1500 Years Old Dwarf Village

In a remote corner of the South Khorasan area, precisely near the border with Afghanistan, there is an ancient 1500 year old village known as Dwarf Village and is considered one of the seven most amazing villages in the world. Experts believe that around a century ago this village was inhabited by dwarf people measuring around 50 cm.

This belief is based on the fact that about 200 stone and clay houses make up this village, 70 or 80 of which have very low heights. These dwellings are about 150 cm high with narrow doors that cannot be entered without bending over. This village is called Mahoni. The 1500 year old architecture in this village looks like it came from 10,000 years ago. The simple houses in Mahoni retain the ancient design made of wood mud stone and thatch. These houses are built in a depression in the Hill area with the main room lower about one meter from ground level, therefore these houses often require stairs to connect the entrance to the ground floor of the house. The length and width of these houses range from 1.5 to 3 meters or three by five meters with a ceiling height of around 1.5 meters. Each house has a small room for storing barley and wheat plus a small stove for cooking as well as several very small rooms for keeping animals and other equipment, there is also a living room, bedroom, kitchen, knitting workshop and so on. In this small house, one family can consist of 8 people and they have no problems with living conditions.

Even though the houses in Mahoni look simple and are built with simple materials, building tiny houses is not a simple matter. This is because residents have limited access to large enough domestic animals which are usually used to transport materials, as well as because the roads are not in good condition due to these conditions, residents have to transport building material supplies by hand for several km. Therefore, people choose to build simple and smaller houses because smaller houses will require fewer materials and make their business lighter. Additionally smaller homes are easier to heat or cool than larger homes. In 2006 there were around 125 families with a population of around 700 people living in mahogany. It is suspected that they were originally Afghans who migrated to the area hundreds of years ago. then they are isolated and don't have much communication with outsiders. This area actually includes several villages, some of which are Mahoni , Tutak, Le Juna and so on. All residents in these villages have similar religious characteristics and lifestyles. Until about 50 years ago, all the residents in this village did not drink tea and did not eat meat.

The belief that Mahoni residents had dwarf bodies in the past was not only based on architectural findings in this area. In 2005 a mummified body measuring around 25 cm was discovered in this area. The discovery then sparked the belief that this region in a remote corner of Iran was once home to an ancient city of dwarves. Even though experts later discovered that the mummy was actually a premature baby who died about 400 years ago, they argued that the previous generation of Mahoni residents was indeed shorter than usual. They added that one of the reasons why people in this region were shorter than people of their time was malnutrition which contributed significantly to the height deficiency.

This lack of nutrition is influenced by the dry and remote geographic conditions which make it difficult for the residents to raise livestock, grow rapeseed, grains, dates and several other plants which are their staple food. On the other hand, access to the surrounding cities is also very difficult and there are no means to cross the mountains. Because of this, this village remained without access and unknown to the outside world until around 100 years ago, during which time the population continued to experience nutritional deficiencies.

Luckily, around 70 years ago, when this area began to be discovered, the government began to open roads to reach this area along with food and several other facilities. With transportation connected to villages people in this area can reach nearby towns and eat something better. Young people started going to nearby towns and bringing back money and food so things in the village became better than before. If previously the average population in this area had a short and stocky body, now they have a tall and slender body. However, even though most of the hundreds of Mahoni residents today are of average height, the fact that the stature of their ancestors was shorter than most people still persists to this day.