Bust is one of the oldest cities of Helmand province in the southwestern part of Afghanistan which its current center is "Lashkargah". This town was built on the northernmost of Bust’s historical rabaz, which was a base chosen by the Ghaznavid emirs as accommodation for the army. This rabaz is a part of Lukan/Lugan lush plain, which its landscape along with the Hirmand River, has consistently been described by literary sources. Bust and its rabaz are located in a place, where the living condition is guaranteed by the Arghandab River in the east, Hirmand in the west and the prolific plain of Lakan in the center. These environmental features turned this region into an attractive area for different dynasties. Archaeological evidence confirms that Bust at least dates back to the Achaemenid era, although the most important settlement periods of this city are of the Parthian, Saffarid, Ghaznavid-Ghori, and Timurid. The citadel of Bust is located at the southern border of the Lacan Plain where two rivers come together. The northern rabaz of the city, which had been developed to the center of the plain, was the site for a significant number of ceremonial mansions, most notably the palaces and Kushks belonging to the Ghaznavid dynasty. The ruined central Kushk was one of these buildings. Despite the fact that it had been constructed before the Ghaznavid period, this central Kushk was used for a short period of time within their reign and some extensions were added to it. This Kushk had two distinct architectural periods: the first shows an extroverted Nine Bay (Noh-Gonbad) in the center of a Chaharbagh. The structure of this Kushk changed at that time, in a way that its initial nine-part divisions extended to a further number. Sometimes space constraints led to some Secondary changes. For example piers (pillars) which were supposed to be wide in early design, became smaller: This could be seen in the northeast and southwest corner. At the same period, Chahrbagh of this complex had a square plan, with sides that were 297 meters each. Thus, its area was slightly less than 76 acres (jeribs). Some features like The Kushk’s plan of construction, landscape architecture, historical sources and its comparison with a Saffarid Kushk in Bam, confirm that this building was constructed during the Saffarid period and dates back to the reign of Taher bin Muhammad (903-900 m / 290-287 AD), the third emir of Saffarid dynasty. Concurrently, in order to take advantage of the river’s landscape, its green space/garden (Khazra) was developed to the west. Afterward, a pavilion known as “Kushke Rudkhane” (the river pavilion) was built on the edge of the river, in a way that its position was in accordance with the east-west axis of the developed Chahrbagh. It was also accessible to the Nine Bay through a straight axis. Consequently, the symmetry of the central Kushk with its Chahrbagh was affected and the wall of the western front and its gates facing the Hirmand River, eliminated. With the construction of the central palace at the time of the Samanids and necessity to use the pleasant and lush view of this Kushk, part of its eastern front was built inside the old wall. In the early Ghaznavid period, probably during the reign of Amir Mahmud (1030-998 / 421-388 AH), another architectural layer, which the only remaining structures of that had left in form of hydraulic systems like two ponds and a channel, added to the central Kushk. Ghaznavids did not use this palace for long; during the reign of Amir Masoud (1030-1038 / 440-432 AD), which had chosen the central palace as his residence, the peripheral walls of central Kushk considered as part of the palace landscape and ultimately became a hunting ground (Pardis). Therefore, before being destroyed by the Ghorids or the Mongols, its importance had been lost, and gradually turned into ruins. The French excavations unearthed only one meter of its remains. This Kushk which for long had been known as one of the few architectural monuments left in the first centuries of the Islamic era disappeared after the development of the new city of Lashkargah to the south, and nowadays a number of construction units have been built in its area.
کلید واژگان :ceremonial architecture, Islamic architecture, Nine Bay (Noh-Gonbad), historical city of Bust, central Kushk of Lashkargah
ارزش ریالی : 150000 ریال
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