Introduction
of Huna
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White Huns, Akhuns, Ephthalites,
Hephthalites, Hephtal, Heftal, Haitila, Haital, Aptal, Eptla, Evdal, Abdal,
Abdel, Eftal, (Ch.) Hsi-mo-ta-lo, (Ch.) Ye-ta, (Ch.)Ye-da, Tetal, Hion, Hyon,
Hiyona, Khyon, Hun, White Hions, Sveta Huna, Red Huns, Hara (Hala) Huna,
Kermihions, Karmir Hion, Kirmirxyun, (Ch.) Hua, War, Uar, Varhun, Warhun,
Apar, Awar, Avar, Huns-Kidarites, Kidarites, Kidaro, Kidara,
Kerder (Kurder), Kerderi, Khoalits, Khoalitoi, Khoali, Khoari, Jabula,
Jauvla, Jauwla, Kangar, Kangju,
Qangui, Gaoguy-Uigur, Alkhon, and other variations
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Subdivisions
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Chao-wu, Jamuk, Jauvla,
Johal, Jouhal, Joval, Jauvla, Jauhal, Jauhla, Jatt, Jat, Jabuli, Kabuli,
Zabul, Zabuli, Zabulites, => all literaly meaning “falcon” in
Turkic/Hunnic, but politically “Kabul”
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Chionites, Chions, Hiono,
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Abdaly, Hephtal, all other
versions
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Although the Hephthalites
dominated much of Central Asia and Northern India at the height of their power
(approximately 460 to 570), little information about their civilization is
available to us. Their name derives from the Byzantine "Ephthalites,"
and they were alternatively known as Ye-Ta to the Wei dynasty and Hunas to the
Gupta Empire. They are also referred to as "White Huns" in some
histories, a term derived from a quotation from Procopius' History of the Wars,
in which he writes, "The Ephthalites are of the stock of the Huns in fact
as well as in name; however they do not mingle with any of the Huns known to
us.... They are the only ones among the Huns who have white bodies and
countenances which are not ugly." We do not know what name these people
used to refer to themselves.
Historians tend to fall into two
camps when discussing Hephthalite origins. One theory is that the Hephthalites
were once part of the Juan-juan confederacy of Turkic nomadic peoples;
similarities in portraiture found on Hephthalite and Yuezhi coins is sometimes
offered as evidence of a common Western China homeland for both these cultures.
An alternate explanation put forth by Kazuo Enoki in the 1950s is that the
Hephthalites were an Iranian group who settled in the Altai region, from whence
they began their military expansion south into the Bactrian region. But
whatever their origins might have been, by the year 500 branch empires of the Hephthalites
controlled an area stretching south from Transoxiana to the Arabian Sea, and as
far west as Khurasan (the eastern-most part of the Sassanian empire), and all
of northern India to the east.
The Bhishma Parva of
the Mahabharata, supposed to have been
edited around the 4th or 5th century, in one of its verses, mentions the Hunas
with the Parasikas and other Mlechha tribes of the northwest including the Yavanas, Chinas, Kambojas, Darunas, Sukritvahas,
Kulatthas etc. According to Dr
V. A. Smith,
the verse is reminiscent of the period when the Hunas first came into contact
with the Sassanian dynasty of Persia. Brihat Katha Manjari of
Kashmiri Pandit Kshmendra (11th century AD)
also claims that king Vikramaditya had slaughtered theShakas, Barbaras, Hunas, Kambojas, Yavanas, Parasikas and the Tusharas etc. and hence
unburdened the earth of these sinful Mlechhas. There is still another
ancient Brahmanical text Katha-Saritsagara by Somadeva which also
attests that king Vikramaditya had invaded the north-west tribes including the Kashmiras and had destroyed
the Sanghas of the Mlechhas (reference to Sanghas here
obviously alludes to the Sanghas of the Madrakas, Yaudheyas, Kambojas, Mallas
or Malavas, Sibis, Arjunayans, Kulutas and Kunindas etc). Those who
survived accepted his suzerainty and many of them joined his armed forces.There
is mention of Chinese sources identifying them variously with either the
Ch'e-shih of Turfan (now in the Uighur regionof China), K'ang Chu or Kangju from
southern Kazakhstan or the widespread Yueh Zhi tribes from Central China.
