The Land Of The Magic Carpet
by H. G. Watts
In the autumn of 1965 my wife and I explored the exciting remnants of the Minoan and Mycaenean civilisations in Crete and the Peloponnese and I renewed a wartime acquaintance with the glories of Periclean Athens.
Our main reason for going to Persia in the spring of 1966 was to visit my younger step-son, who is a lecturer in English at the University of Teheran. Always bearing in mind the second part of Rule No. II of the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club, we took the opportunity of seeing some of the ruins of the ancient Persian Empire and of learning something about that great rival of Hellenic culture in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.
We arrived in Teheran by air from Istanbul; the less said about this unattractive modern capital the better. It is vast, dusty and squalid; its one redeeming feature is that the Elburz Mountains rise a few miles to the north, but as the month was May we were too late for ski-ing and our programme did not include climbing the 18,605 ft. Demavend for which, though it is scarcely more than a walk, a mule, camping equipment and three days are needed.
Our stay coincided with the first ten days of the month of Muharram, during which the Shi-ite Moslems observe a period of mourning for the death of Husayn, a grandson of the Prophet. During these days and nights the populace surges in ragged and disorderly procession round the streets waving black flags, wailing and, figuratively, beating itself on the back with chains. Europeans are not welcome and for a woman to appear wearing red is to invite a volley of stones.
The archaeological museum contains finds from Susa, Per-sepolis and other sites but, as so often happens, the best and most valuable objects, especially those of gold, had gone on exhibition across the Atlantic. The pottery of the Achemenean period Vlth to IVth centuries B.C. and certainly one of the greatest periods of Persian art, strangely enough compares neither in form nor in decoration with the superb specimens from the Minoan II period some 1,000 years earlier in the museum at Herakleion.
As the aircraft glided between the wind-eroded sandstone hills towards the airport of Isfahan, 300 miles south of Teheran, the morning sun glinted on the multi-coloured domes of the Lotfallah and the Royal mosques and we flew over the beautiful Xlth century Charestan bridge. The mosques and their flanking minarets are covered with glazed tiles in blue, green and yellow designs; they date from the XVIth and XVIIth centuries but the manufacture of these tiles remains to this day one of the main industries of Isfahan. The domes look as if gigantic flying saucers had just landed on an interplanetary cruise. The oldest and most famous of all the mosques is the Friday, Masdjed-e-Djomeh, the building of which was begun towards the end of the Xlth century, simple in its architecture but vast and bewildering in the number of pillared halls surrounding the inner courtyard. The surprising thing about the mosques in Persia is their cleanliness, enforced in places of worship by the tenets of the Moslem Faith; this does not however apply outside religion, the dirt and squalor in which these middle eastern people live makes a visit to their countries an experience in which interest is often tempered by revulsion.
The cities of Persia are linked by powerful Mercedes-Benz motor omnibuses, so to see more of the country than one does from an aeroplane we used one to cover the 300 miles from Isfahan to Shiraz. Our bus was equipped like an aircraft, adjustable seats, kitchenette and lavatory; a steward supplied cold drinks, light refreshments and cups of delicious tea. The journey took 8 hours; we passed through some cultivated areas where there were streams or where the water was raised, often by hand operated wheels, from holes looking like bomb craters going down to the water table. But there are many thousands of square miles of flat plain, evidently laid down between mountain chains by the action of water in pleistocene times, where the soil looks suitable for yielding good crops if only there were an adequate water supply. It seems that when northern Europe was covered with ice the rain-belt, which now so often interferes with Y.R.C. meets, lay further to the south so that the Sahara, Arabia and the Persian plateau were grassy uplands teeming with animal life. Although desiccation has been going on for the last 10,000 years, the country in classical times was much more fertile than it is today. One wonders if, with the expenditure of money and energy it could be made so again by pumping up the water from deep wells and conserving and using it scientifically. Persia, however, is self-sufficient in foodstuffs and not interested in exporting anything except its petroleum products and its carpets; in addition it suffers from the habitual indolence of an Islamic country where the women do the work and the men stand or sit around all day in idleness and intrigue.
Shiraz, like any other city in the Orient, is dusty, hot, smelly and seething with humanity. But 40 miles to the north lie the ruins of Persepolis, the magnificent palace built by Darius the Great, 521 to 485 B.C The broad staircases, specially shallow so that a man may ride a horse up them and flanked by superb bas-reliefs showing the King with his soldiers, servants and tributaries, the Hall of the Hundred Columns and the huge Apadana, a columned audience hall each column of which is crowned by twin horses’ heads, give the impression that Darius took his inspiration as regards architecture from the Temple of Amun at Karnak and as regards layout from the Minoan palaces in Crete. Alexander the Great took Persepolis in 330 B.C. and it is thought that it was during the subsequent carousal that the palace caught fire and was destroyed, though it may have been purposely demolished in revenge for the sacking of Athens by Xerxes.
