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Abstract:
Forts and fortresses symbolise a security mechanism against the marauding forces. The Great Wall of China was constructed by the Chinese to resist oft-recurring Hun invasions. However, such forts or fortresses were not unique to Asia but to the eastern and southern part of the Caspian Sea, which too encountered threat of the Huns from time to time. One such fortress was located between the Caucasus Mountain and the Caspian Sea as the most important defence line against the Gog and Magog tribes, and on which was generated an amazing legend like the Alexander's Iron Gate in ancient times.
In this paper, the author intends to take a look at the said fortress keeping in view the excavation of a fort in Iran that too was constructed for protection against the Huns and that too had a legend associated with it.
Keywords:
Iron Gate, Fortress, Caspian, Caucasus, Huns, Sassanids.
Line of Red Dragon:
A few years ago, in 2007, two fortresses situated between Iranian Highland and Gumisan city, were found by the archaeologists of Edinburgh, Durham and Iranian Universities, in Iran. They could not find its name in historical sources, and thus christened it "Red Dragon" because of colour of the bricks. These were also called Gorgan wall, after the geographic name Gorgan that was erected to protect Persian soldiers and inhabitants from White Huns or Hephtalites, who invaded the eastern borders of Persia. It's another part, the Tammish-fortress, spread over the southern part of Caspian Sea, defended Persian Empire from Huns through the shore of Caspian Sea and Elburz-mountain passes. The fort is in modern Tammishah on the eastern border of Tabaristan adjoining Gorgan. Emperor Khusrou Anushirvan built a causeway to Gorgan and Khurasan over the marshes facing the Caspian to protect or to block the nomadic incursions into Persia, and it worked well even till the Sassanid times.1
The Red Dragon was the first defence line of about thirty wellbuilt forts, aqueducts, and carefully constructed canal network. It was the second long throughout Eurasian steppes after the Great Wall of China, and was highly elevated than those of the forts and fortresses built by Hadrian and Antoine in Western Rome.2 Eberhard Sauer, who excavated this amazing site, has concluded that...