10 ms·

Iran's Great Wall Is Now Buried and Forgotten

131 points by benbreen 10y ago

scottshea 10y ago
On more than one occasion I have lamented the issues with traveling to Iran (as an American). There is so much history there that is fascinating.
- buckhx 10y ago
  Agreed, I never really was interested in the history of the region until listening to Dan Carlin's latest series on the Assyrian and Persian Empires. Pretty crazy to think of Herodotus seeing ruins of the Assyrian's and viewing it as ancient history himself in his time (~450 BC). Link to the podcast the interested: http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings/ http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings/
  - nickik 10y ago
    Dan Carlin is fun to listen to but he is pretty narrative driven and loves certain aspect and themes. If people want to listen to something podcast like, that is more detailed and accurate, I would highly suggest The Great Courses on this subject. Here are the ones that I think are relevant: - The Persian Empire - History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective - Greek and Persian Wars - Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Empire - Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age Link: https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/ https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/ or http://www.thegreatcourses.com/ http://www.thegreatcourses.com/
- bbctol 10y ago
  The modern-day tensions are frustrating for many reasons. I always feel like Persia is an under-discussed historical civilization in pop culture, and I think that's due to modern perceptions, too much baggage associated with the region. I might be imagining it, but when people talk about the great empires, it's always Rome, Egypt, China, the Mongols... the first Persian empire controlled up to half the world's population at its height, and is one of the really fundamental civilizations of human history.
  - Retric 10y ago
    I think your population estimate is far from accurate the Americas had a large population during that time period. Let alone most of Africa, China, etc. One major consideration many of the worlds population centers from that time period are now under the ocean.
    - sampo 10y ago
      > many of the worlds population centers from that time period are now under the ocean Wikipedia lists the Persian Empire from 550 BC to 651 AD. What are the population centers from that time which are now under the ocean?
      - Retric 10y ago
        I was not clear. I don't mean that the sea levels rose during that time period. Rather they had been rising up to 8,000 years ago. Which exaggerates the exponential population growth. Recent estimates put world population around 300 million people in year 0. And then rapidly scale back 10,000 BC. However, estimates put the Aboriginal population at 300-750k before European colonization with a mostly hunter gather lifestyle on mostly marginal land. Which suggests possibly much higher global populations 10,000 years ago, and a higher global population around year 0 for the rest of the world. PS: New estimates also put native Hawaiian population at 700,000 before cook, though this includes some farming. http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/04/18/398578801/it-took-two-centuries-but-the-native-hawaii-ans-has-finally-bounced-back http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/04/18/398578801/...
  - amirmansour 10y ago
    I'm Persian, but I received most of my education in the U.S, and I cannot recall the Persian Empire ever getting mentioned in history classes. Literally, everything else around Iran was mentioned. History is written by the victors.
    - DrScump 10y ago
      At a minimum, Persia's status as an ancient superpower tends to get a lot of mention in Western Civilization courses, as a frequent adversary of the Greek states if nothing else.
- macintux 10y ago
  I've tried a couple of times to start learning Farsi, in hopes of visiting someday, but laziness wins out every time.
  - amirmansour 10y ago
    You don't need to learn Farsi to go there. Many people know enough English words to help you around. Most of the youth were taught some English in high school and college, and many of them can speak fluently and even understand you completely. Plus, the best way to learn Farsi is to be in the environment that speaks it. You'll be surprised how fast it is to pick up. European and Asian tourists are abundant and common place. If they can do it, so can you :)
    - owenversteeg 10y ago
      Hmm. I'm an American/European that just visited Iran and I partly disagree. Traveling around, the vast majority of people I met knew practically no English. I could count the number of other Westerners I saw on one hand. Two of them I saw at Tehran Khomeini as I was arriving; they had just been denied a visa. A lot of younger people understood me decently well, but almost anyone over 25 needed translation. Nobody was near fluent, although their English was very impressive given that they never had a chance to practice it. I encourage everyone I know to visit - it's seriously one of the most beautiful places on Earth, the people are very friendly and the food is amazing - but language will always be a problem, and you will be the only Westerner most places you go. One example of how rare Europeans are is that I had several people come up to me and ask to take a picture with me, or called me "beautiful", and when I was out walking there were several people who semi-discreetly took photos of me. I don't mind, but it all goes to show that Iran is definitely not full of Europeans. The other tourists I saw were Asian, or had Iranian family. And yep, being in Iran is great for learning Farsi. I don't intend to become fluent but I do know maybe 100 words after staying with an Iranian family for a few days. tl;dr Visit Iran, it's amazing, but don't think it's full of Europeans, and plan before you go.
      - amirmansour 10y ago
- jobu 10y ago
  Can't believe I've never heard of this before. Here's another page with more info: http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/The_Red_Snake_The_Great_Wall_of_Gorgan.htm http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/The_Red_Snake_Th... The article mentions that parts of it are still visible from the air, but looking at google maps it's difficult to tell the difference between canals and ridges.
  - pritianka 10y ago
    Same here! The weird thing is I didn't even receive my education in the US. I studied in India and we covered many world civilizations, including Iran to a certain degree. I guess this really is a forgotten wall.
