Tomb of Esther and Mordechai

History: Tomb of Esther and Mordechai

The Tomb of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan is the most important pilgrimage site of Iran's Jews, and Iranian Christians also honour it. Local tradition holds that it houses the remains of Queen Esther and her cousin Mordechai, whose story the Book of Esther sets at the Persian court in Susa (Esther 2:5–7). The tradition is not found in the Talmud and has not been adopted by Jewish communities beyond Iran.

The tomb is first attested in the eleventh century, and Benjamin of Tudela described it standing in front of a synagogue. The present brick mausoleum, with an outer and an inner chamber under a dome, has been dated variously, from the Ilkhanid period to the seventeenth century. The archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld argued that it is instead the tomb of Shushandukht, the Jewish consort of the Sasanian king Yazdegerd I, and some scholars have agreed.

An interesting detail

Nineteenth-century visitors recorded that on Purim the Book of Esther was read aloud at the tombs.