TEHRAN -- Ruins of a fire temple dating back to the Sassanid era have recently been discovered during a series of archaeological excavations in the Vigol region near Kashan in central Iran.

The discovery was made during the latest season of excavations, which are being carried out by a team of archaeologists led by Mohsen Javeri and began in mid-June, the Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization announced in a press release on Monday.
The cruciform temple has four entrances leading to the ruins of a fireplace embellished with unique stucco designs, Javeri said.
The team has also unearthed pieces of ornate stucco work at the foot of the fireplace, he added.
The fire temple floor has been covered with plaster. The walls of the mud structure have been decorated with plaster dado rails, above which they have been painted with ocher paint.
The archaeologists surmise that the fire temple was used during the period after the fall of the Sassanid Empire due to the fact that the plaster on the fire temple floor has been recovered several times.
“This kind of the Sassanid religious architecture has previously been found in southern Iran, but this first time such a structure with these characteristics has been identified in central Iran,” Javeri noted.
The fire temple is located in one of the two Sassanid cities, which were identified in the region in 2005.
Javery said that the cities, which are almost intact, are buried under the sands.
Upcoming studies on the cities could shed light on the transition from the Sassanid era to the Islamic period and urbanism during the early Islamic eras in the region, he stated.
The Vigol region is located at a distance of about seven kilometers northeast of the city of Kashan in Isfahan Province.