- Ph0X 10y ago
  Indeed. I visited Persepolis a few years back during the summer. Mind you, that's a place with 2500 years of history, and there were maybe 4-5 other people there in that giant historic place, visiting? There were only 2 guards covering the whole place, and anyone could just come, break and take a piece and leave (and many do sadly). It's just a sad state of affairs. The Louvre has a few pieces [0] and you can see how much better they are kept than the real place in Iran [1] And that's just one example. Iran is full of history and beautiful places, but we sadly get so little touristic revenue do to how badly kept it all is and our government... [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Immortels_-_dynamosquito.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Immortel... [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/2009-11-24_Persepolis_03.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/2009-11-...
  - amirmansour 10y ago
    When I was young kid in Iran, there was a TV show made about the police chasing after a stolen piece of the Persepolis. The thieves were planning to sell it on the black market. I watched the show every night, because I had visited Persepolis a few months earlier during a family vacation. Even at that age (4 or 5), I thought it was strange that there were essentially no guards or apparent supervision. I believe the tomb of Xerxes has a similar vibe. There is going to be more tourism in Iran after the lifting of sanctions from Europeans, so this situation will definitely change for the better.
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  It isn't very hard to go to Iran as an American. The only thing is you need to travel with a guide at all times, which can run you between $50-$150/day. Added expense? Certainly. But it is quite doable, especially if you consider how cheap everything else is relative to say, vacationing in France or Italy. You can also easily go with a private tour group if that's your thing.
  - owenversteeg 10y ago
    Unfortunately, going with a tour guide or a group of Americans completely changes what you see. I am an American and Dutch citizen and elected to travel on my Dutch passport. Some Iranian friends showed me around, and the experience I had was the best of my life - and definitely not something you could get with a group.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
pavlov 10y ago
In North America, running for over 3000 kilometers from the western shores of California through vast lifeless deserts to the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico, lies the remains of the Great Wall of Don'Ald - once the largest defensive structure ever built. Despite laying dormant and unknown for more than 1,500 years, recent excavations have revealed that the Great Wall of Don'Ald was a mighty enterprise of significant cost and investment. The sheer size and scale of the construction — larger than the combined area of the Roman-built Hadrian’s Wall and Antonine Wall in the United Kingdom — shows how strategically important it must have been to defend this open flank of the ancient American empire. #FutureHistory
- nickik 10y ago
  Could you provide some more links (maybe podcast) for this.
  - qb45 10y ago
    On a tangential note, Google isn't easily fooled: https://www.google.com/search?q=Great+Wall+of+Don'Ald https://www.google.com/search?q=Great+Wall+of+Don'Ald
    - nickik 10y ago
      I can google shit myself. The problem is that google shows a lot of horseshit as well, maybe the person who posted something has link to a great article or something like that. Specially with historical subject 'just googling' is dangerous because you often land on pages that have a agenda. Very often nationalistic Interpretation of history for example. Specially if you are not familiar with a subject that is a huge problem.
      - qb45 10y ago
        You have been duped and it wasn't even me who did it. Just click this damn link already :) > you often land on pages that have a agenda Oh, that's totally true in this case. But really, any one will do. Or the first few if you are completely uninitiated.
mannykannot 10y ago
The problem was that the Huns wouldn't pay for it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
Kpourdeilami 10y ago
This reminds me of the wall in Game of Thrones especially since "Gorgan", the province that the wall is at, means wolves.
LeifCarrotson 10y ago
It's unfathomable to me that the (kiln-fired, admittedly) mud bricks in these pictures are nearly unaffected after 1,500 years of being eroded by that river. > http://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/36872/image.jpg http://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/36872/image.jp... > http://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/36873/image.jpg http://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/36873/image.jp... > Even the river bed was diverted and channeled through the wall’s structures... Where the wall crosses a river, additional fortifications and dams were built to prevent covert infiltration by water. Bits of these fortifications still stand proudly, guiding the river’s course to this day. What are we actually seeing in these images? Have they recently been uncovered, or has the river course recently changed?
- stellar678 10y ago
  I thought the same thing at first, but I noticed the caption for the second image called them "stones" and it looks more like a stone than a mud brick. I guess they probably switched to a more durable material like stone when they needed to build in the water?
eternalban 10y ago
"40 x 40 x 10 centimeters" I wonder if those are exact numbers. Entertaining notions of a sort of prob-distribution of size for a human picked unit of length, and then the probability of both 40 and 10 hitting precise centimeter units. (why: I saw this out there youtube /g video a while back that claimed a unit meter stone in front of a pyramid, and went for broke by suggesting it is in fact an ancient unit secretly introduced by occult groups via the French enlightenment thing. :)
alistoriv 10y ago
On a similar note, the Walls of Benin in Nigeria are almost entirely forgotten today. Their combined length was almost 10,000 miles.
_ph_ 10y ago
Fascinating story - would have been great if there were a map of where the wall was placed. Makes one wonder how much of human history has been overlooked or forgotten.
aminok 10y ago
"In northwestern Iran, running for almost 200 kilometers from the southeastern shores of the Caspian Sea to the mountains of Bilikuh in the east" This should read: "In northeastern Iran ..."

