Iranian archaeologists believe that the bodies discovered in the walls of the bam citadel in southern Iran were buried there during the citadel siege by Nasrol-dolleh Farman-farma in Qajar era (1794 – 1925).

Experts with the Bam salvage project have discovered in the last few months 49 bodies shrouded in white inside the walls while documenting the adobe fence of the 2500-year-old citadel, almost razed after a devastating earthquake last December.

“During our historical studies to determine the time of the burials that began several months ago, we came to the conclusion that the bodies must have been buried in the walls during the Bam siege by Nasrol-dolleh Farman-farma alias Prince Firouz Mirza.” Asghar Karimi, anthropologist, told CHN.

“As the people of Bam could not transfer their dead out of the city during the 1-year siege, and the burial of children doesn’t necessitate following specific conventions in Islam, they shrouded the children in white and buried them in the walls.”

According to historical records, in the Qajar era when Nasrol-dolleh was appointed as the Kerman governor, Agha-khan, Kerman’s ex-governor, rioted and Nasrol-dolleh besieged him in the Bam citadel for one year.

In the months that skeletons were discovered in the surviving walls of the Bam citadel, Iranian archaeologists called this the biggest mystery in recent history, and a team of anthropologists tried to determine the time period the children were buried.

The Bam citadel was considered the world’s biggest mud-brick structure prior to its near-complete destruction in a major earthquake last December.