Raiders of the Lost Private Parts

An Iranian citizen journalist, who writes under a pseudonym to protect his identity, wrote the following article on the ground inside Iran.

A friend told me about Khaled Nabi Cemetery a few years ago. A mysterious site off the beaten track, it has made a name for itself because of a curious arrangement of stones shaped like genitalia. They may or may not be tombstones.

I wanted to visit the cemetery for a while, and at last, I succeeded. When I got there, I was as much fascinated by the strange shapes of the stones as I was horrified by the extensive damage done to this historical site.

According to local residents who live nearby, on days when the site is empty of tourists, certain individuals sneak in and vandalize the stones. Reports indicate that as recently as the 1980s there were around 600 stones at the site, of which no more than 200 remain, some of which are broken or damaged. I saw many examples of this damage.

The site largely remains a mystery. Located in Golestan Province in northeastern Iran near the border with Turkmenistan, the cemetery has three shrines in addition to the stones. One of the shrines, for Khaled Nabi, has given its name to the whole site. It is not known just who Khalid Nabi — or “Prophet Khalid” — was exactly. A nineteenth-century Iranian history book claims that he came from Yemen to Iran to spread Christianity before the birth of the Prophet Mohammad.

There are three types of stones in Khalid Nabil Cemetery. The first category includes six-foot tall phallus-shaped stones. Others are smaller and resemble female genitalia, though some people have said they look like female breasts. There is no distinctive shape to the third group of stones at the cemetery.

Despite being so unique, archaeologists have not studied the cemetery closely. Scottish archeologist David Stronach published the most recent — and only modern — scholarly paper about the site in 1981. Stronach left Iran with the onset of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Some sources say the stone site is 1400 years old, while Stronach believed that the majority of the stones date from between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. He refers to them as "highly stylized representations of people." The site has been also variously associated with Indian and Central Asian worship symbols and Turkmen tribes. Some commentators have suggested that that the stones have nothing to do with the dead, despite it being called a cemetery.

Whatever Khaled Nabi Cemetery is, it is a fascinating mystery. But if the present rate of vandalism continues, the mystery will soon disappear. Local people say that at least some of the stones have been stolen and sold.

The Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization is responsible for protecting Iran’s historical sites. But it has done nothing to protect Khaled Nabi. But there is some hope. In an interview on April 15 with Mehr news agency, Habib Rezaei, an archeologist and university professor, strongly urged the organization to add Khaled Nabi Cemetery to the list of its protected sites. In response, Ebrahim Karimi, Director General of the Cultural Heritage Organization promised action “soon”.

But to save what is left of the captivating Khaled Nabi Cemetery, action must come sooner than later.

Reza Askari, Citizen Journalist, Neishabur