Fire Temple

The fire temple of Bishapur is a square cruciform building. Its gigantic interior space, occupies about 781 square meters. The building is built of rubble masonry with 64 decorative niches. The square cruciform cupola hall is surrounded by a corridor connected to neibouring buildings including the mosaic ayvan, the structure called Anahita Temple and a courtyard also made of mosaic. With its span of more than 20 m. the cupola not only doubled the size of its predecessor but was also the biggest cupola built in the Sassanian period.At first the building was mistaken as a palace but later it was figured out that it could only have been a fire temple. Its plan shows a further development of Takht-e Nishin, Ardashir’s fire temple at Ardashir-Khurreh.