These Yuehzhi were driven out of the Chinese territories that they
occupied by anotherband of tribes known
as the Hsiung Nu. One of these tribes of the Yueh Zhi was the White
Huns or Hepthelites. According to Richard Heli Chinese chroniclers
state that they were known as the Ye-ti-li-do, or Yeda butthey are
also known as the people of Hua by the same chroniclers. From these sources
there is anambiguity that arises which might show that something was
lost in translation between the term Huawhich converted to Hun instead
and came to be associated with the Hunnic tribes .The Japanese researcher
Kazuo Enoki disregarded theories based
solely on similarity of names due tothe fact that there is so much
linguistic variation that we cannot say for certain that a particular namehas
not lost something in translation. His approach towards understanding
Hephthalite origins is to seewhere they were not in evidence instead of where
they were by which he has stated that their originsmight have been from the
Hsi-mo-ta-lo southwest of Badakshan near the Hindukush, a name whichstands for
snowplain or Himtala in modern times and this might be the Sanskritised
form of Hephthal(Heli, 2007)Of note here is the work of Professor Paul
Harrison of Stanford University, who deciphered a copperscroll form Afghanistan
in 2007. The scroll is dated from 492-93 CE and is from the period of
the Hephthalites. It apparently mentions that they were Buddhists and had
Iranian names and includesabout a dozen names including that of their
overlord or King. (Heli, 2007)Where their name is concerned, they
have been variously known as Sveta Hunas or
Khidaritas inSanskrit, Ephtalites or Hephthalites in Greek, Haitals in
Armenian, Heaitels in Arabic and Persian, Abdeles by the Byzantine
historian Theophylactos Simocattes while the Chinese name them the Ye-ta-li-to
, after their first major ruler Ye-tha or
Hephtal .The variety of names shows that there is ambiguity towards
the specific identity of this particular race and that historically they don’t
have a set origin that defines them separately from the various
othertribes that existed within that region at the same time, mostly of Yuezhi
origins.
As
a matter of fact the abovementioned scholars are right. The main part of the
Hepthelite consisted of the Little Yuezhi separated from the Yuezhi Tribe
during Great Migration of Yuezhi during theirs defat by Xionghnu. But the
Chionites and the Kushans of Bactria joined the newcomers: Main part of Great
Yuezhi. They hoped that with the help of the Hephtalites they could reconquer their
East-Iranian and North-North-western Indian territories. The Khidarites
– who also joined the White Huns – belonged to the later Kushans, too. From the
Sassanian rule a Ta Yüeh-chi /Great Yüeh-chi/ prince: Khidara and
his tribe became independent in the beginning of the 4-th century A.D. and
occupied the eastern part of Gandhara. This fact is proved by the Khidarita
coins excavated there. But the pillar found in Allahabad, India proves this,
too, as the following text is written on it: „near to the border of North India
lives a prince called Devaputra Sahanushahi /”son of God – the king of
the kings”/. As
this title always belonged to the Kushan rulers originated from the Great
Yüeh-chis, it means that Khidara was their successor and the Khidarites were his
nation. By the archeologists the pillar was made around 340 A.D., the Hephtalites and their „kindred tribes”:
the Kushans, the Chionites and the Khidarites arrived to the Indian border at
that time.
The Central Asian Huna
consisted of four hordes in four cardinal directions. Northern Huna were the
Black Huns, Southern Huna were the Red Huns, Eastern Huna were the Celestial
Huns, and Western Huna were the White Huns or Hephthalites. In next chapters , we
will read about all four stock of Huna and their ruling-elite. All four
Huna have been part of the Hephthalite
group, who established themselves in central Asia by the 4th and 5th
century. They sometimes call themselves "Hono" on their coins, but it
seems that they are similar to the Huns who invaded the Western world.
