Qaleh Kharabeh, Gorgan

Qaleh Kharabeh (Persian: قلعه خرابه‎, also Romanized as Qal‘eh Kharābeh),[1] is a fort, an archaeological site in the Gorgan Plain, in Golestan Province in northeastern Iran. It lies one mile to the south of the Great Wall of Gorgan, which was a fortification built between the Caspian Sea and the Kopet Dag Mountains between 420 AD and 530s AD by the Sasanian Empire, on the northern edge of their empire. The fort may have served as a barracks for soldiers defending the wall or may have been used by civilians, but its neat layout suggest it had a military origin.[2]

The fort

A magnetometer survey of Qaleh Kharabeh was made in 2007 and 2008. The fort had a formal and precise, military-style layout. A central crossroads was found with evidence of buildings on either sides of the roads, these being more easily discernable near the crossroads. Nearby these were pits and places where fire pits may have been located. On the eastern side of the fort were rows of what appeared to be small enclosures; perhaps these were where gullies had been dug surrounding tents or other temporary buildings. Other parts of the site had no discernible structures, apart from the remnants of the field divisions that pre-dated the fort.[3] Pottery found during excavations indicates that the fort was occupied for a relatively short period, during the earlier part of the wall's history. The diet of the occupants included fish, presumably transported from the Caspian Sea which lies 45 km (28 mi) to the west.[2]

Qaleh Kharabeh is one of several forts to be found in the plain south of the Great Wall. This hinterland south of the wall probably receives sufficient natural precipitation for rain-fed agriculture to take place, and the canals which are a feature of the area were built, not for irrigation purposes, but to supply the needs of the military garrison and for the brick kilns that were used to manufacture the bricks of which the walls and the forts were built. It is thought that Qaleh Kharabeh was used to garrison the troops stationed on the wall.[4] The pottery fragments found at the fort and other sites associated with the wall are giving researchers a clearer picture of the sequence of events associated with the wall and the settlements in the area.[5]

gollark: It takes mere SECONDS on a 10x10 maze.
gollark: And then sets up relations between them saying "the X/Y must be 1 left/up/down/right of the previous one".
gollark: You're probably formatting your problem wrong.
gollark: * 80 of each in total, 2 at each point
gollark: Well, it basically creates 80 variables for X/Y at each point throughout the path.

See also
  • Iraj Citadel

References
  1. Qaleh Kharabeh can be found at GEOnet Names Server, at this link, by opening the Advanced Search box, entering "-3078961" in the "Unique Feature Id" form, and clicking on "Search Database".
  2. "Great Wall of Gorgan: Revealing one of the World's Greatest Frontier Walls". World Archaeology: Issue 27. 7 January 2008. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
  3. Ainslie, Roger; Oatley, Chris (2007–2008). "Project Documentation: Qaleh Kharabeh". Archaeology Data Service. Retrieved 24 November 2019.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. Sauer, Eberhard (2017). Sasanian Persia: Between Rome and the Steppes of Eurasia. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 117–118. ISBN 978-1-4744-0102-9.
  5. Rekavandi, Hamid Omrani; Sauer, Eberhard W.; Wilkinson, Tony; Abbasi, Ghorban Ali; Priestman, Seth; Tamak, Esmail Safari; Ainslie, Roger; Mahmoudi, Majid; Galiatsatos, Nikolao; Roustai, Kourosh; Van Rensburg, Julian Jansen; Ershadi, Mohammad; MacDonald, Eve; Fattahi, Morteza; Oatley, Chris; Shabani, Bardia; Ratcliffe, James; Usher-Wilson, Lucian Steven (2008). "Sasanian walls, hinterland fortresses and abandoned ancient irrigated landscapes; the 2007 season on the Great Wall of Gorgan and the Wall of Tammishe" (PDF). Iran. 46: 151–178. doi:10.1080/05786967.2008.11864742. JSTOR 25651440.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

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