- há 3 horas
Persia, the world's first empire, has a complex past. In this fascinating series, journalist Samira Ahmed visits historical and cultural sites across Iran that few westerners have ever seen. Focusing on the rich artistic legacy of the region, she looks at literature, painting and ancient structures to relay a tale of power and ultimate destruction. How much did this history influence modern Iran?
Categoria
📚
AprendizadoTranscrição
00:08This is a land known by two names.
00:12The first is Persia.
00:20Ancient.
00:22Mysterious.
00:26A place of adventure.
00:30Of mighty temples and palaces built by powerful kings.
00:37A land of unimaginable beauty.
00:41The other is Iran.
00:45Isolated.
00:47Proud.
00:49Defiant.
00:51Especially of foreign interference.
00:56Western documentary teams are seldom given access.
01:00But I'm a British journalist and I've been granted a rare opportunity to travel across this vast country and discover
01:10its complex history and culture for myself.
01:15The Persians can seem like a mystery at the edge of the Western imagination in the Old Testament or battling
01:22Alexander and the Romans in classical history.
01:24But the ripples of Persia's art and language have travelled outwards throughout the world, transforming culture across Europe and Asia.
01:35If you think you know the Persians, think again.
01:40In this first episode, I'm going to start at the birthplace of Persian civilisation, at one of the world's first
01:48cities, and discover the mysterious writing of its people.
01:56Persia's great kings built a vast empire and a rich culture that became the envy of the ancient world.
02:08I'll find out how they defeated no less than three Roman emperors, and how the Arab armies eventually conquered the
02:18Persians to build a new Islamic empire.
02:22So come with me on a magical journey to reveal Iran's fascinating ancient past and its impact on the world.
02:48To most people, Iran is a closed book, and our understanding of it has been largely driven by the last
02:5740 years.
02:58When, in 1979, revolution came to Iran, and Ayatollah Khomeini transformed it into an Islamic republic, the country has been
03:11locked in conflict with the West ever since.
03:17When you look at modern Iran, when you see it surrounded by hostile forces, by countries that are hostile to
03:27it, Iran would like to remind them that there was a time that we were, not only we stopped at
03:34the top table, we were the hosts of the top table.
03:37And look at this.
03:41And look how much it has actually influenced your literature, your art, if you like.
03:52The Persian civilization and the art and culture it produced, was once the envy of the ancient world.
04:04But over the centuries, Persia was invaded again and again by brutal conquerors, greedy for her lands and treasures.
04:19They brought with them new laws, new languages, new languages, and a new religion.
04:26But Persian culture survived, even thrived.
04:34Today, Iranian sense of who they are, is as strong as it was when their story began.
04:43They are the only people in the Middle East to preserve their identity and language, despite waves of invasion and
04:51revolution.
04:55If you look at the people of North Africa, they used to speak Latin, now they speak Arabic.
05:00If you look at the Syrians, they used to speak Greek, now they speak Arabic.
05:06So do the Egyptians.
05:07It's the Persians who have kept their language.
05:10And by the way, only the Persians.
05:12There's something special going on there.
05:28That special thing that allowed Persian language and culture to survive was, remarkably, this book.
05:35It's called The Shahnabeh.
05:42A collection of tales about Iran's pre-Islamic kings.
05:48The characters are part mythical and part historical.
05:53And the book tells of their heroic deeds against divine and human forces.
05:58It's a poetic rendition of these supernatural tales, historical tales, romances.
06:08It's really a most magnificent grown-up story book.
06:16Shahnameh is the soul of Iran.
06:19It's the absolute essence of being Iranian.
06:29It's a masterpiece of Persian literature and history and language.
06:37And to most Iranians, certainly to me, it's like a Bible.
06:43Although it was written in the 10th century, the characters and tales are still much loved today.
06:49Because they provide a link between the present and 3,000 years of Persian culture.
06:59I'm starting my journey here in Tehran because I want to get a taste of this magical story book.
07:07I'm in a South Tehran tea house where a thousand-year-old story book is about to come alive on
07:14stage.
07:14The Shahnameh, the Persian book of kings, is part myth, part epic history, and Iranians can't get enough of its
07:22adventures.
07:23It's central to their sense of identity.
07:26If you want to understand the story of the Persians, you need to dive into the Shahnameh.
07:32The performance is about to begin.
07:34The Shahnameh is about to begin.