131 points by benbreen 10y ago

On more than one occasion I have lamented the issues with traveling to Iran (as an American). There is so much history there that is fascinating.

buckhx 10y ago
Agreed, I never really was interested in the history of the region until listening to Dan Carlin's latest series on the Assyrian and Persian Empires. Pretty crazy to think of Herodotus seeing ruins of the Assyrian's and viewing it as ancient history himself in his time (~450 BC). Link to the podcast the interested: http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings/ http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings/
- nickik 10y ago
  Dan Carlin is fun to listen to but he is pretty narrative driven and loves certain aspect and themes. If people want to listen to something podcast like, that is more detailed and accurate, I would highly suggest The Great Courses on this subject. Here are the ones that I think are relevant: - The Persian Empire - History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective - Greek and Persian Wars - Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Empire - Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age Link: https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/ https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/ or http://www.thegreatcourses.com/ http://www.thegreatcourses.com/
bbctol 10y ago
The modern-day tensions are frustrating for many reasons. I always feel like Persia is an under-discussed historical civilization in pop culture, and I think that's due to modern perceptions, too much baggage associated with the region. I might be imagining it, but when people talk about the great empires, it's always Rome, Egypt, China, the Mongols... the first Persian empire controlled up to half the world's population at its height, and is one of the really fundamental civilizations of human history.
- Retric 10y ago
  I think your population estimate is far from accurate the Americas had a large population during that time period. Let alone most of Africa, China, etc. One major consideration many of the worlds population centers from that time period are now under the ocean.
  - sampo 10y ago
    > many of the worlds population centers from that time period are now under the ocean Wikipedia lists the Persian Empire from 550 BC to 651 AD. What are the population centers from that time which are now under the ocean?
    - Retric 10y ago
      I was not clear. I don't mean that the sea levels rose during that time period. Rather they had been rising up to 8,000 years ago. Which exaggerates the exponential population growth. Recent estimates put world population around 300 million people in year 0. And then rapidly scale back 10,000 BC. However, estimates put the Aboriginal population at 300-750k before European colonization with a mostly hunter gather lifestyle on mostly marginal land. Which suggests possibly much higher global populations 10,000 years ago, and a higher global population around year 0 for the rest of the world. PS: New estimates also put native Hawaiian population at 700,000 before cook, though this includes some farming. http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/04/18/398578801/it-took-two-centuries-but-the-native-hawaii-ans-has-finally-bounced-back http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/04/18/398578801/...
- amirmansour 10y ago
  I'm Persian, but I received most of my education in the U.S, and I cannot recall the Persian Empire ever getting mentioned in history classes. Literally, everything else around Iran was mentioned. History is written by the victors.
  - DrScump 10y ago
    At a minimum, Persia's status as an ancient superpower tends to get a lot of mention in Western Civilization courses, as a frequent adversary of the Greek states if nothing else.
macintux 10y ago
I've tried a couple of times to start learning Farsi, in hopes of visiting someday, but laziness wins out every time.
- amirmansour 10y ago
  You don't need to learn Farsi to go there. Many people know enough English words to help you around. Most of the youth were taught some English in high school and college, and many of them can speak fluently and even understand you completely. Plus, the best way to learn Farsi is to be in the environment that speaks it. You'll be surprised how fast it is to pick up. European and Asian tourists are abundant and common place. If they can do it, so can you :)
  - owenversteeg 10y ago
