Eyvānakī

Eyvanki lay on the road from the Tehran–Rey basin toward Garmsar and Khorasan. Its Safavid caravanserai, known as Shah Abbasi, provided a stopping place on that eastward journey. Built of stone and brick, the square complex arranged four iwans around a courtyard, with rooms for travellers and space for pack animals. An associated cistern supplied water in the dry landscape.

This building belonged to the wider Safavid effort to maintain roads and accommodation along the pilgrimage route to Mashhad. Such stations brought merchants and pilgrims together while supplying shelter, food and water between settlements. At Eyvanki, the road was given a permanent architectural centre: a courtyard where caravans could halt, protected rooms in which to rest, and stored water before the next stage toward the desert's northern margin.