07:42Tales from the Shahnameh are retold by storytellers in theatres and tea houses all over Iran.
07:51And the man who wrote it would have been astonished to learn his life's work would still be performed and
07:58read a thousand years later.
08:12He was called Abul Qasem Ferdowsi.
08:17Handed down from one generation to the next, his epic book became Iran's national myth.
08:25Ferdowsi took 30 years to write the Shahnameh.
08:29But its storytelling power has lasted a thousand and travelled far beyond the borders of Persia.
08:37I am of North Indian heritage with a Persian name, Samira, and was raised speaking Urdu, a language closely related
08:45to Farsi.
08:46And in the Indian comics I read as a child, there were all these stories about the Persians as conquerors,
08:53as bringers of culture, as religious refugees.
08:59I want to find out how Ferdowsi's stories protected Persian language and culture from repeated attempts to destroy them.
09:10But first, I'm going to explore the fable civilizations that emerged in this region.
09:19And find out how the Persian Empire was born.
09:29I'm travelling to an ancient site in the deserts of the southwest to visit one of Iran's greatest religious monuments,
09:38the Ziggurat of Chogazanvil.
09:44The people who built it were called the Elamites, and they attached great spiritual importance to mountains.
09:56Where there were no mountains, they built their own.
10:01This was constructed over 3,000 years ago.
10:10This place is such a beautiful mystery, a relic of a lost world.
10:15And I'm trying to imagine it as it was, bustling with temples to the many Elamite gods and goddesses,
10:21and the brickwork burnished with gold and silver, a statement of power by its king.
10:31Time, wind and sun have since taken their toll.
10:35The bull was once full of beautiful objects and statues devoted to the Elamite gods.
10:45The bull was central to Elamite culture.
10:49In early Iranian creation myths, it was the first animal in the world.
10:55The Elamites worshipped a bull god called Inshushinak, and their kings constructed ziggurats like this to worship him.
11:08In its shadow, archaeologists found this blue quartz pendant, polished and etched with two Elamite figures.
11:19This is a really remarkable and absolute unique piece of stone working because it depicts an image of the king
11:26and then his daughter.
11:28And we rarely see women coming to the fore, of course, in Elamite sources, unfortunately.
11:34So here we have one, and she's named as well as Ba'ubi.
11:37And there she is standing diminutively. She's depicted on a much smaller scale in front of her father.
11:44But the fact that she's there at all, her presence, is really quite remarkable.
11:48In an age really where women just get bypassed in the royal record, we know of very, very few Elamite
11:54queens or princesses.
11:58Archaeologists made other finds too, taking us even closer to the people who once worshipped here.
12:06This footprint is over 3,000 years old.
12:10It's tempting to believe it belongs to Ba'r Uli, the daughter of King Shilak Inshushinak, who gave her the
12:17pendant.
12:18Perhaps she came here with her father to worship, to watch the bloody sacrifices carried out by priests to gratify
12:26the Elamite gods.
12:30But Choga Zanbil is much more than a temple.
12:35It's a book designed to be read by future generations.
12:41This is the writing of the Elamites, called cuneiform.
12:47There are thousands of engraved bricks.
12:51Only nobody knew what the writing meant until the 19th century, when archaeologists unlocked their secrets.
13:01The Choga Zanbil inscriptions are very repetitive in many respects, but they're important because what they do is quite literally
13:08stamp the authority of the king onto the building itself.
13:13So every brick essentially is saying, I am the king of Elam, the king of kings.
13:20The ziggurat of Choga Zanbil is testimony to the sophistication of the Elamite civilization.
13:28A civilization that was not only literate, but gave rise to one of the world's first urban cultures.
13:38I am now travelling a few miles north of Choga Zanbil to explore what remains of the Elamite capital city.
13:50Susa.
13:59If you want to understand the complexities of Persian culture, then you couldn't come to a better place than Susa.
14:05I am really aware of the hum of the modern city of Shush in the background.
14:09And the ruins of this Elamite city are known to archaeologists as the 15th city,
14:14because they're the earliest of 15 distinctive sets of eras and ruins on this site, dating back to at least
14:211500 BC.
14:27Excavations first started here during the 19th century.
14:32Among the finds, this bronze of two Elamite worshippers.
14:37In her left hand, the woman clutches a bird whose significance is unknown to us.
14:48It's incredible how rich the land around here is with these pieces of Elamite culture.
