Wall of Alexander

Wall of Alexander: defense wall in northeastern Iran.

The Wall of Alexander (Sad-e Eskander) or Red Wall (Qezel Alang) separates modern Golestan, a province in northeastern Iran, from Turkmenistan. This is not just the frontier between two modern states, it is also a very ancient cultural divide: to the south are fertile agricultural grounds and to the north is the steppe.

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Stated differently, the north is the nomads' country, the south belongs to peasants and farmers. For centuries, these two kinds of people have lived in an uneasy partnership (cf. the Biblical story about the farmer Cain who killed the shepherd Abel). Throughout history, it was not unusual that the sedentary population built walls to protect itself against the nomadic tribes. One of these structures is the "Wall of Alexander".

It is indicated on these photos (which were taken near Gondab-e Kavus) with orange pylons. Hardly anything of the wall survives, but it can be traced from a point 5 kilometer east of the Caspian Sea (an indication of how much it has receded) to a northern spur of the Elburz Mountains; the distance is about 100 kilometers. Every 5 kilometers, there was a castle. It was probably built by the Sasanian king Khusrau I 'deathless soul' (531-579) to defend Hyrcania against the nomads of the Central-Asian steppe.

Although research of the wall is difficult (for centuries, it has been robbed of its stones, and a part of it is now situated amidst quicksands), it seems increasingly likely that Khusrau merely reconstructed an older structure, and in 2004, archaeologists announced that they believed that at least a part of the wall dated back to the Achaemenidage (550-330 BCE). Later researchers, in the winter of 2007/2008, said there was more evidence for a Sasanian date, so it seems that the question is still unsolved.

Alexander with horns. Coin by Lysimachus.

For the time being, to attribute the wall to Alexander the Great is a statement that cannot directly be falsified, and the name "Wall of Alexander" is not completely nonsense, especially since the Macedonian conqueror is known to have built comparable defence works in Margiana.

In the Quran (18.93-98), it is said that Dhû'l-Qarnayn ("the horned one") built a large wall to separate Yâgûg and Mâgûg ("Gog and Magog"). The "horned one" must be Alexander, who, as son of the god Ammon, was often depicted with horns. This picture shows a coin minted by one of his successors, Lysimachus.