Agricultural settlements were long established as part of the Central Plateau Culture on local
foothills such as that of
Cheshme-Ali in northern Ray, which dates back to around 6,000 BC. The establishment of Ray has been attributed to ancient mythological monarchs, and it is also believed that Ray was the seat of a dynasty of
Zoroastrian leadership.
Classical era (Teppe Mill) is a
Zoroastrian fire temple from the time of the
Sasanian Empire in Ray, Iran. The
Achaemenid Behistun Inscription mentions Ray (, ; , ; , ) as a part of
Media, which was the political and cultural base of the ancient
Medes, one of the
ancient Iranian peoples. Ray was one of the main strongholds of the
Seleucid Empire. During the
Seleucid period,
Alexander the Great's general
Seleucus I Nicator renamed the city as
Europos (), honoring his home city in
Macedonia. In , Ray was conquered by the
Parthian king
Mithridates I (). Following the Parthian conquest of Ray, the city was renamed Arsacia. The city remained an important site under the Parthians, as demonstrated by its many coin mints, under the name of (the Greek form of
Ragā/Raγā). Ray was used as one of the shifting capitals of the Parthian Empire, according to
Athenaeus. According to
Isidore of Charax, under the Parthian and Seleucid eras, Ray was surrounded by the province of Rhagiana together with four other cities. Ray was amongst the bases used by the Parthians to thwart nomadic attacks and to occasionally invade the
Central Asian steppe. Under the
Sasanian Empire, Ray () was located near the center of the empire. It was the base of the powerful
House of Mehran and the
House of Spandiyad, two of the
Seven Great Houses of Iran during the Sasanian period.
Middle Ages minted in Ray during the governorship of
Rafi ibn Harthama, ruler of Khorasan, 9th-century AD Siyavash, the son of Mehran and the last King of Ray in the Sasanian Empire, was defeated fighting the
Muslim invasion in 643. Ray was then used as a camp site under Arab Muslim military occupation. By the time of the
Abbasid Caliphate, Ray was considerably restored and expanded into a new city named
Mohammadiya. During the early Islamic period, the language spoken in Ray was the
Razi dialect, which was most likely a continuation of the
Median language. The
Shah Abdol-Azim Shrine, a shrine containing the tomb of
Abd al-Aziz al-Hasani, a fifth generation descendant of
Hasan ibn Ali and a companion of
Muhammad al-Taqi, was built in the ninth century. It remains as the main Islamic sanctuary of the city to date. A
Tower of Silence, where Zoroastrians of Ray after the Muslim conquest had come to put the bodies of the dead in the open, was built by a wealthy inhabitant of Ray on a hill in the tenth century. The tower, today in ruins and designated as
Gabri (a term denoting "Zoroastrian", adopted after the Muslim conquest), was reportedly soon taken by the Muslims. in Ray, Iran. Also dating to the tenth century is the
Bibi Shahrbanu Shrine, which is the site of a former Zoroastrian temple dedicated to
Anahita, the ancient Iranian goddess of the waters. The temple has been converted into a Muslim shrine claimed to be the burial of
Shahrbanu, a legendary Sasanian princess who was captured by the Muslims and married
Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of
Muhammad. It is likely that the name
shahrbanu, meaning "lady of the land", is in fact an attribution to Anahita, who bore the title
banu ("lady"). Ray was one of the capital cities of the
Buyid dynasty. It was one of the cities that were equipped with rapid postal service, which was predominantly used for transferring official mails. The Buyid period came to an end in 1029, when the city was sacked brutally by
Mahmud of Ghazni. A zealous Sunni, Mahmud had large numbers of the local population, consisting of
Ismailis and
Mazdakites, crucified and many books of the great library of Rayy burned as he considered them heretical. , located outside the old city walls of Ray. Ray became later a capital city of the
Seljuk Empire in the 11th century. During this time, the city of Ray was at its greatest expanse. It had developed a great urban market that also benefited its neighboring regions, including the once small town of Tehran, and had become a remarkable center for silk weaving. Commercial goods imported by traders via the
Silk Road were brought into the bazaar of Ray. One of the monuments that survives from this period is the 12th-century
Tughrul Tower, a brick tower built in 1140 that is attributed to
Tughrul I, the founder of the Seljuk Empire. Ray was home to a
Shia Muslim community and some of the earliest Shia
madrasas in Iran already in the 12th century, at least one established by Shia scholar Qazvini Razi, prior to the later
Safavid official adoption of Shiism as the state religion. In the early 13th century, following the
Mongol invasion of Iran, Ray was severely destructed. It was abandoned and eventually lost its importance in the presence of the nearby growing town of Tehran. Ray remained abandoned throughout the time of the
Timurid Empire.
Early modern times -era
Fath Ali Shah Inscription at Cheshme-Ali, Ray.
Amin Razi, a Persian geographer from Ray who lived by the time of the
Safavid dynasty, attests to the "incomparable abundance" of the gardens and canals of his hometown. In 1618, Italian author
Pietro Della Valle described Ray as a large city with large gardens that was administered by a provincial governor but was not urbanized and did not seem to be inhabited. The shrines of Shah Abdol-Azim and Bibi Shahrbanu, among other religious shrines throughout Iran, were notably reconstructed during the early modern period, using architectural techniques that were developed since the time of the Safavid dynasty to the time of the
Qajar dynasty. There is
a relief located at Cheshme-Ali from the time of
Fath-Ali Shah of the Qajar dynasty, who often used to explore the city, which shows the Qajar ruler in a hunting scene, replacing a former Sasanian relief that depicted an ancient Persian emperor in the same manner. It was engraved in 1831, and its surrounding was decorated with tablets covered with poetry.
Contemporary era In the middle of the 19th century, Ray was described as a place of ruins, the only settlement being around the Shah Abdol-Azim Shrine. Being the only important pilgrimage site in vicinity to the royal court in the new capital Tehran brought more people to visit the shrine and a major restoration was sponsored by the court. Thus, between the years 1886 and 1888, under the reign of Qajar ruler
Naser al-Din Shah, Ray became the first place in Iran to be connected to the capital by a railway. The railway had a short single line and transported a few steam locomotives that were colloquially called ("smoky machine"), between terminals that were called (from
French ). Excavations in the old city began in the late 19th century, and many of the findings were traded. Between 1933 and 1936, the Cheshme-Ali hill was excavated by archaeologists from the
Boston Fine Arts Museum and the University Museum at the
University of Pennsylvania headed by Erich Schmidt, which resulted in the discovery of a number of 7,000-year-old artifacts. Some of the discovered objects are displayed at museums in Iran, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Due to real estate expansions in the 1980s and 1990s, the hill is now mostly leveled out. Further excavations began in 1997, in a collaboration between the
Iranian Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the Department of Archaeological Sciences of the
University of Bradford and the Department of Archaeology of the
University of Tehran. in the 1950s prior to its destruction. In 1951,
Reza Shah of the
Pahlavi dynasty, the second last
shah of the Imperial State of Iran, was buried by the order of his son and successor
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in a mausoleum dedicated to him in Ray. The mausoleum was built near the Shah Abdol-Azim Shrine. Following the
1979 Revolution, the
Mausoleum of Reza Shah was destroyed under the direction of
Sadegh Khalkhali, an infamous cleric who was appointed by
Ruhollah Khomeini as the head of the newly established Revolutionary Courts. == Geography ==