Potted Persian History

We are only just getting to grips with the wealth of history in this crossroads of civilization. As much for our own use as to clarify some dynastic terms, the following is a primer in the stuff we are looking at.

Much of Persia is a highish plateau, separated to the southwest from the low lands of Mesopotamia (now Iraq) by the high Zagros Mountains. To the north the Alborz range guards the approaches to the Caspian. The ancient trading routes from central Asia and China enter Persia in the far northeast and travel along the northern edge of a great desert to what is now Tehran (previously Ra’ay). The merchandise then traveled down to Mesopotamia to markets at Baghdad or Damascus and Aleppo in what is now Syria. Afghanistan’s mountains separate the great desert in the east of Persia from the Indus valley except in the southeast where semi desert gives access to Pakistan. Historically, these routes were also the routes of invasion by the Mongols or Turks from central Asia or the Arabs from the south. Afghanistan and the Indus valley have, at various times been the route of invasion for Persians into India, of Indians into Persia and of Afghani kingdoms to dominate both sides.

Copy of Archaemenid carpet

The Achaemenian Dynasty (7thC – 330’sBC) really got going with Cyrus II who united the tribal leaders on the Persian plateau and invented the idea of empire with diverse cultures all paying tribute to a central authority.

An immortal guard

Capital from Persepolis

He was followed by Darius who installed many qanats and built a regional bureaucracy but lost a battle at Marathon in Greece in 490BC. Ten years later, his son, Xerxes, built a bridge of boats across the Hellespont to subdue recalcitrant Athens and Sparta with a massive army. He retreated with a bloody nose from Thermopylae, Salamis and Platea and set up the successful challenge from Alexander in 333BC. More when we get to Persepolis.

After Alexander died, Persia came under his general Selucius, whose dynasty was followed after some time by the Parthians. Both built in mud brick and there is little left to see, although the Parthians blocked Roman expansion to the East.

Sassanian brickwork & squinches

Sassaian Dome

The next great dynasty was the Sassanians, beginning with Ardashir (224 AD). Their great Kings expanded their own Empire to include the Eastern Mediterranean from Egypt to Turkey by 628 AD. The Sassanian and Roman Empires fought each other to an exhausted standstill after each overreached in other directions. The repeated arrival of the plague after 541 decimated urban and rural environments, destroying agriculture, the tax base and military recruitment. Nomadic groups were not as susceptible, so when the Arabs organised under the banner of Islam in the 7^th C, they overran the settlements of Mesopotamia, Syria, Turkey and Persia under the early Umayyad Caliphs of Damascus. The Persian capital of Ctesiphon near Basra was captured in 637, initiating the capture and Islamicisation of Persia.

The Sunni Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad had a strong power base in eastern Persia, from whom they learned the arts of governing a diverse empire that stretched from Tashkent to Cordoba. By the tenth century, three separate Caliphates had developed in Andalucía, Egypt and Bukhara, where the Saminid dynasty of Khorasan and the subsequent Ghaznavid and Seljuc dynasties built a wonderful education system. Sufism was often the preferred version of Islam in Eastern Persia. They produced many of the intellectual giants of the Islamic period. However, the Mongol invasion in the 13^th C destroyed many of the great cities and their intellectual treasures.

Prince's pleasure garden

New Friday Mosque Esfahan

The Safavid Empire, officially Shia, began the 16^th C. Their greatest ruler, Shah Abbas, created a wonderful capital at Isfahan, competing with the contemporary Mughal and Ottoman Dynasties at Delhi and Istanbul respectively. Driven onto the back foot by Afghan invaders, Nader Shah defended and then replaced the Safavids in 18^th C. He sought the recovery of the Peacock throne and the two largest diamonds in the world from Delhi and promptly sacked the city when there was a show of reluctance. The Koh-I-nur is now set in the crown of England, the Darya-i-nur is on display in Tehran but the Peacock throne was broken up by soldiers for booty.

The last Shah's feet

More recently, the Qajars weakened Persia over the 19^th C and were replaced in a coup. Reza Khan crowned himself Shah in 1921 but his son, Mohammed Reza Shah, was driven into exile in 1979. Since then Iran has been an Islamic Republic.

Kerman & Rayen

Five hours southeast from Yazd, Kerman is the major city on the way to Pakistan and southern Afghanistan and to the Persian Gulf. Kerman’s hotel is very grand, catering for the merchants and businessmen and tourists. While Kerman is pleasant at 2000M, it is not far from the hottest point on the planet, at 80M below sea level and 70deg on a fine summers day.

