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The Great Wall of Gorgan

摘要: Justification of Outstanding Universal Value  The Gorgan Plain with its defensive monuments of the Sassanid era(5th-7th centuries) constitute the greatest cluster of military monuments known from anyw

Justification of Outstanding Universal Value

  The Gorgan Plain with its defensive monuments of the Sassanid era(5th-7th centuries) constitute the greatest cluster of military monuments known from anywhere within the Sassanid Empire, contemporary to a large-scale urban foundation, provides a microcosm of one of the ancient world’s largest states. Thus, due to its interaction with civilizations and cultures and its strategic location, carries important contents from the past.

  The Great Wall of Gorgan is the longest fort-lined ancient barrier between Central Europe and China, it is longer than Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall put together. It is also more than three times the length of the longest late Roman defensive wall. The Great Wall of Gorgan posed exceptional engineering challenges. There was no stone or timber in the steppe; it is just made of bricks. The system of it is remarkable in terms of its physical scale and its technical sophistication. The Great Wall of Gorgon is an incredible and sophisticated defensive construction located in north-eastern Iran; it has around 30 military forts, an aqueduct, and water channels that go along the route. It is commonly known as “the Red Snake” because of the construction materials used, red colored bricks.

  The route of the Gorgan Wall and the associated canal had to follow a natural gradient, evidence for remarkable skills in hydraulic engineering by its creators. The Gorgan Wall and its associated ancient military monuments provide a unique testimony to the engineering skills and military organization of the Sassanian Empire. They help to explain its geographic extent, from Mesopotamia to the west of the Indian Subcontinent, and how effective border defence contributed to the Empire’s prosperity in the interior and to its longevity.

  This decisive period of history saw the demise of the Western Roman Empire and the eventual emergence of the Caliphate, expanding at the expense of the Sassanid and Eastern Roman Empires. The Sassanid military barriers and fortifications in the Gorgan Plain provide evidence how effective defence, or the lack of it, could contribute to security and prosperity of empires.

  The Tammisheh Wall, and probably the Great Wall of Gorgan, extended into territory now submerged in the Caspian Sea, due to a rise of its water-level, they shed unique light on human interaction with the environment, the world’s largest inland Sea and the steppes of Eurasia.

  Criterion (i): The Great Wall of Gorgan posed exceptional engineering challenges. There was no stone or timber in the steppe, and in order to build a massive defensive barrier, resistant to winter rain, an estimated 200 million fired bricks, each weighing c. 20 kg, had to be produced. This required a supplier canal system of extraordinary scale and sophistication (see introduction), not to mention one brick kiln every 37-86 m, maybe 3,000-7,000 in total. Undoubtedly, the Great Wall of Gorgan is not just one of the largest monuments of its kind anywhere in the world, but also one that could only be built by architects and surveyors which were exceptionally skilled and creative.

  Criterion (ii):  The Great Wall of Gorgan, and the associated extensive military infrastructure in its hinterland, is of a larger scale than any known purpose-built military monument of earlier times in the Near East. At the same time, the Sassanid Empire also had the resources to create in the hinterland of the Wall a large city, Dasht Qal’eh, of 3 km2 interior size and with monumental architecture, notably brick pillar avenues. The ancient defensive barriers in the Gorgan Plain testify to a period which saw an important stage in the history of region regarding knowledge and technology transfer which associated to the safety of the region along trade routes, as well as remarkable developments, in terms of regional-planning, landscape design and technology. 

  Criterion (iii): The Great Wall of Gorgan  and its associated fortifications of the Late Sassanid era (5th-7th centuries) constitute the greatest cluster of military monuments known from anywhere within the Sassanid Empire. This is all the more remarkable as this Empire stretched from modern south-east Turkey to Pakistan and from modern Dagestan (Russia) into the Arabian Peninsula. In the early 7th century the Empire even controlled Yemen and, briefly, the eastern Levant. The Gorgan Plain with its defensive monuments of the Sassanid era, contemporary to a large-scale urban foundation, provides a microcosm of one of the ancient world’s largest states. Thus, due to its interaction with upper mentioned civilizations and cultures and its strategic location, carries important contents from the past.

  Criterion (iv): The Great Wall of Gorgan and contemporary defensive monuments in the Gorgan Plain are of great interest also in shedding light on the particular period of history when they were built and occupied (5th-7th centuries AD). This decisive period of history saw the demise of the Western Roman Empire and the eventual emergence of the Caliphate, expanding at the expense of the Sassanid and Eastern Roman Empires. The Sassanid military barriers and fortifications in the Gorgan Plain provide evidence how effective defence, or the lack of it, could contribute to security and prosperity of empires, to their fall or survival. This wall together with its monumental ensembles and other architecturally associated spaces has presented a significant combination with defensive importance.

  Criterion (v): The Tammisheh Wall, and probably the Great Wall of Gorgan, extended into territory now submerged in the Caspian Sea, due to a rise of its water-level. Together with canals and associated settlement in the steppe north of the Gorgan Wall of an earlier period (c. 8th-5th centuries BC), they shed unique light on human interaction with the environment, the world’s largest inland Sea and the steppes of Eurasia.


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