14:54So just lying on the ground, we've spotted stuff and picked them up,
14:57like this piece of blue glazed pottery, which has this amazing colour.
15:01And then this, you can see the grooves in it.
15:03And we've been told by the guide, it's the lid of a storage jar that would have contained something like
15:08rice.
15:13Stories about the wealth of Susa spread throughout the ancient world.
15:19And soon her enemies began to circle.
15:24To the north, the Medeans.
15:27And to the east, the warmongering Persians led by King Cyrus.
15:35This glazed relief shows a Persian warrior ready for battle.
15:41It was during the 7th century BC that King Cyrus led his mighty army to first overthrow the Medeans,
15:49and then the Elamites, after he captured their capital.
15:56With the defeat of both kingdoms, Cyrus became Cyrus the Great,
16:01and his descendants built a new capital here at Susa.
16:08The Elamites were now subjects of a new empire, the Persian Empire.
16:15The centuries have been unkind to what Cyrus and his successors built here.
16:23Susa eventually disappeared into the sands of time,
16:27until it re-emerged after archaeologists started digging here in 1850.
16:34What they discovered here was vast.
16:43After Susa, Cyrus the Great conquered the city of Babylon in 539 BC,
16:49and we know this because of what archaeologists found there,
16:54the world's earliest example of political spin.
17:02This is known as the Cyrus Cylinder, and it's an exact copy,
17:07but the original is kept in the British Museum.
17:11And here, inscribed in all these tiny lines of cuneiform,
17:15is a piece of propaganda, a kind of compact trophy,
17:19which describes how Cyrus overcame his enemies,
17:22not through violence, but through showing tolerance towards the people
17:27and their gods.
17:29My vast army marched into Babylon in peace.
17:34I did not permit anyone to frighten the people
17:38and sought the welfare of Babylon
17:41and all its sacred places.
17:45So this is very clearly some Persian spin.
17:49It was a conquest, but presented very much as a liberation of peoples.
17:57And it's come to effect how, for generations,
18:01we've regarded Cyrus the Great.
18:03We absolutely bought into his propaganda campaign.
18:12I've come to Pathergard, where Cyrus made his capital.
18:18Now, all that survives is his tomb,
18:22remarkably modest for the founder of what was the biggest empire
18:26the world had ever seen.
18:28The Persian Empire at its height, stretched from Greece to the Indus,
18:33from the Oxus through to what we would now know as Libya.
18:36I mean, this is fast in the ancient world.
18:40Iranian visitors flock here, particularly during the holidays,
18:44to see the tomb of the king, who not only founded the Persian Empire,
18:50but its people's sense of national identity.
18:56The tomb of Cyrus lay at the centre of a huge, formal walled garden,
19:00known in Persian as a pardis, from which we get the word paradise.
19:04And although it's hard to imagine right now,
19:07this was once surrounded by lush greenery and flowing waters,
19:10a statement of Cyrus' civilising power
19:13against the wild desert beyond.
19:20A clue to what Cyrus' great garden once looked like
19:25can be found in the familiar design of Persian carpets today.
19:30Many are based on his garden's layout.
19:34Imagine Cyrus' tomb in centre,
19:38surrounded by statues of fantastic birds and beasts.
19:44Canat supplied water for the ponds, flowers and trees,
19:48which provided shade on hot summer days.
19:54His gardens have long since perished.
19:59But Cyrus did attempt to secure his family's legacy.
20:05He carved a simple inscription in three different forms of cuneiform.
20:12Elamite, Babylonian, and a brand new script named after this new Persian dynasty.
20:21The Achaemenids.
20:24The words are very simple.
20:27I, Cyrus the King, an Achaemenid.
20:36This was a declaration that Cyrus the Great's vast new empire was under the rule of the Achaemenids,
20:45a Persian royal dynasty.
20:59Cyrus the Great may have forged the first Persian Empire,
21:04but in 515 BC, it was his successor, Darius I, who built the jewel in its crown.
21:15The legendary city of Persepolis.
21:22Darius was the greatest royal architect of his dynasty.
21:28Even in its ruined state, the imposing gateways, monumental columns, and exquisite reliefs,
21:35leave you in no doubt about the message Darius wanted to project.
21:42His empire heralded a new world order.
21:49Darius was also famous for many firsts.
21:53He dug the first Suez Canal, introduced standardized weights and measures, and coinage too.