They appeared in
Northwestern India and parts of eastern Iran. During their invasion, the Hunas
managed to capture the Sassanian king Peroz I, and exchanged him for a
ransom. They used the coins of the ransom to counter mark and copy them,
thereby initiating a coinage inspired from Sassanian designs.
The famous
Chinese Buddhist monks: - one of them: Sung Yun who visited India at the
time of the Hephtalite kingdom – and the other one: Hsuan Tsang who went
there a few decades later, gave details about the White Huns in their accounts.
But the Hephtalites had mixed with other nations before they arrived in India.
The Hephtalites
while still living in the Oxus valley in the 4-th century, the Indian Puranas –
written in Sanskrit – first of all the Vishnu Purana and the Aitareya Brahmana
refer to them and call them „Hunas”.
In
the beginning of the 5-th century the famous poet-writer:
Kalidasa
writes about them in his Sanskrit epic: the
Raghuvamsha /Raghu’s nation/:
„Tatra Hunavarodhanam bhartrishu vyaktavikman
Kapolapataladeshi babhuva Raghuceshtitam”
//68//
The Language
There are numerous debates about Hephthalite language. Most scholars believe it
is Iranian for the Pei Shih states that the language of the Hephthalites
differs from those of the Juan-juan (Mongoloid) and of the "various
Hu" (Turkic); however there are some think the Hephthalites spoke Mongol
tongues like the Hsien-pi (3rd century) and the Juan-juan (5th century) and the
Avars (6th-9th century). According to the Buddhist pilgrims Sung Yun and Hui
Sheng, who visited them in 520, they had no script, and the Liang shu
specifically states that they have no letters but use tally sticks. At the same
time there is numismatic and epigraphic evidence to show that a debased form of
the Greek alphabet was used by the Hephthalites. Since the Kushan was
conquested by Hephthalites, it is possible they retained many aspects of Kushan
culture, including the adoption of the Greek alphabet.
Yabgu
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yabgu
(
Old Turkic:
, yabγu,
[1] Traditional
Chinese:
葉護,
Simplified
Chinese:
叶护,
Jabgu,
Djabgu, literally, "pioneer"
[citation needed], "guide"
[citation needed]) was a state office in the early
Turkic states, roughly equivalent to
viceroy. The title carried autonomy in
different degrees, and its links with the central authority of
Khagan varied from economical and political
subordination to superficial political deference.
The
position of Yabgu was traditionally given to the second highest member of a
ruling clan (
Ashina), with the first member being the
Kagan himself. Frequently, Yabgu was a
younger brother of the ruling
Kagan, or a representative of the next
generation, called
Shad (blood prince).
Mahmud
Kashgari defined the title Yabgu as "position two steps below Kagan",
listing heir apparent Shad a step above Yabgu.
[2]
As the
Khaganate decentralized, the Yabgu gained more autonomous power within the
suzerainty, and historical records name a number
of independent states with "Yabgu" being the title of the supreme
ruler. One prominent example was the Oguz Yabgu state in Middle Asia, which was
formed after the fragmentation of the
Second Türkic Kaganate in the 840es. Another prominent
example was the
Karluk Yabgu, the head of the
Karluk confederation which in the 766 occupied Suyab in the
Jeti-su area, and eventually grew into a powerful
Karakhanid
state.
[3]
Friedrich
Hirth suggested that the earliest title "Yabgu" was recorded in
literary Chinese with regard to
Kushan contexts with transliteration
Xihou "e-khu (yephou)" (
Chinese:
翖侯; literally:
"United/Allied/Confederated Prince").
[2] However, the Chinese does not make
clear whether the title was the one bestowed on foreign leaders or rather a
descriptive title indicating that they were allied, or united.