Hijabs for sale

The bazaar has tall Baluchis stalking through and small Hazari refugees escaping the violence of Afghanistan. The city is famous for embroidery and a particular carpet design and for pistachios. Just off the main bazaar is an old hammam with separate alcoves for the different trades.

Dulcimer & tambourine

Men in the morning and women in the evening – a fine place to do business or catch up on gossip. We had afternoon tea and shared a hubble-bubble with apple tobacco while musicians played a hammer dulcimer and a drum tambourine and sometimes sang. I’ll try and get a CD of the music that mixed familiar rhythms with the Middle Eastern scale.

The old mud walled city of Rayen and its citadel dates to Sassanian times.

Rayen citadel

The city is there because the rich soil can be watered by qanats and is very productive with various fruits. The high old battlements contained a population of perhaps 3000 in an area perhaps 300M square with a large citadel that housed the governor and his family. The entire population was supposed to cram into the citadel when danger threatened and the outer walls were being breached. The old town was abandoned about 150 years ago and has spread down the slope.

Nearby is a wonderful Persian garden from the late 19^thC. Qanat water flows in a never-ending stream over about twelve cascades set 40 M apart down a gentle slope. The channel is set in an avenue of old cypress trees (symbol of long life) with their roots watered by another continuous flow of water. An ornamental gateway leads the eye to the pavilion at the top, from where the view is stunning. Jagged high mountains of bare rock form the backdrop. All this is surrounded by semi-desert. Families on long distance travel or locals are picnicking beside the streams in the shade of these old trees. Absolutely delightful.

And even more beautifully tiled Friday mosques and shrines. This one, a shrine to a 19thC Sufi leader and poet, has beautiful calligraphy around the entrance. Even more stunning was a tiny cell where a poet meditated for 40 days and nights. The room is decorated in an uncluttered style by beautiful calligraphy capturing his poetry on the plaster

Desert towns and Zoroaster

Yazd is southeast of Tehran about an hour’s flight and on the edge of a desert where it was part of a network of trading routes. Caravanserais and qanats and a spotlessly clean ancient mud brick old town now surrounded by a modernising concrete city. Caravanserais are two-storey motels built around a large courtyard with stables and storerooms below and sleeping quarters and services above in deep arched arcades.

Pistachio fruit

In the open country, watchtowers protect them and a big gate closed at sunset to protect against brigands. Our hotel was a renovated caravanserai. The daytime temperature at Yazd (about 600M altitude) was about 38C, dropping to a pleasant 25 at night with zero humidity. The water supply comes from qanats, underground tunnels dug by hand many centuries ago to bring snow-melt from surrounding mountains. Surface evidence of a qanat is a straight line of giant anthills about 100M apart where shafts have been dug down and then connected by the water channel; the channel descends at a steady 1-2 degrees whatever the surface topography to deliver water to towns with minimal evaporation. While the water is now pumped up for people or agriculture, housewives used to have to descend long flights of stairs to bring up their daily supply of water.

Wind tower above a pavillion

Teahouse courtyard

The old town alleys run between high walls protecting small domestic courtyards, hammams (communal bathhouses), hotels, teahouses and people’s lives from dust and sunshine. Living spaces are set down into the earth to maintain a constant temperature and ventilated by tall wind towers where convection currents generated by rising hot air creates cooling breezes down below. If the moving air is directed over small fountains, the desert air is cooled and moistened.

The isolation of Yazd has made it one of the last populations of Zoroastrians when they were escaping the Islamasization of Iran in the 7^th century or the rampages of the Mongols in the 13^th. They are an ancient monotheistic religion that believed in the sacredness of the Aryan tetrad of fire, earth, water and air.

Sacred fire

They believed in the great God Ahura Mazda with the three central tenets of think honestly, speak truth and do good. Ahura Mazda is in continual conflict with the angel of evil and it is a person’s choice to live a redemptive good life or not. The Christian concept of Satan probably derived from this duality. After death the body becomes unclean and Zoroastrians do not want to contaminate earth by burial, so the corpse was taken to remote Towers of Silence to be devoured by vultures.