22:01It was this administrative genius that earned him the title Darius the Great.
22:09Archaeologists have found tablets here at Persepolis showing careful record keeping,
22:14and rates of exchange for payments in kind.
22:17To his subjects, who admired this administrative flair, their emperor was known as Darius the Shopkeeper.
22:26Darius didn't bother to fortify Persepolis.
22:29He didn't need to.
22:31All his enemies had been defeated.
22:36And here are the enemies his dynasty had overcome.
22:41All subject to the Persian king.
22:46A real highlight of Persepolis is this magnificent frieze,
22:50which shows 23 subject peoples of the Persian Empire queuing up to bring their tributes to the king.
22:56In the incredible detail on their faces and costumes, you can see they come from everywhere,
23:01from south-eastern Europe to down here.
23:03These five are from Sindh in India, modern Pakistan, bringing gold dust and spices and battle axes.
23:09And over there there are figures from Nubia bringing elephant tusks and a giraffe.
23:20Persepolis was a masterpiece of imperial architecture.
23:24And you might assume Darius exploited a vast army of slaves to build it.
23:31But archaeologists made a surprising discovery.
23:35There were lots of people working at Persepolis.
23:39We also have tablets from Persepolis which reveal a lot of interesting information about the workmen.
23:48The salaries, how they were paid in kind.
23:52And also women worked at Persepolis.
23:55We know that, for example, women were overseeing some particular parts of the structure.
24:02And in one case, one woman gives birth to twins and she receives a special allowance for maternity.
24:12And so it's all very interesting how he produced this enormous palace.
24:18The imposing entrance to Persepolis is where King Xerxes, Darius's successor, inscribed a message that left every visitor in no
24:30doubt about the power and ambition of his empire.
24:33It reads,
24:35I am Xerxes, the great king, king of kings, king of the lands of many people, king of this great
24:45earth far and wide.
24:47Xerxes I called this his gateway of all nations.
24:50And for anyone arriving at Persepolis, there is a real sense of the whole world passing through here.
24:56From the clearly Assyrian figures guarding each side of the gateway to the classical columns that you could recognise.
25:02To the graffiti on the walls from travellers coming through here from India, people from the British Empire, from America,
25:10from Europe.
25:10All these travellers who came through here from the 19th century onwards.
25:14For them, Persepolis must have been their first gateway to understanding Persia.
25:22It wasn't just architecture that projected Achaemenid wealth and culture.
25:28These beautiful decorative objects made of solid gold are two and a half thousand years old.
25:40This is the apex of sophistication.
25:43We have objects of gold, fritra, drinking vessels, kind of like a sangria jug, I suppose,
25:50in which you pour the wine directly into your mouth.
25:53We have cups that sit absolutely perfectly in balance in the palm of your hand, chased in gold and silver.
26:02We have jewellery upon jewellery of all the most semi-precious stones that Persia could pile together.
26:13We have reusable ancora in gold.
26:14Tales of the city's untold wealth grew in their telling.
26:19And soon Persepolis become an object of Greek desire.
26:28The decision not to fortify Persepolis proved to be its undoing.
26:36The white marks on this pillar are a clue to what happened next
26:41When limestone is subjected to intense heat, it turns white
26:46In 330 BC, the Macedonians, led by Alexander the Great
26:52invaded Persia and burnt Persepolis to the ground
27:04Why did Alexander destroy Persepolis? It wasn't about the wealth
27:08The treasurer had offered him the city's riches and Alexander spent two months looting them
27:14He burned Persepolis to the ground because it was a shrine and the mother city of Persian culture
27:21Alexander wanted to obliterate Persian resistance and identity once and for all
27:30With the destruction of Persepolis, it was as if Alexander wanted to completely erase
27:36the memory of Darius and the kings who once lived here
27:41And he succeeded
27:44They vanished entirely from history
27:50Centuries later, when visitors wandered the ruins
27:54and encountered statues of strange fantastical beasts
27:58They imagined that mythical kings, not the Achaemenids, had ruled the Persian Empire
28:04By the 10th century, Abul Qasim Ferdosi, the master storyteller I met in Tehran
28:11collected the tales of these fairytale kings and put them in a book called the Shahnamay
28:20Ferdosi's mythical version of Persia's history
28:24doesn't credit Darius for building Persepolis
28:27but this god-like king called Jamshid
28:32So who is Jamshid?
