page_title: Ray, Iran
section_title: Early modern times
hierarchical_section_title: Ray, Iran / History / Early modern times
caption_attribution_description: English: Tehran: Old stone inscription in Cheshme Ali in the city of Rey.
context_page_description: Shahr-e Rey or simply Ray is the capital of Ray County in Tehran Province, Iran. Formerly a distinct city, it has now been absorbed into the metropolitan area of Greater Tehran as the 20th district of municipal Tehran, the capital city of the country.
  Historically known as Rhages, Rhagae and Arsacia, Ray is the oldest existing city in Tehran Province. In the classical era, it was a prominent city belonging to Media, the political and cultural base of the Medes. Ancient Persian inscriptions and the Avesta, among other sources, attest to the importance of ancient Ray. Ray is mentioned several times in the Apocrypha. It is also shown on the 4th-century Peutinger Map. The city was subject to severe destruction during the medieval invasions by the Arabs, Turks, and Mongols. Its position as a capital city was revived during the reigns of the Buyid Daylamites and the Seljuk Turks. Ray is richer than many other ancient cities in the number of its historical monuments.
context_section_description: 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 administrated by a provincial governor but was not urbanized and didn't 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.
caption: The Qajar-era Fath Ali Shah Inscription at Cheshme-Ali, Ray.
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