Iranian archaeologists have discovered in the west of the country the remains of a huge ancient stone wall, the length of which was at least 115 kilometers. Scientists cannot yet say for sure who and for what purpose built this monumental structure.
The study is published in the journal Antiquity and is briefly described by Live Science. The found structure is comparable in scale to the famous Hadrian's Wall, which the ancient Romans built in England to protect them from local tribes.
The lead author of the work, Sajad Alibaygi of Tehran University, estimates that the wall stretches for about 115 kilometers. She was found near the city of Serpol-Zehab in the province of Kermanshah. Previously, archaeologists did not know anything about this object, but locals know it as the "Gauri Wall".
Calculations showed that about one million cubic meters of stone were used for the construction of such a gigantic structure. But how much time and human resources this construction took, scientists cannot say.
The age of the object was estimated very roughly - by the pottery found along it. According to Alibaygi, the wall was erected sometime between the 4th century BC. and VI century A. D. In some places, archaeologists have found the remains of structures that have long been destroyed. Perhaps these were small towers.
The wall itself was erected from local natural material. Roughly speaking, the builders simply collected cobblestones and boulders and stacked them, only in places fastened with plaster mortar.
Archaeologists do not know exactly who built this structure and for what purpose. The wall is poorly preserved. Because of this, scientists cannot even reliably establish its size. The study only suggests that it was three meters high and four meters wide.
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“It is not known whether it was a defensive structure or a symbolic one,” Alibaygi writes in his work. - It could serve as the border of an ancient empire, possibly the Parthians, who flourished between 247 BC. and 224 AD"
According to another version, the wall could have been erected by the Persian Sassanid dynasty, which ruled its empire from 224 to 651 AD. It is known that both of these empires in western Iran built large fortresses, cities and irrigation systems. That is, they had the resources for the construction of the "Gauri Wall".
However, this wall is not the only such find. Archaeologists have previously found such structures, only on a smaller scale, in the northern and northeastern parts of Iran.
Denis Peredelsky