Tower of silence from funeral place

Expansion of Yazd and a decline in vulture numbers has meant the bodies now have to be buried in rock-lined graves. We visited the Towers and one of their several sacred flames, kept burning by priests for 1500 years. This was the religion of the Archaemenid Persian Empire that stretched from the Indus to the Aegean, and from Egypt to the Oxus until defeated by Alexander. A group of Persians fled persecution long ago and went to Bombay, where the honesty and business sense of the Parsees made them a very rich group: they now run huge businesses such as Tata.

Yazd people were friendly, although more conservative than Tehranis. As an aside, a number of fashionable women sport plaster on their now-straight noses.

Seventeen days in Iran

Tehran and the Caspian

Tehran is a rapidly modernising metropolis of 12-15 million spread over an increasingly smog-choked valley. The city itself is fairly young, having been settled after the Mongols had razed the older sometime capital nearby of Ra’ay. During the Ottoman period in Turkey, the capital had been at Isfahan for security reasons. So Tehran has lots of museums but no antique monuments. The major timemark is therefore the flight of Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and the subsequent Revolution that brought the Islamic Republic into being. Since then, Tehran has rapidly increased in size. As urbanisation and an educated middle class increases, the streets and freeways struggle to keep up with the increasing number of cars. An embryonic metro system relieves only some of the pressure.

 A very long bus ride took us to the port of Bandar-Anzali on the Caspian Sea by way of Chalus, the nearest point on the Sea as a crow with an oxygen mask might fly from Tehran. The 170 km road winds up a long, steep sided valley to a pass at about 3400M and then winds down the other side just as quickly. Dramatic gorges and precipitous hillsides spectacularly tamed by Irani engineers in 1924 so that Shah Mohammed Pahlavi could reach his seaside villa on the Caspian. We followed a long and slowly snaking string of cars and the occasional bus (no trucks allowed) up the narrow road until a one-way section had been cleared soon after reaching the top. The traffic was heavy because it was the last long weekend of the school holidays and everyone wanted to visit the Caspian. So family parties were picnicing in every conceivable spot on the roadside and beside nearby rushing streams, catered for by numerous teahouses. Hotels and shops and a few high-rise condos now cram the seaside where the Shah and a few wealthy favourites had isolated grand villas. We wondered why we were there.

The seaward side of these massively high mountains are green and rainy in comparison to the dry semi-desert of Tehran. Rice paddies and tea gardens supplement fruit growing. The Caspian is 1000M deep close off shore and shelters the caviar sturgeon. Mountain streams have brook trout and the whole environment is lush with growth. We visited a mountain village, Masuleh, together with about 5000 other (local) tourists, all happy and relaxed. They were more than happy to have their picture taken and to take ours, to welcome us to Iran (most of our tour group is American) and invite us to dance to happy handclaps.

A warm and friendly welcome by a happy people. Women in head-scarves and a huge variety of dress from coloured tunics and tight trousers to full chador in all the colours of the rainbbow, sometimes on one person, with happy kids in tow. The speciality of the village has been forest produce in various forms of preservation including herbal teas, fruit leathers, pomegranite pastes, pickling spices and pickled garlic. People were very ready to engage and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

 

Then returning through a lower pass up wide valleys where rice paddies gave way to olive tree orchards and then broad acre wheat plantings. At Qazvin we visited a shrine to Hossein, one of the Shia holy men related to Mohammed. The shrine glittered inside from every surface in cut and decorative mirrors, lit by a great golden chandelier and a few other lights. Quite different from the somewhat morbid saints relics in medieval Latin cathedrals, but providing a secure place for the faithful to bring their problems in prayer. The castles of the Assassins were nearby on inaccessible crags, but they ve long since been dispersed by the Mongols.

Coast to Coast: Stage 5 Ingleby to Robin Hoods Bay

The B&Bs we’ve stayed in have all been beautifully presented with comfortable beds and clean linen. The hosts have been invariably pleasant and usually happy to chat about themselves and their town or village. Some have been tiny cottages dating back to 16^th century; a couple have been in large Victorian villas. Some hosts have been obsessively neat and controlling; one was a bloke’s B&B – a pint of beer and a discussion about 1990 Mercedes cars; one was run in a 16^th C pub that was much bigger on the inside than the outside but the ceiling beams were built for Kerry’s height rather than Gordon’s. A couple of Ians, a Dave, two Jennies, one Jane, a Colin and Sandra, a Jean, a Josephine and a Mrs Jackson all looked after us with a solid breakfast that generally kept us going until dinner with a few snacks during the day. Dinner was sometimes memorable, like steak and ale pie at Ennerdale Bridge, Thai ginger fish and stir-fried veges at Broughton, filet Rossini at Richmond, fish pie and turbot at Robin Hoods Bay. And lots of great beers.

