Ancient Persian Courier Network

Ancient Persian Courier Network -

The life of a mail involves a lot of driving, providing large shipments and smaller packages and letters from across the country. Modern technology such as state-of-the-art vans and high-quality roads allow this process to be completed at high speed - it's possible to cross the southern UK to the north in less than 24 hours, although this require a pair of letters taking changes. Today's haul might be surprised to know that there are several thousands of years, the ancient Persians had similar ideas about effective deliveries.

Antique Communications

The Persian Empire (c. 550-330 BCE) was huge by ancient standards, from the Aegean Sea to the west at the beginning of India to the east, at its peak. The king ruled over all; although he told the local government to his satraps, he still wanted to know all the important news in a timely manner, especially when it involved invasions, plagues, famines and so on. old mail for crossing the empire as quickly as possible with the new.

But the journey through the Empire, Sardis to Susa and others have up to 0 days on foot. A walking mail was much too slow for vital communications. Horse-mails were faster, but restrictions still met as the need to rest their horses, and dangerous terrain that forced the horse to walk almost as slow as a human being for fear of disabling injury.

The Royal Road

solution

King Darius I was to build a long road 1500 mile - the main road - crossing the empire, and establish detachment 111 stations along it. Each station has kept fresh horses for couriers to change over, ensuring that they could drive as fast as possible. The journey through the Empire now has only 7 days.

The measure of this achievement was recognized by contemporary authors. Famous ancient Greek writer Herodotus wrote that "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness of night prevents these couriers from completing their appointed stages with utmost speed" in his stories. The Romans who invaded parts of the Persian during centuries later continued use

His itinerary

The writings of Herodotus - as well as archaeological research and other historical documents - also provided us with the route of the main road, so we can now follow these ancient letters through the ancient empire. The Royal Road began in Sardis over 60 miles to the east of the current Azmir Aegean Turkey. From there, it went east across the north central part of Turkey and passed through the gates of Cilicia in Nineveh (Mosul today in Iraq), once the capital of Assyria. He then turned south to Babylon (near modern Baghdad, Iraq), where it divides. The first route went north then east through Ecbatana and along what later became known as the Silk Road. The second went east of Susa (in present-day Iran), future Persian capital and southeast of one of the most famous cities of Persia, Persepolis.

An Assyrian road

While King Darius I of Persia ordered the development of full length of the main road, it seems likely that he did not the first ancient ruler to consider a quality road connecting important parts of his empire. The ancient Assyrian Empire, which existed in many phases as far back as the 20th century BCE until a hundred years before Cyrus the Great Persian forged, probably had a hand in the construction of part Royal road. His journey through Nineveh and Babylon, ancient important centers of this empire, not the most direct route through the empire of Darius, is strong evidence for the Assyrians design the infrastructure for old emails even earlier history, and the Persians simply expanding it.

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