    Hmm. I'm an American/European that just visited Iran and I partly disagree. Traveling around, the vast majority of people I met knew practically no English. I could count the number of other Westerners I saw on one hand. Two of them I saw at Tehran Khomeini as I was arriving; they had just been denied a visa. A lot of younger people understood me decently well, but almost anyone over 25 needed translation. Nobody was near fluent, although their English was very impressive given that they never had a chance to practice it. I encourage everyone I know to visit - it's seriously one of the most beautiful places on Earth, the people are very friendly and the food is amazing - but language will always be a problem, and you will be the only Westerner most places you go. One example of how rare Europeans are is that I had several people come up to me and ask to take a picture with me, or called me "beautiful", and when I was out walking there were several people who semi-discreetly took photos of me. I don't mind, but it all goes to show that Iran is definitely not full of Europeans. The other tourists I saw were Asian, or had Iranian family. And yep, being in Iran is great for learning Farsi. I don't intend to become fluent but I do know maybe 100 words after staying with an Iranian family for a few days. tl;dr Visit Iran, it's amazing, but don't think it's full of Europeans, and plan before you go.
    - amirmansour 10y ago
jobu 10y ago
Can't believe I've never heard of this before. Here's another page with more info: http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/The_Red_Snake_The_Great_Wall_of_Gorgan.htm http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/The_Red_Snake_Th... The article mentions that parts of it are still visible from the air, but looking at google maps it's difficult to tell the difference between canals and ridges.
- pritianka 10y ago
  Same here! The weird thing is I didn't even receive my education in the US. I studied in India and we covered many world civilizations, including Iran to a certain degree. I guess this really is a forgotten wall.
Ph0X 10y ago
Indeed. I visited Persepolis a few years back during the summer. Mind you, that's a place with 2500 years of history, and there were maybe 4-5 other people there in that giant historic place, visiting? There were only 2 guards covering the whole place, and anyone could just come, break and take a piece and leave (and many do sadly). It's just a sad state of affairs. The Louvre has a few pieces [0] and you can see how much better they are kept than the real place in Iran [1] And that's just one example. Iran is full of history and beautiful places, but we sadly get so little touristic revenue do to how badly kept it all is and our government... [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Immortels_-_dynamosquito.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Immortel... [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/2009-11-24_Persepolis_03.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/2009-11-...
- amirmansour 10y ago
  When I was young kid in Iran, there was a TV show made about the police chasing after a stolen piece of the Persepolis. The thieves were planning to sell it on the black market. I watched the show every night, because I had visited Persepolis a few months earlier during a family vacation. Even at that age (4 or 5), I thought it was strange that there were essentially no guards or apparent supervision. I believe the tomb of Xerxes has a similar vibe. There is going to be more tourism in Iran after the lifting of sanctions from Europeans, so this situation will definitely change for the better.
oh_sigh 10y ago
It isn't very hard to go to Iran as an American. The only thing is you need to travel with a guide at all times, which can run you between $50-$150/day. Added expense? Certainly. But it is quite doable, especially if you consider how cheap everything else is relative to say, vacationing in France or Italy. You can also easily go with a private tour group if that's your thing.
- owenversteeg 10y ago
  Unfortunately, going with a tour guide or a group of Americans completely changes what you see. I am an American and Dutch citizen and elected to travel on my Dutch passport. Some Iranian friends showed me around, and the experience I had was the best of my life - and definitely not something you could get with a group.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

