Kariz Underground City

The qanat (Kariz) of Kish, one of the island’s tourist and historical sites with an antiquity of more than 2,500 years, lies 16 meters below ground and its ceiling is covered with shells and corals that, according to local guides, are between 270 and 570 million years old, although given the host limestone-coral substrate their actual age cannot be more than a few thousand years. The qanat covers 10,000 square meters and the mosque or prayer room of the underground city is the only coral mosque in the world with a ceiling full of marine fossils. Engineer Mansour Haji Hosseini, an Iranian resident of Germany, built the Kish Underground City (Kariz) in 1999 with investment from the cultural-tourism complex; the traditional qanat bazaar was established in two branches totaling 15 kilometers in 1994 to offer handicrafts and Iran’s traditional products. The new phase of the complex is a museum of fossils obtained from the coral ceiling that have been examined at the University of Munich, are documented, and date from 53 to 57 million years ago; the complex also includes handicraft shops, a traditional photography studio, and a traditional teahouse.