and defiles to reach the castle. Before you had arrived there and enter the gate, you passed the way that is like a corridor, built from natural regular stones and just one person can go through it and there isn’t place for two people.
This passage is in front of the gate of the castle and the distance from the passage to gate is about 200 m, from this part you can see how the castle is great and magnificent, and impress you.
You can see the people who enter the gate from the watchtowers, so it was possible for soldiers to notice the army or the hosts came nearer to the castle on that time. You can enter the castle just from the principal gate and there is no way to enter it from the mountain.
To reach the main castle, you should pass the entrance gate, the battlement and the narrow passage which is 100m high and a deep valley with forest under it.
There are four watchtowers in four corners in the shape of semi cylinder for monitoring the people and every things move on the hillside and valleys.
After mounting, you should move on irregular stairs to arrive in main castle. The castle is structured in two and three floors and there is a main hall in the middle of castle and there are seven rooms around it.
There are some rooms and reservoirs in the eastward of the castle which their ceilings is based on twilled arcs. Their inner part is sealed with some kind of Sarooj. In winter they are filled with rain and snow to use them in summer and sieges.
There are stairs all around in northwest which are destroyed now, some parts of them are safe and you can mount to higher parts of the castle just by these stairs.
According to architectural remnants, stones and their matching, and coating of walls with kind of plaster and soil, this castle was built on Ashkanian and or Sasanian era.
The castle was repaired on 2nd and 3rd century, some parts have changed and some parts were added to it.
The things and instruments found there were painted crockeries which show establishment of the castle until 7th century. Also archaeologists discovered some cupric coins related to Atabakan of Azerbaijan and Hezarsiban, but they are unreadable due to abrasion and corrosion.
Because of the position of the castle, they could resist in front of great army with maximum 20 soldiers without any loss, wounded and dead, and the enemy couldn’t aggress there.
Babak castle was recorded in the list of national, historical and cultural remnants of Iran with number 623 in 1966 and it was repaired by the cultural heritage office of East Azerbaijan in 1997.