The
Chinese word
sihou (<*xiap-g’u) is a title. The second
part of this compound,
hou (<g’u), meant a title of second
hereditary noble of the five upper classes.
Sihou (<*xiap-g’u) corresponds to the
title
yavugo on the Kushan (Ch. Uechji) coins from
Kabulistan, and
yabgu of the ancient Türkic monuments [Hirth
F. "Nachworte zur Inschrift des Tonjukuk" // ATIM, 2. Folge. StPb.
1899, p. 48-50]. This title is first of all a Kushan title, also deemed to
be "true Tocharian" title.
[6] In the 11 BC the Chinese Han captured
a Kushan from the Hunnu state, who was a "chancellor" (Ch. sijan)
with the title yabgu (sihou). After 4 years he returned to the Hunnu shanyu,
who gave him his former post of a «second [after Shanyu] person in the
state", and retained the title yabgu (sihou). The bearer of this high
title did not belong to the Hunnu dynastic line, well-known and described in
detail in the sources. Probably, he was a member of the numerous Kushan
(Uechji) autonomous diasporas in the Hunnu confederation. This history
suggests, that in the Usun state Butszü-sihou, who saved the life of a baby
Gunmo in the 160es BC, also was an yabgu.
[7]
It remains
unclear whether the title indicates an alliance with the Chinese or simply with
each other. A few scholars, such as Sims-Williams considered the Turkic
"Yabgu" to be originally derived from the Chinese "Xihou".
[8] Another theory postulalates a
Sogdian origin for both titles,
"Yabgu" and "Shad". The rulers of some Sogdian
principalities are known to have title "Ikhshid".
[9]
The Religion
The early Huns followed a religion akin to Zorastrianism and worshipped fire
and Sun.
The Hephthalites have been portrayed as
virulently anti-Buddhist, a claim based primarily on a description of a
Hephthalite ruler of Gandhara recorded by Song Yun and Huisheng: "The
nature of the king is violent and cruel, very often conducting massacres. He
does not believe in the Buddhist faith, but well worships [his] own heathen
gods. As all the inhabitants in the country are Brahmans who respect Buddhism
by reading the sutras, so it is deeply against their wishes that they suddenly
have such a king."(1) Yet other evidence depicts a different
situation. One of the coins included in this exhibit was found along with
thirteen other Hephthalite examples among the relics found in the Tope Kulan
stupa. If the Hephthalite rulers were hostile to Buddhism, it seems doubtful
that believers would have interred coins bearing portraits of their rulers. It
is more probably that, once their power base had been secured, they at least
tolerated Buddhist practice within their realm. They may even have offered the
religion a degree of royal patronage; one inscription records donations to a
Buddhist monastery in the name of the Hephthalite ruler Toramana
The crown of Hayatelle’s king became decoration of famous fire-temple of
Azar Gashnasb in the city of Shiz in Azarbaijan.
Wei-era
documentation records that the Hephthalites worshiped Heaven and also fire,
also mentioned by Procopius.
"J. Harmatta and BA LiTvinsky present a
different view (History of civilizations of Central Asia, Vol. III, p. 371).
They argue that the famous Barmakid family were apparently the descants of the
Hephthalite pramukhas of the Naubahar at Balkh. According to them the
Hepthalite ruler of Balkh bore the Bactrian title sava (King), while the name
of his son, Pariowk (in Armenian, clerical error for Parmowk) or Barmuda,
Parmuda (in Arabic and Persian, clerical error for Barmuka, Parmuka) goes back
to the Buddhist title pramukha. It shows that he was the lord and head of the
great Buddhist Centre Naubahar at Balkh. His dignity and power were thus more
of an ecclesiastic than of secular nature."
In
the middle of the sixth century, a priest of the Hephthalite Huns was
consecrated as bishop for his people by the Nestorian Catholicos. (R. Aubrey
Vine,
The Nestorian Churches: A Concise History of Nestorian Christianity in
Asia from the Persian Schism to the Modern Assyrians. London. Independent
Press, 1937, p.62.)
