Minaret of Jam

The minaret of Jam stands sixty-five metres high in an empty river gorge in the mountains of Ghor, four hundred kilometres from anywhere, and it has been leaning for centuries. It was raised in 1190 for the Ghurid sultans, covered head to foot in geometric brickwork and glazed tile, and it is almost certainly all that is left of their lost summer capital Firuzkuh. UNESCO listed it in 2002 as the first Afghan site and put it on the danger list the same year. Getting there takes two days of unpaved road from Herat. Illegal digging around the base has been part of the danger listing from the start.