In Hamedan

Location: Buali Hotel, Hamedan, Iran
Date: 24th April, 2008

We spent the day in Hamedan visiting the Avicenna Mausoleum (he was a great doctor who researched the effects of plants and herbs in medicine and wrote texts used after the renaissance over 700 years after his death) and the ancient Ecbatana Excavations at Hegmatane Hill, a city of the Median Empire founded in 650BCE.

A quick visit to Gonbad-e-Alavian (the Alavian tomb) and the tomb of Ester and Mordecai, situated with a synagogue was fascinating. The curator, one of 15 Jews left in Hamadan, told us the interesting story of Esther, wife of Xerxes and her uncle, Mordachai who saved thousands of Jews from slaughter.

Finally we visited Sang-e-Shir, a 2300 year old stone lion that once guarded the gates to the city of Ecbatana, and now a children’s plaything situated in a pleasant park.