Sacred Zoroastrian Sites

There are several sites near Ardekan and Yazd that are considered sacred by Zoroastrians. The sites hold such importance that a yearly pilgrimage is planned for some of them, drawing thousands of Zoroastrians world-wide. There are five or six such pilgrimage sites, termed peers. Legend has it that during the Arab invasion of Iran, the wives and daughters of the remaining Sassanid kings (Yazdgerd III) fled into the mountains surrounding Yazd – and were ‘taken in’ by the mountain. The supposed spot of this occurrence is considered sacred by Zoroastrians and a shrine is built around it.

The largest and most important of these sites, Peer-e-Sabz or Chak Chak is now an officially recognized historical site by the Iranian Travel and Tourism Company and is listed in all of their distributed brochures. The setting for Chak Chak is quite impressive, as one must travel close to 45 minutes in the desert before seeing the shrine and the sleeping quarters for the pilgrims. The term Chak Chak literarily means ‘drop by drop’, as the shrine receives drops of water all year round – which is collected and used during the pilgrimage.

We visited all of these sites on off-peak dates.