To do this, they created an immense mobile brick-making industry
June 14, 2018 9:11 PM Subscribe
For nearly 1,000 years, the Gorgan Wall was the longest and mightiest border wall ever built. It was twice as long as Hadrian's Wall, and its construction is an unsolved mystery to this day. [SLTwitter]
The Sassanian Empire lasted from 224 to 651 AD - 427 years. That's nearly 200 years longer than the USA, which already feels like it's on the verge of collapse. Granted, we did go to the Moon, but mostly we just left our trash there. Anyway, I had never heard of that empire until reading this post and my world history knowledge is better than average. Kinda puts things in perspective.
posted by eustacescrubb at 9:27 PM on June 14, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by eustacescrubb at 9:27 PM on June 14, 2018 [9 favorites]
Man, mud brick is so cool. I can't wait to dive into this more. Thank you!
posted by Mouse Army at 9:55 PM on June 14, 2018
posted by Mouse Army at 9:55 PM on June 14, 2018
Absolute mindfuck optical illusion type photo in the Atlas Obscura article:
Where the wall crossed the river at Gokche – the sands have shifted hugely over time, with the dunes now dwarfing the wall itself.
posted by mannequito at 12:25 AM on June 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
Where the wall crossed the river at Gokche – the sands have shifted hugely over time, with the dunes now dwarfing the wall itself.
posted by mannequito at 12:25 AM on June 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
Cool post. Thanks, Chrysostom.
posted by homunculus at 2:41 AM on June 15, 2018
posted by homunculus at 2:41 AM on June 15, 2018
Thanks for posting! Paul Cooper's twitter threads are always worth the read. I particularly like this one on ancient Arabic poetry and the motif of wuquf 'ala al-atlal (الوقوف على الأطلال), stopping or standing by the ruins.
posted by gesso at 3:05 AM on June 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by gesso at 3:05 AM on June 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
This was fascinating; thanks!
posted by dendritejungle at 3:26 AM on June 15, 2018
posted by dendritejungle at 3:26 AM on June 15, 2018
Granted, we did go to the Moon, but mostly we just left our trash there.
C'mon.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:20 AM on June 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
C'mon.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:20 AM on June 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
Very interesting. Who knew Twitter was a good medium for learning ancient history?
posted by zardoz at 6:08 AM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by zardoz at 6:08 AM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
I love weird cool historical niches like this getting explored in twitter or tumblr. Thanks!
posted by rmd1023 at 6:30 AM on June 15, 2018
posted by rmd1023 at 6:30 AM on June 15, 2018
Who knew Twitter was a good medium for learning ancient history?
It's not really. Medium is a good Medium for teaching ancient history. Or any ol' blog. I gar-un-tee that the Twitter UI that currently depicts a thread like this reasonably well will not work the same way in, oh, three years.
But yeah right now it's sort of OK. And the guy writes an interesting story well, with great photos. Neat!
posted by Nelson at 8:04 AM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's not really. Medium is a good Medium for teaching ancient history. Or any ol' blog. I gar-un-tee that the Twitter UI that currently depicts a thread like this reasonably well will not work the same way in, oh, three years.
But yeah right now it's sort of OK. And the guy writes an interesting story well, with great photos. Neat!
posted by Nelson at 8:04 AM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
Neat, learned something interesting. Thanks, Chrysostom!
posted by Quietgal at 4:16 PM on June 16, 2018
posted by Quietgal at 4:16 PM on June 16, 2018
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"The Enigma of the Red Snake" [Current World Archaeology]
"Linear Barriers of Northern Iran: The Great Wall of Gorgan and the Wall of Tammishe" [Iran Journal]
Atlas Obscura entry with more images
posted by ryanshepard at 9:23 PM on June 14, 2018 [3 favorites]