Description
The barrier consists of a wall, 195 kilometres long and 6 to 10 metres wide, along the length of which are located a number of fortresses, spaced at intervals of between 10 and 50 kilometres. Over 30 forts line up along the length of the wall. The wall is made of standardized bricks, made from the local loess soil, and fired in kilns along the line of the wall. The wall lies slightly to the north of a local river, and features a 5 metre ditch that conducted water along most of the wall.
This wall starts from the Caspian coast, circles north of Gonbade Kavous, continues towards the northwest, and vanishes in the Pishkamar Mountains. A logistical archaeological survey was conducted regarding the wall in 1999 due to problems in development projects, especially during construction of the Golestan Dam, which irrigates all the areas covered by the wall. At the point of the connection of the wall and the drainage canal from the dam, architects discovered the remains of the Great Wall of Gorgan. The 40 identified castles vary in dimension and shape but the majority are square fortresses, made of the same brickwork as the wall itself and at the same period. Due to many difficulties in development and agricultural projects, archaeologists have been assigned to mark the boundary of the historical find by laying cement blocks.
A similar Sassanian defence wall and fortification lies on the opposite side of the Caspian Sea at the port of Derbent, with an extraordinarily well preserved Sassanian fort; that wall runs to the Caucausus mountains. Derbent and its Caspian Gates are at the western part of the historical region of Hyrcania. While the fortification and walls on the east side of the Caspian Sea remained unknown to the Graeco-Roman historians, the western half of the impressive "northern fortifications" in the Caucasus were well known to Classical authors. Larger than Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall taken together (two separate structures in Britain that marked the northern limits of the Roman Empire), it has been called the greatest monument of its kind between Europe and China. The wall is second only to the combined walls that make up the Great Wall of China as the longest defensive wall in existence, and although now in substantial disrepair, it was perhaps even more solidly built than the early forms of the Great Wall.
Read more about this topic: Great Wall Of Gorgan
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