28:35I believe there was a
28:48Jemshid is called Jamshid
28:51Jamsheed has always had a pattern that has been used to this pattern.
28:55And it has to be thought that this person is Jamsheed and this is also a pattern.
28:59And in this case, they said that the pattern is Jamsheed.
29:12According to the Shahnameh, Jamsheed is responsible for the creation of Nourouz,
29:17the unique Persian New Year celebrated to this day to mark the start of spring at the end of March.
29:24There's even a theory that Persepolis was built to celebrate this annual festival.
29:29All over Iran, families set out a table like this, filled with seven symbols of prosperity and renewal,
29:36including fruit, money and, well, the wine's been replaced by vinegar since the Islamic conquest.
29:41But Nourouz is Jamsheed's enduring legacy.
29:48Jamsheed was one of the first mythical kings in the Shahnameh.
29:53He was responsible for many miraculous inventions, including New Year.
29:59And he was able to do this, Ferdosi tells us, because he was possessed by a special quality called Far.
30:10Far could be described as a light. It is God-given. It comes from above. Radiance streams from the ruler.
30:21Now that's a metaphor. It didn't actually happen. But when you see it in the visual arts, it's often shown
30:29in the form of a halo.
30:32And we understand that. We have a halo around sacred figures in Christianity.
30:40Until recently, this symbol at Persepolis, a winged man, was believed to be a representation of the deity worshipped by
30:49the Achaemenids,
30:50the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda, the wise lord, the lord of wisdom.
30:57Scholars now believe that this figure might actually be a visual representation of Far, Far made flesh.
31:07But this definition of kingship, a king who rules with God's blessing, is double-edged.
31:14The king with Far rules well, but the king who loses Far rules badly and can rightly be deposed.
31:23When Jamshid became arrogant and started to present himself as the supreme power god, in a way, he was punished.
31:40And he was punished in the way that the glory or the far flew away from him in the shape
31:48of a bird.
31:55And this says something, I think, about the Persian way of thinking of history.
31:59It's ever-changing. It's always cyclic. There is rise and fall. There is rise and fall.
32:05It would be nearly 2,000 years before archaeologists excavated Persepolis.
32:12After deciphering the cuneiform language, Darius and the Achaemenids were restored to their rightful place.
32:20In history.
32:29Just a few kilometres away, there's another site that tells a similar story, but with a surprise twist.
32:38This necropolis was where four Achaemenid kings were brought for burial.
32:45Their huge tombs are cut into the cliff face.
32:49This is Darius's tomb. The king who built Persepolis.
32:59Darius's hand is raised in recognition of his own imperial far which hovers before him.
33:06The inscription reads, if now you wonder how many countries did King Darius hold, look at the sculptures and you
33:17will know.
33:19If you count them, there are 26 men, but like at Persepolis, the original events depicted here were forgotten and
33:28replaced with stories from the Shahname.
33:33Once again, real history was replaced by mythology, courtesy of Ferdosi and his Shahname.
33:42In the way Persepolis was actually founded by Darius, but attributed to King Jamshid, so this burial site was credited
33:52to another fantasy hero.
33:54His carving is to be found just beneath Darius's tomb. He's called Rostam.
34:03That's Rostam there on horseback on the right. A warrior, a hero of incredible strength, a kind of Persian Hercules.
34:11With his great horse Raqsh, Rostam raged through the first half of the Shahname, defeating dragons, demons and all the
34:19enemies of Iran.
34:24He may not have much up top, but he's got plenty of muscle.
34:31You can really rely on him, so he becomes a kind of foundation stone for the Shahname.
34:40And the reason he can do that is that he just doesn't die.
34:44So his worst enemy is the White Dive, the absolute incandescent essence of evil.
34:51Killing the White Dive is killing the evil in all of us. It is a straightforward moral victory.
35:04Many Iranians know this site as Naqsh-e-Rostam, the place of Rostam.
35:11With cowering enemies kneeling before his powerful horse, this figure looks every inch like the mythical hero of old.
35:21It's easy to see why people came to believe these carvings portrayed the exploits of Rostam.
35:27But none of them represent him at all.
35:30In fact, they date from 500 years after Alexander the Great destroyed Persepolis and the Achaemenid Empire.
35:42So if this figure isn't Rostam, who is he?
35:47He is in fact another real Persian king, Sharpur I.
35:55And his story is to be found in the closing pages of the Shahname.