Hephthalite capital :
Pendzhikent (= Five Cities) has been partly excavated by the Russian
archaeologists. This city was on a bluff overlooking the Zarafshan River, some
65 kilometers southwest of Samarkand, on what had been the Silk Road. It had
been founded in the 5th century, was used as the capital of the Hephthalites
who conquered Sogdiana in 509, and was a thriving metropolis when it was
destroyed by the Arabs in the early 8th century. Remnants lingered on until the
9th, when it was eclipsed by Samarkand and Bukhârâ, and abandoned to the
desert. It was divided into two parts, the shahristan or citadel and the city
proper. On the hill, there were the citadel, the palace of the ruler, several
temples and the richer houses. The rest of the city contained houses of the
landed aristocracy, the merchants and shops. A full third of the houses had
superbly executed murals and wood carvings, indicating an extraordinary level
of wealth. The houses were 2 to 3 stories and had many rooms, including
principal halls, resembling the palace on a smaller scale. The large number of
shops and craftmen's workshops along the major streets and in special bazaars
were of course of smaller size, and were located in front of the larger houses,
but without a doorway connecting the two parts. It would seem the shops were
leased to the tradesmen. These tradesmen had smaller houses, still with two
stories and several rooms, and perhaps a painting in a niche, to parallel the
large murals in the richer homes.
Murals found in the temples and other houses aroused great interest when
they were first reported. The murals include religious themes, such as one
believed to depict the Sogdian burial rite, illustrating the death of the god
Syavush, representing the dying year, and his rebirth in a background scene.
Some mourners are shown cutting their faces, a Central Asian practice, also
reported among the Turks. The genre scenes are important, illustrating national
epics, including that of Sohrab and Rustam, a metaphor for the struggle between
the Iranians and the Turkish nomads. One sees battles between knights, hunts on
horseback, various holiday entertainments, processions and nobles sitting at
banquets, holding their goblets in a delicate manner, a harpist which has been
said to be the most beautiful painting in the world, and so forth. These refer
to specific episodes or may simply represent the ideal of the good life of the
wealthy Sogdian. The clothing is Persian, or Sasanian, but one also may note
Indian and Hellenistic traces in the renderings. From these we can gain a
glimpse of the elegant, prosperous and vibrant society which had developed
here.
An important find was the castle of Mt. Mugh, some 200 kilometers east of
modern Samarkand, in the upper Zarafshan valley, in the Mugh foothills. A vast
number of documents were found, some on paper, others on wood and leather,
which had been in the archives of the ruler of Pendzhikent, dating from 717 to
719. The languages include mostly Sogdian, but also Turkish, Chinese and
Arabic, the latter being the correspondence with the Arab governor of the area.
The prince lived in a castle which had been built as a fortress with thick
outer walls and massive towers, all made of sun-baked mud bricks. The rooms
were in the form of barrel-vaulted halls connected with each other by narrow
corridors. Included in the finds were all sorts of coins, seals, silver and
bronze vessels, fragments of cotton and silk, and a partial panel from a shield
showing a warrior of a type that one finds later in Islamic Iran. In 722 the
prince rebelled and was captured and killed. The castle was then abandoned, and
became filled with sand.
The Customs
Very little was known about these Hephthalite nomads. Little art has left from
them. According to Sung Yun and Hui Sheng who visited their Hephthalite chief
at his summer residence in Badakshan and later in Gandhara,
The Hephthalites have no cities, but roam
freely and live in tents. They do not live in towns; their seat of government
is a moving camp. They move in search of water and pasture, journeying in
summer to cool places and in winter to warmer ones....They have no belief in
the Buddhist law and they serve a great number of divinities."
Other than the deformation of skulls, the other interesting feature of
the Hephthalites is their polyandrous society. The records of brothers marrying
to one wife had been reported from Chinese source.
