There are some writings about the age of holy trees in Iran. Some of these trees are very famous, such as the Kashmar cypress, which is said to have been planted by Zarathushtra, and was standing until the Abbasid period. Another is the ancient Abarkooh cypress, which is fortunately still standing. There are many famous, old, and holy trees that, despite being known and honored in their village and region, we do not know about their history and antiquity; This article aims to write about the age of cham cypress and describe some of its characteristics, which have great respect and value among Zoroastrians.
The question arose when a friend mentioned the age being 3000 years, and when I asked about the source of this information, he pointed out to news websites. In some internet news agencies, the age of the tree was stated as being between 3500 and 1100 years. And its height is between 18 and 28 meters. I decided to dig further to see what I could find.
What I remember about Sarv Cham from my last trips around 1394 was a tree split in two or three parts, and a part of the trunk was fastened with a tow wire. This towing wire was stretched on the tree trunk with the help of tires so as not to injure it. A part of the tree trunk towards Shirkouh (to the south) was dry to semi-dry. A lot of strings, ropes, pomegranates, and cloth were tied on the lower branches of the cedar tree, for “wishes” to come true. I wonder about human beings’ mentality. Instead of tending to the needs of this old tree that is suffering from lack of water, and storms and the summer heat, they ask for help which return for giving this tree water and food, he expects his wishes to come true. And why is this so? What is the root of this type of attitude towards old trees? This is another story.
After doing some scientific research, I found out the age of the tree when I came across an article about the evergreen trees of Yazd province, in which their physical data and estimated age of given to compare the average diameter and circumference of the trunk with the growth rate of plant rings in the same samples of these trees. It is mentioned in a very brief form in the original articles. (Khoshnevisan & colleagues 1397/2018).
Thus, recent research has estimated the life of Cham cypress to be about 600 years, which is very different from the writings of Internet news channels, which are mentioned to be from 1100 to 3500. Of course, it should be noted that in this recent study (Khoshnevis et al. 1397), the details about the dating method have not been mentioned. On 25 Aban 1388 (2009) the old Cham Cypress was registered under No. 40 on Iran’s list of natural effects. Since then, it has received more attention and investigation.
