Iran (IMNA) - Just 143 kilometres from Birjand, the provincial capital, Makhunik has earned global recognition as one of the world’s seven most astonishing villages. Long before it drew curious travellers, it acquired a more whimsical nickname: “the land of the Lilliputians.” Until around a century ago, many residents measured scarcely a metre in height, and the homes they built—low-ceilinged, earth-hugging, and tucked partly underground—were designed to match their stature.
Though Jonathan Swift imagined a world of tiny people in Gulliver’s Travels, Makhunik’s miniature dwellings and past residents belonged not to fiction but to the stark realities of an isolated desert community.
A village wrapped in myth and moonlight
Local interpretations of the village’s name add to its mystique. Some say “Makhunik” refers to the region’s cool climate, while others link it to a gap carved into surrounding mountains. Another theory traces the name to ancient Pahlavi Persian: Mah (moon) and Khunik (land), making Makhunik “the land of the moon.”
From afar, the village appears as a clustered patchwork of mud-brick homes clinging tightly to the hills. Many sit half-submerged, designed to preserve warmth during bitter winters and retain coolness in scorching summers. With doorways barely a metre high and irregular, subterranean rooms shaped around the contours of the hills, these dwellings reveal centuries of adaptation to harsh terrain.
Although archaeology situates Makhunik’s origins several centuries back, some elders attribute its settlement to the Safavid era, when Iranian kings strengthened this frontier region. Yet petroglyphs scattered around the area hint at far more ancient human presence.
The mystery of short stature
The most famous aspect of Makhunik’s history—the unusually short height of its past inhabitants—traces back to migration. Oral tradition recounts an Afghan family fleeing hardship roughly 400 years ago and settling in this remote corner. Over time, the community grew but remained remarkably secluded, with marriages largely confined within a tight kinship network.
Survival in Makhunik meant embracing the limits of its arid landscape. Livestock was scarce, and agriculture was minimal—restricted to hardy crops like barley, turnips, grains, and the jujube fruit. The villagers’ diet was almost entirely vegetarian, centred on local dishes such as kashk-beneh, a blend of whey and wild pistachio, and pokhteek, a simple mix of dried whey and turnip.
Scientists investigating the community’s short stature have pointed to a combination of genetic isolation, intermarriage, and nutritional shortcomings. Mineral-deficient water—once even contaminated with traces of mercury—may have further exacerbated growth limitations. The result, researchers suggest, was an average height half a metre below that of neighbouring populations.
By the mid-20th century, however, new roads, improved nutrition, and modern healthcare transformed the community. Today, most residents are of average height, though the memory of earlier generations survives in the architecture and local lore.
Homes sculpted by history
Of Makhunik’s roughly 200 stone-and-clay dwellings, between 70 and 80 are strikingly small. Some ceilings drop as low as 1.4 metres, and many houses—camouflaged in the tones of the surrounding desert—were once built with defence in mind. Their earthen hues blended naturally into the hills, shielding the village from raiders and nomadic groups on the Afghan frontier.
Despite gradual modernisation and the arrival of brick homes, Makhunik’s original architecture remains intact enough to attract tourists drawn to its labyrinth of narrow lanes and compact, half-buried houses.
A culture shaped by restraint
Makhunik’s isolation also forged a distinctive moral code. For generations, villagers avoided smoking, hunting, and the consumption of meat—practices elders viewed as wasteful or sinful. Even tea was once taboo, its scarcity and cost turning abstention into both belief and necessity.
Television, too, was long shunned, dismissed by older generations as “a gateway for Satan.” Though many of these customs have faded, they still echo through the village’s conservative worldview.
Where legend meets living history
Today, Makhunik stands at a rare intersection of myth and reality. Its miniature homes, unusual history, and enduring traditions offer a glimpse into how isolated communities adapt, endure, and reinterpret their past. For travellers wandering its dusty slopes, the village remains a reminder that human civilization is as diverse and surprising as the landscapes in which it takes root.
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