The Red Snake: The Great Wall of Gorgan
IRAS: It is longer than Hadrian's Wall and
the Antonine Wall taken together. It is over a thousand years older than the
Great Wall of China as we know it today. It is of more solid construction than
its ancient Chinese counterparts. It is the greatest monument of its kind
between central Europe and China and it may be the longest brick, or stone,
wall ever built in the ancient world. This wall is known as ‘The Great Wall of
Gorgan’ or ‘the Red Snake’. An international team of archaeologists has been at
work on the snakelike monument and here they report on their findings.
According to Current
Archaeology, The ‘Red Snake’ in northern Iran, which owes its name to the red
color of its bricks, is at least 195km long. A canal, 5m deep or more,
conducted water along most of the Wall. Its continuous gradient, designed to
ensure regular water flow, bears witness to the skills of the land-surveyors
responsible for marking out the Wall's route. Over 30 forts are lined up along
this massive structure. It is also known as the Great Wall of Gorgan, the
Gorgan Defence Wall, Anushirvân Barrier, Firuz Barrier and Qazal Al'an, and
sometimes Sadd-i-Iskandar, (Persian for dam or barrier of Alexander).
The wall is second only to the Great Wall of China as the longest defensive
wall in existence, but it is perhaps even more solidly built than the early
forms of the Great Wall. Larger than Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall taken
together, it has been called the greatest monument of its kind between Europe
and China.
The 'Red Snake' is unmatched in so many respects and an enigma in yet more.
Even its length is unclear: its western terminal was flooded by the rising
waters of the Caspian Sea, while to the east it runs into the unexplored
mountainous landscape of the Elburz Mountains. An Iranian team, under the
direction of Jebrael Nokandeh, has been exploring this Great Wall since 1999.
In 2005 it became a joint Iranian and British project.
The inhabitants of this region are generally believed to have been the ancient
Hyrcanians. Gorgan itself is one of Iran’s most ancient regions and is situated
just to the Caspian Sea’s southeast. Gorgan has been a part of the Median,
Achaemenid (559-333 BC), Seleucid, Parthian (247 BC-224 AD) and Sassanian
empires in the pre-Islamic era. The term Gorgan is derived from Old Iranian
VARKANA (lit. the land of wolf). Interesitngly the term Gorgan linguistically
corresponds to modern Persian’s “Gorg-an” or “The Wolves”.
The capital of ancient Gorgan was known as Zadrakarta, which later became
Astarabad. This city can be traced back to at least the Achaemenid era. Another
historical city of importance was ancient Jorjan.
Until recently, nobody knew who had built the Wall. Theories ranged from
Alexander the Great, in the 4th century BC, to the Persian king Khusrau I in
the 6th century AD. Most scholars favoured a 2nd or 1st century BC
construction. Scientific dating has now shown that the Wall was built in the
5th, or possibly, 6th century AD, by the Sasanian Persians. This Persian
dynasty has created one of the most powerful empires in the ancient world,
centred on Iran, and stretching from modern Iraq to southern Russia, Central
Asia and Pakistan.
With the benefit of hindsight it is easy to see why the walls would have been
constructed at this later date. It was near the northern boundary of one of the
most powerful empires in the ancient world, that of the Sasanian Persians.
Centred in modern Iran, it also encompassed the territory of modern Iraq,
stretched into the Caucasus Mountains in the north-west and into central Asia
and the Indian Subcontinent in the east. The Persian kings repeatedly invaded
the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire. Yet, they also faced fierce enemies at
their northern frontier. Mountain passes in the Caucasus and the coastal route
along the Caspian Sea were closed off by walls, probably to prevent the Huns
from penetrating south. Ancient writers, notably Procopius, provide graphic
descriptions of the wars Persia fought in the 5th and 6th century against its
northern opponents. When the Persian king Peroz (AD 459-484) campaigning
against the White Huns, spent time repeatedly at ancient Gorgan. Eventually he
had to pay with his life for venturing into the lands of the White Huns. It
would have made perfect sense for Peroz, or perhaps another Persian king
shortly before or after, to protect the fertile and rich Gorgan Plain from this
northerly threat through a defensive barrier.