pavlov 10y ago

In North America, running for over 3000 kilometers from the western shores of California through vast lifeless deserts to the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico, lies the remains of the Great Wall of Don'Ald - once the largest defensive structure ever built. Despite laying dormant and unknown for more than 1,500 years, recent excavations have revealed that the Great Wall of Don'Ald was a mighty enterprise of significant cost and investment. The sheer size and scale of the construction — larger than the combined area of the Roman-built Hadrian’s Wall and Antonine Wall in the United Kingdom — shows how strategically important it must have been to defend this open flank of the ancient American empire. #FutureHistory

nickik 10y ago
Could you provide some more links (maybe podcast) for this.
- qb45 10y ago
  On a tangential note, Google isn't easily fooled: https://www.google.com/search?q=Great+Wall+of+Don'Ald https://www.google.com/search?q=Great+Wall+of+Don'Ald
  - nickik 10y ago
    I can google shit myself. The problem is that google shows a lot of horseshit as well, maybe the person who posted something has link to a great article or something like that. Specially with historical subject 'just googling' is dangerous because you often land on pages that have a agenda. Very often nationalistic Interpretation of history for example. Specially if you are not familiar with a subject that is a huge problem.
    - qb45 10y ago
      You have been duped and it wasn't even me who did it. Just click this damn link already :) > you often land on pages that have a agenda Oh, that's totally true in this case. But really, any one will do. Or the first few if you are completely uninitiated.

mannykannot 10y ago

The problem was that the Huns wouldn't pay for it.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Kpourdeilami 10y ago

This reminds me of the wall in Game of Thrones especially since "Gorgan", the province that the wall is at, means wolves.

LeifCarrotson 10y ago

It's unfathomable to me that the (kiln-fired, admittedly) mud bricks in these pictures are nearly unaffected after 1,500 years of being eroded by that river. > http://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/36872/image.jpg http://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/36872/image.jp... > http://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/36873/image.jpg http://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/36873/image.jp... > Even the river bed was diverted and channeled through the wall’s structures... Where the wall crosses a river, additional fortifications and dams were built to prevent covert infiltration by water. Bits of these fortifications still stand proudly, guiding the river’s course to this day. What are we actually seeing in these images? Have they recently been uncovered, or has the river course recently changed?

stellar678 10y ago
I thought the same thing at first, but I noticed the caption for the second image called them "stones" and it looks more like a stone than a mud brick. I guess they probably switched to a more durable material like stone when they needed to build in the water?

eternalban 10y ago

"40 x 40 x 10 centimeters" I wonder if those are exact numbers. Entertaining notions of a sort of prob-distribution of size for a human picked unit of length, and then the probability of both 40 and 10 hitting precise centimeter units. (why: I saw this out there youtube /g video a while back that claimed a unit meter stone in front of a pyramid, and went for broke by suggesting it is in fact an ancient unit secretly introduced by occult groups via the French enlightenment thing. :)

alistoriv 10y ago

On a similar note, the Walls of Benin in Nigeria are almost entirely forgotten today. Their combined length was almost 10,000 miles.

_ph_ 10y ago

Fascinating story - would have been great if there were a map of where the wall was placed. Makes one wonder how much of human history has been overlooked or forgotten.

aminok 10y ago

"In northwestern Iran, running for almost 200 kilometers from the southeastern shores of the Caspian Sea to the mountains of Bilikuh in the east" This should read: "In northeastern Iran ..."