Some remarks on the architecture and decoration of the site of Bandiyân (Khorasan).

The author dedicates to the honoured colleague Mr Rajabali Labbaf-Khaniki an updated English version of one of his contributions that appeared in 2014 in a French volume devoted to the architecture and art of Iran in the Sasanian period. It builds on the numerous publications by the discoverer of the Bandiyân site, Mehdi Rahbar, and other scholars who have addressed the subject, and aims to present some observations that only partly modify the interpretation proposed by the Iranian archaeologist, confirming his attribution to non-secular architecture. The author modifies the proposed function further pointing to a ritual function with funerary purposes pertaining to the aristocratic family owner of the estate (dastgerd) comprising tepes A, B, C, the eroical deeds of which are described and celebrated in the stucco decoration of the outer ivân. This makes of the Bandiyân figural stuccoes the only art product of Sasanian Iran truly narrative in the meaning of R. Brilliant: this features connects the site more to Central Asia than to Iranian plateau.