Qaleh Kharabeh ( fa, قلعه خرابه, also

Romanized Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...

as Qal‘eh Kharābeh) is the archaeological site of a 5th-century fort in the

Gorgan Plain The Gorgan Plain, or Dasht-e Gorgan ( fa, دشت گرگان), is situated in northeastern Iran in Golestan Province. It extends from the lower slopes of the Alborz and Kopet Dag mountain ranges to the steppes of Turkmenistan. The River Gorgan fl ...

, in Golestan Province in northeastern

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. It lies one mile to the south of the

Great Wall of Gorgan The Great Wall of Gorgan is a Sasanian-era defense system located near modern Gorgan in the Golestān Province of northeastern Iran, at the southeastern corner of the Caspian Sea. The western, Caspian Sea, end of the wall is near the remains o ...

, which was a fortification built between the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...

and the

Kopet Dag The Köpet Dag, Kopet Dagh, or Koppeh Dagh ( tk, Köpetdag; fa, کپه‌داغ), also known as the Turkmen-Khorasan Mountain Range, is a mountain range on the border between Turkmenistan and Iran that extends about along the border southeast o ...

Mountains between 420 AD and 530s AD by the

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...

, 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. A

magnetometer A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, o ...

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. 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 to the west. 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. 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.

References

{{Coord missing, Iran Archaeological sites in Iran Sassanian fortifications Buildings and structures in Golestan Province

See also

References