36:03The first half of the book is a sort of mythic preface, where dynasties like the Achaemenids and the Parthians
36:11who followed them are largely left out.
36:18It's only towards the end where we encounter real history and real kings like Sharpur I, who is from a
36:26Persian dynasty of rulers called the Sassanians.
36:31So this is the next kind of indigenous Iranian dynasty, which Fadosi clearly sees as a good thing because they
36:40really are Iranian to their fingertips.
36:42So Fadosi spins this really interesting web of stories around the historical figures of the Sassanian kings.
36:50So now myth and legend finally gives way to history proper.
37:04I'm heading into the Zagros Mountains in the southwest of Iran to find out more about the Sassanians.
37:16It's an hour's climb.
37:21But what's hidden there, I'm told, is unmissable.
37:27And it is.
37:32Seven metres high, chiselled out of a single stalagmite.
37:37This is the very same king who was carved into the rock face I saw earlier.
37:44He was crowned in the year 240 AD.
37:49Sharpur I.
37:52He looks like a god, doesn't he, with his crown, his flowing locks.
37:57You can see that strong arm on his weapon belt, staring out at the landscape.
38:02But this is no god.
38:04Sharpur I is making a statement and setting out his Sassanian dynasty to rule Persia for centuries to come.
38:12In the Shaname, Fadosi talks about him as this great king.
38:16He is the very embodiment afar, the divine right to rule, appointed by God.
38:29Like the pupil of an eye, Sharpur stands at the mouth of the cave, looking out across his empire.
38:39Determined posterity will never forget what he achieved.
38:48Sharpur ruled for over 30 years.
38:53He built many cities during his reign.
38:57But perhaps the most remarkable was the city he named after himself, Bishapur.
39:10Unlike Persepolis, very little has been excavated.
39:15But these lone commemorative columns bear witness to what was once here.
39:22Written in Sassanian script is the declaration of Sharpur's brand new city.
39:34Even in its ruinous state, you can sense the vaulting ambition, the unshakable confidence of Sharpur.
39:45But his greatest achievement wasn't building cities.
39:51It was this, recorded in stone in a gorge nearby, the epic saga of Sharpur's triumphs over Rome.
40:03In this remarkable relief, you can see his victories against three Roman emperors.
40:09First, he's trampling on the body of Gordian here.
40:12He's also taking a truce from Philip the Arab.
40:15And behind, he's taking the Emperor Valerian prisoner.
40:18And as if to add insult to injury, above it all, a Roman cherub handing him his symbol of victory.
40:27But unlike Gordian, Valerian was taken alive.
40:34According to the Sharname, this is what happened to Valerian.
40:39Sharpur flattened the evil emperor's pavilion.
40:42His men set fires on all sides throughout the Roman camp.
40:46And the skies seemed to come down to the earth.
40:50They split his ears with a knife and bored a hole through his nose in which they put a piece
40:56of wood of the kind by which a camel is led.
40:58But this is for Dose's sidestepping real history.
41:03It's true that Valerian was taken prisoner and brought here to Bishapur.
41:07But after that, well, Roman historians have come up with a variety of grisly outcomes, including the possibility that he
41:15was flayed alive and his skin stuffed with straw.
41:18But it seems more likely that he was treated well by Sharpur.
41:22Still, Valerian never went back to Rome.
41:31After his capture, Valerian's legionaries were soon put to work building Sharpur's new city.
41:40When Bishapur was excavated in the 19th century, the city's surviving chambers were found decorated in mosaics like these, in
41:51the Roman style.
41:53And when they weren't making mosaics, the legionaries were set to work improving roads, dams and building bridges like this
42:03one, 400 miles to the north.
42:07A testament to Roman engineering, much of the bridge still stands.
42:12Its crumbling arches are magnet for locals who sit on the river's edge to relax and enjoy the warm summer
42:20evenings.
42:37This is one of those places where I really feel Persia, ancient and modern meet.
42:41Iranian families picked the king paddling, speedboating in the river against the ruins of Valerian's Bridge.
42:56Many kings followed Sharpur, and these rock reliefs nearby depict his successors.
43:05I know what you're thinking, they all look remarkably similar.
43:09From bronze sculptures to coins to stone effigies, each king was portrayed Sharpur style, a crown set upon flowing locks.
43:20The Sasanians were masters of marketing themselves as Persia's new rulers.
43:34But they had enemies.
