The Seismicity of Iran and Its Effect on Iranian Adobe Cultural Heritage: The Case Study of Bam City

Iran with its inception in 3200 BC is defined as one of the oldest country in the world. Subsequent to historicalbackground of Iran, adobe-mud buildings with their glorious and sustainable architecture have constituted the majorityof construction material in the most urban fabric of country’s ancient cities, more specifically in the Central IranianPleatue, and even today, they are remained as the dominant architectural form in villages and rural areas. In themeantime, earthquake due to inherent seismic deficiency of adobe buildings have had posed one of the greatest threatsand challenges to this vulnerable type of building; damage caused by the past earthquakes in Iran proves that the adobebuildings are the most vulnerable infrastructure at the time of earthquakes. Recent and historic data clearly shows thatnot only large-scaled earthquakes but also even medium and low sized earthquakes subjected to adobe buildings canhave resulted in catastrophic destruction, dismal tragedies, high death toll and high loose of cultural heritage properties.Hence, this article describes the seismicity of Iran briefly, where it is known as one of the seismically active countries inthe world, and later it has an overview on major historic seismic event in Iranian territory. Finally, it tries to get acomplete view about what was happened upon adobe cultural heritage properties, failures and their causes, in the city ofBam during 2003 Bam earthquake.

کلیدواژه ها:

Iran ، Earthquake ، Adobe Cultural Heritage ، Bam City