Jondaq

Jondaq, also written Jandaq, lay on the southern edge of Iran's Dasht-e Kavir, in the Khur and Biabanak country. The settlement occupied a desert setting of isolated mountains, springs and underground water channels. Its older built landscape included the fortress known as Ardbil, traditionally associated with the Sasanian king Anushirvan. The attribution belongs to the fort's remembered antiquity.

During the early Qajar period Jandaq remained connected administratively with Yazd. That arrangement changed in the final decade of Fath-Ali Shah's reign, which ended in 1834: Jandaq was transferred to Qumes, the region around Semnan. The district also gave its name to the poet Yaghma-yi Jandaqi, born in nearby Khur in 1781. His association with the district linked this desert country to Persian literary life during the same period in which its provincial allegiance changed.