![]() The Royal Road would be a monument of the Persian Empire. ![]() Guard posts were stationed along the road, patrols were also made to secure the route. The road also was made secure by the Persians. Starr traced the stretch of road from Gordium to Sardis, identifying river crossings by ancient bridge abutments. In 1961, under a grant from the American Philosophical Society, S. The road also helped Persia increase long-distance trade, which reached its peak during the time of Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon). A bridge at Diyarbakır, Turkey, still stands from this period of the road's use. The construction of the road as improved by Darius was of such quality that the road continued to be used until Roman times. A later improvement by the Romans of a road bed with a hard-packed gravelled surface of 6.25 m width held within a stone curbing was found in a stretch near Gordium and connecting the parts together in a unified whole stretching some 1677 miles, primarily as a post road, with a hundred and eleven posting stations maintained with a supply of fresh horses, a quick mode of communication using relays of swift mounted messengers, the kingdom's pirradazis. However, Darius I improved the existing road network into the Royal Road as it is recognized today. This route was used by couriers to deliver messages to the Persian capital. More eastern segments of the road, identifiable in present-day northern Iran, were not noted by Herodotus, whose view of Persia was that of an Ionian Greek in the West stretches of the Royal Road across the central plateau of Iran are coincident with the major trade route known as the Silk Road. Of course, such long routes for travellers and tradesmen would often take months on end, and during the reign of Darius the Great numerous royal outposts ( Caravanserai) were built.īecause the road did not follow the shortest nor the easiest route between the most important cities of the Persian Empire, archeologists believe the westernmost sections of the road may have originally been built by the Assyrian kings, as the road plunges through the heart of their old empire. From near Babylon, it is believed to have split into two routes, one traveling northeast then east through Ecbatana and then along the Silk Road (via the Great Khurasan Road), the other continuing east through the future Persian capital Susa and then southeast to Persepolis in the Zagros Mountains. It began in Sardis near the Aegean coast of Lydia, traveled east through Anatolia (crossing the Halys according to Herodotus), and passed through the Cilician Gates to the old Assyrian capital Nineveh in upper Mesopotamia, then turned south to Babylon. The course of the road has been reconstructed from the writings of Herodotus, archeological research, and other historical records. Mounted couriers of the Angarium were supposed to travel 1,677 miles (2,699 km) from Susa to Sardis in nine days the journey took ninety days on foot. Darius built the road to facilitate rapid communication on the western part of his large empire from Susa to Sardis. The Royal Road was an ancient highway reorganized and rebuilt by the Persian king Darius the Great (Darius I) of the first ( Achaemenid) Persian Empire in the 5th century BC. The map of Achaemenid Empire and the section of the Royal Road noted by Herodotus
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