Modern survey techniques and satellite images have revealed that the forts were
densely occupied with military style barrack blocks. Numerous finds discovered
during the latest excavations indicate that the frontier bustled with life.
Researchers estimate that some 30,000 soldiers could have been stationed at
this Wall alone. It is thought that the 'Red Snake' was a defense system
against the White Huns, who lived in Central Asia.
The system of castles
was developed by the Sassanians into a system of fluid defense. This meant that
the Gorgan Wall was not part of a purely static system of defense. The main
emphasis was in a system of fluid defense-attack system. This entailed holding
off potential invaders along the line and in the event of a breakthrough, the
Sassanian high command would first observe the strength and direction of the
invading forces. Then the elite Sassanian cavalry (the Savaran) would be
deployed out of the castles closest to the invading force. The invaders would
then be trapped behind Iranian lines with the Gorgan Wall to their north and
the Savaran attacking at their van and flanks. It was essentially this system
of defense that allowed Sassanian Persia to defeat the menacing Hun-Hephthalite
invasions of the 6-7th centuries AD.
Radiocarbon dates indicate that the fort remained occupied until at least the
first half of the 7th century. It is too early to tell whether or not the Wall
was abandoned then, perhaps because troops were needed for a major assault
against the Byzantine Empire, fighting off the Byzantine counter-offensive or
against the Arab invasion from AD 636 onwards. The evidence is mounting,
however, that the Wall functioned as a military barrier for at least a century
and probably closer to two.
If one assumed that the forts were occupied as densely as those on Hadrian's
Wall, then the garrison on the Gorgan Wall would have been in the order of
30,000 men. Models, taking into account the size and room number of the barrack
blocks in the Gorgan Wall forts and likely occupation density, produce figures
between 15,000 and 36,000 soldiers.
The land corridor between the Caucasus Mountains and the west coast of the
Caspian Sea is closed off by a series of walls. The most famous is the Wall of
Derbent in modern Dagestan (Russia). Then, much closer to the 'Red Snake' is
the contemporary Wall of Tammishe, which runs from the south-east corner of the
Caspian Sea into the Elburz Mountains. The Caspian Sea is the world's largest
inland sea and depends on inflowing rivers for its water. Its water level has
thus fluctuated much more over the centuries than that of the oceans.
This wall starts from the Caspian coast, circles north of Gonbade Kavous,
continues towards the northwest, and vanishes behind 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 above wall. 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.
Attention must be likewise given to a similar Sassanian defence wall and
fortification on the opposite side of the Caspian Sea at the port of Derbent
and beyond. Where the Great Wall of Gorgan continues into the Sea at the Gulf
of Gorgan, on the far side of the Caspian emerges from the Sea the great wall
of Caucasus at Derbent, complete with its extraordinarily well preserved
Sassanian fort.
While the fortification and walls on the east side of the Caspian Sea remained
unknown to the Graeco-Roman historians, the western half of this impressive
"northern fortifications" in the Caucasus was well known to Classical
authors.
This project is seriously challenging the traditional Euro-centric world view.
At the time when the Western Roman Empire is collapsing and even the Eastern
Roman or Byzantine Empire under great external pressure, the Sasanian Persian
Empire musters the manpower to build and garrison a monument of greater scale
than anything comparable in the west. The Persians seem to match, or more than
match, their Late Roman rivals in army strength, organizational skills,
engineering and water management. Archaeology is beginning to paint a clearer
picture of an ancient super power at its apogee
, yabγu,[1] Traditional
Chinese: 葉護, Simplified
Chinese: 叶护, Jabgu, Djabgu, literally, "pioneer"[citation needed], "guide"[citation needed]) was a state office in the early Turkic states, roughly equivalent to viceroy. The title carried autonomy in
different degrees, and its links with the central authority of Khagan varied from economical and political
subordination to superficial political deference.