43:40In the north and east, tribal warlords, the Huns and Turks, began to threaten the Persian Sasanian Empire.
43:51To protect their borders, the Sasanians embarked on their biggest ever building project, a great wall.
44:02It's long since disappeared, but the outline of the forts that defended it have survived.
44:12I'm standing on what remains of the Great Wall of Gorgon, one of the greatest human defensive walls ever constructed.
44:20It's on Iran's northern border with what is now Turkmenistan.
44:25It's a thousand years older than the Great Wall of China, and at 200 kilometres in length, it's far longer
44:33than any wall the Romans ever built.
44:38Built in the fifth century, the wall once stretched from the mountains on Persia's eastern borders to the Caspian Sea.
44:47With a water-filled ditch dug in front, this was a walled fortress protected by nearly 40 forts, manned by
44:56a garrison of soldiers that some archaeologists have estimated to be around 30,000 men.
45:02This mighty wall crossed plains, hilltops, and in places, deep gorges.
45:11It was an extraordinary feat of engineering.
45:16Most of the wall had fallen prey to looters over the centuries, so hardly anything remains.
45:28But, if you know where to look, there are sections that have survived.
45:35Here, the wall crosses a river, and I've come to take a closer look at the original brick structure, where
45:42archaeologists are hard at work.
45:47Walking across the farmland up above, I had no idea what I would see.
45:52Now I've come down, and I realised I've walked down through levels of centuries in history.
45:57There's six metres of topsoil I can now see that's accumulated over the remains of what is obviously a well
46:03-constructed military dam.
46:04And this fortification of real bricks, you can see it stretching out, turning into the bridge there.
46:10And it would have gone all the way up over those mountains.
46:13And I just find it incredible to think this was the frontier of the Persian Empire, stretching for 200 miles
46:19east and west.
46:20And all that remains are a few tantalising fragments.
46:31I've come to meet archaeologist Dr. Amrani to find out more about its construction.
46:38Dr. Amrani Vertonghi Fotografia
46:44Dr. Amrani Vertonghi Fot йima
46:49Dr. Amrani Vertonghiws Ghojiam
46:53Dr. Amrani Vertonghiinating
46:54Dr. Amrani Vertonghiлуч
46:56Dr. Amrani Vertonghi
47:03Dr. Amrani Vertonghi
47:06When I went to the Gorgon, I went to Torek and told me that I could move on to Gorgon.
47:23The Gorgon Wall is testimony to the engineering skills and military organization of the Sassanian Empire,
47:31and for 200 years it kept the Hams and Turks at bay.
47:35But ultimately, the empire depended on the ability of its kings rather than a wall to defend it.
47:45No dynasty could last forever and the Sassanians were no exception.
47:50According to Fedosi, the last few were a decadent bunch of kings whose cruel and evil deeds led to the
47:57decline and fall of the Persian Empire.
48:02Fedosi's aim in the stories of the Sassanian kings is to show again that nothing is everlasting in Iran's history,
48:11that kings can rule with far and be aware of themselves and be aware of their relationship to a higher
48:18power, but how transient that can be.
48:22The last years of the Sassanian dynasty were marked by years of civil war in which four kings and two
48:30queens ruled for no more than a few months each before their lives ended in violence.
48:39And when they weren't fighting each other, the Sassanians were kept busy guarding their northern and western borders against attack.
48:48The sheer length and scale of the Gorgon wall demonstrates just how big a threat they faced.
48:55In one sense, the Sassanian kings were right to build this great wall.
49:01There was a tribal nomadic army on the march. A storm was heading this way, but it was to come
49:10from the west.
49:11They built this barrier in the wrong part of the country.
49:21At the beginning of the 7th century, far away in the Arabian Peninsula, a trader named Muhammad began to receive
49:30what were believed to be a series of revelations from God.
49:36The revelations ultimately formed the basis of the Quran and a small but radical movement would rise to change Persia
49:45and the ancient world.
49:48Islam was born.
49:50Islam was born.
49:52Islam was born.
49:54Islam was born.
49:54Islam was born.
50:03Islam was born.
50:04Islam was born.
50:06Islam was born.
50:07Islam was born.
50:09Islam was born.
50:09Islam was born.
50:12Islam was born.
50:13Islam was born.
50:16Islam was born.
50:20the Persians had ever faced, and the story of how they confronted it echoes to this day.
50:57Thank you for listening.
Comentários