The last four days have been over the north Yorkshire Moors.

Heather, Scarp and Farmland

The first, great walking day from Ingleby to Claybank Tops was generally up 600-900 feet followed by steeply down. Claybank Tops to the isolated Lion Inn on the moors was an easy walk of 16 km mostly along a disused railway track. The next two days were quite long, about 26 km across moors. The second last night at Grosmont was like being part of normal sized toy train set. When the railway – lifeblood of the town – was slated to be closed in the early 1960s, it was saved by a mix of volunteer and commercial energy and now appears in period railway vignettes (such as Harry Potter) and provides a regular steam connection to nearby towns and Whitby. Last night was at Robin Hoods Bay and after throwing our pebbles from the Irish Sea into the North Sea, we are now on a fast train via York to London.

Street at Robin Hoods Bay

Robin Hoods Bay has an upper town where Victorian sea captains built their grand villas near the (now discontinued) station. The lower town is like a stage set for Pirates of the Caribbean, with narrow winding streets between tiny terrace houses that back onto each other. Used to be a smuggler’s haven where the excise men were dodged by entering one house and appearing out another a couple of streets below and three along.

Low tide at the Bay

The big tide difference means that flat bottom scows can be beached at low tide for unloading and floated off at high tide. A lot of submerged rocks and a treacherous coast meant a lot of lifeboat and rocket rescues. Now a tiny town for themed holidays with fresh fish and chips.

Done it!

After about 340km walking – the longest we’ve done – stress has disappeared, legs and cardio vascular fitness have improved wonderfully so we can now walk straight up a 300M hill without stopping. Feet have suffered a bit, but nothing permanent or serious. A wonderful holiday. Now, on to the next adventure!

Coast to Coast Stage 4: Reeth to Ingleby Arncliffe

Steps built by Norman nuns to go to mass

From Reeth to Richmond, we continued down the Swale valley, sometimes dropping down to admire Muker where they filmed the James Herriott TV series, or climbing up on to the moors past derelict houses for sale. Richmond, however, was booming. The French and Italian restaurants were doing a roaring trade, although the shops weren’t as busy as they should be. Everyone was at the railway station, a Victorian gem, renovated with film theatres, restaurants and a swimming pool. No trains, but the track bed makes a pleasant walk to Easby Abbey, another of Henry VIII’s nationalizations. 

Richmond has been a garrison town since the Romans built their camp at nearby Catterick to guard the northern route from York to Hadrian’s Wall. Catterick is now the largest Army base in Europe. It was well hidden by high hedges when we went past, but the sounds of clanking tank treads and shouting men carried nevertheless. The Normans thought Richmond was a good place from which to intimidate the locals, so William the Bastard asked his brother to set up a castle to do just that. While the Norman keep has fallen into disuse, the adjacent building was used to house 18 conscientious objectors in the First World War – probably the same streak of independent bloody mindedness that bred the strong influence of non-conformists in this part of the country.

Richmond has the only surviving Georgian theatre

Stage setting at the Georgian theatre

that was showing Taming of the Shrew while we were there. The audience sits in stalls, boxes or gallery pretty much around the stage. The stage is equipped with trapdoors and a removable bit to allow a small orchestra pit. He audience floor plan is a horseshoe with sides of perhaps 25 meters. Lighting by candle replicas and the gallery so stuffy and hot, Gordon had to leave. There were perhaps 180 in the audience, but originally it held 400! Plays could not be presented in the 1780s without express permission of the Lord Chancellor, but the entrepreneur who built a small chain of Yorkshire theatres advertised musical entertainment, for which the audience paid, interspersed by political plays for which they didn’t.

Then two days of road –bashing across the wide Vale of Mowbray. Large fields of barley or wheat, huge tractors and machinery, and a few paddocks of sheep or cows Excellent B&B at Richmond and good ones since, with meals at the wonderful British institution of the pub. Usually steak, steak & ale, sausages, etc. More dissolved abbeys and priories at Easby, Ingleby and Richmond itself. A gem of a church near Richmond with recently uncovered Norman period frescoes.

Norman fresco of the nativity