Shush Castle (Monastic village) • قهلای شوش • قلعة شوش
Palatial ruins are present at the mountain's base and at its top.
As you continue through the old village, further into the quietude away from the new village, suddenly there is a change. The domestic architecture fashioned out of stone blocks suddenly gives way to grand architecture on a palatial scale, carved directly into the rock and weathered for countless ages. Suddenly the old village seems small and recent as careful visitors start to notice enormous terrace after terrace of postholes, reservoirs, and granaries, plus countless steps and a cave-temple.
This monumental architecture from an ancient epoch is not just here in the foothills by the old village, but is found again at the mountaintop where fortifications are clearly visible. A path up the mountain, along which occasional stone pavers still remain, connects these two campuses. The style, layout, and especially the cave-temple, is all very similar to ruins found at ئاكرێ Akre.
Lower ruins
Deep holes were used as postholes for lumber to hold walls upright. They are one of the many indications in the lower ruins of where structures once stood. There are niches small enough for storage and statuary, and others so large that they likely were used to form a room.
There are many basins, used at one time to store water and foodstuffs. Storage is characteristic of centralized governance, and the presence of a cave-temple indicates a ruler-priest with this as his or her palace. The fortified upper ruins reinforce the idea that this was once more developed than the present-day village.
With only a small opening still visible, there is an almost missable Temple Cave.