Pasagardae, the ancient capital of Cyrus II, 559 to 530 B.C. is 45 miles north of Persepolis and it was here that he was buried in a funeral chamber mounted on a 5-tier pyramid, all made of huge limestone blocks. Nearby are the foundations of several palaces in one of which there is a relief showing the King wearing an Egyptian tunic and crowned with the uraeus, the Egyptian symbol of kingship; this is one of the many items of evidence of the close relations between Persia and Egypt.
A letter of introduction to Dr. Pirnia, the Governor General of the Province of Fars, not only got us permission to go to Firuzabad, in the country of the Qachqai tribe, but the Governor kindly provided us with his own chauffeur-driven car and arranged for us to be received by the Deputy-Governor of the town. Until only a year or so ago it was dangerous for foreigners to penetrate into such tribal areas and permits are still necessary to get past military guard posts on the roads. It is not so much that the tribes are savage but theirs is a monotonous life and they are bored so they welcome the opportunity to amuse themselves at the expense of the police and possibly of other strangers. They are rough people and their fun tends to be more than just hilarious.
We drove the 80 miles over rough roads through undulating sparsely wooded plains and over two ranges of rugged limestone hills, occasionally meeting small groups of people with camels and donkeys. The women wore their tribal costumes of red, yellow and russet-brown, those riding the donkeys were often carrying young lambs or goats in their arms; the men-folk looked truly ferocious. At last we passed through a deep limestone gorge with a clear stream running down it and before we debouched into the fertile Firuzabad plain we saw a fine rock relief cut in the cliff-side showing Ardechir I, the founder of the Sassanid dynasty, in battle with Ardavan V, the last of the Parthian kings, 224 A.D.
The Deputy Governor and six of his staff received us outside the municipal office, a large house in a garden of sweet scented roses and stocks. To our dismay we found that we had not a single word in common, we might have been visitors from another planet. We were taken into the house and we sat on one side of a large room while our hosts sat on the other. A page of Persian phrases from the Blue Guide did little to relieve our embarrassment. However, the ceremonial cup of tea was brought and soon after that the village schoolmaster, hastily summoned by telephone, arrived and for the rest of the day acted as interpreter. Through him we were able to say what we wanted to see and everybody agreed that this would make a splendid day out.
So we piled back into Dr. Pirnia’s car, the Deputy Governor, his Chief Clerk, the town archaeologist, an agricultural expert, the schoolmaster and ourselves; on the way we stopped at the boys’ school to pick up the schoolmaster’s 11 year old son, this was too good an opportunity to miss. We were much impressed by the schools in this little town of 5,000 inhabitants; there are separate junior schools for boys and girls and a secondary school for older children up to 17 or 18. All three were fine, light, well built, well ventilated modern buildings which would put to shame many a British council school.
The palace of Ardechir I, on the edge of the plain near the gorge through which we had come, now little more than a heap of tumbled masonry, is nevertheless a good example of early Sassanid architecture. Three enormous domed chambers, one of which still shows some carved decoration round the doorways, formed the throne room and the ceremonial part of the palace; now it is used as a stable for donkeys. The porti-coed entrance on one side and the harem and living quarters on the other are in ruins. Part of the building also served as a fire-temple in connection with the rites of the Zoroastrian cult; most of these fire-temples, of which there are many in Persia, used natural gas as the source of the “eternal fire”. Beside the palace there is still a deep pool of cold clear water from a spring, the reason for the choice of this site.
The ancient city of Gour, about 2 miles to the north of modern Firuzabad, founded in the IHrd century A.D., is said once to have housed a million inhabitants; there is little to be seen now except a high central fire-tower and the foundations of a palace, but the encircling walls are still traceable and define the large area that the city once covered. Here, and surely also on many another ancient site in Persia, there is obviously still much scope for organised excavation; who can say what treasures may yet lie beneath the ruins?
We were entertained to lunch again in the municipal office; vast dishes of rice baked with saffron and raisins, various meats cooked as kebab and eaten mainly with our fingers, cucumbers and a delicious salad made from yoghourt and chopped cucumber. Devout Moslems drink no alcohol so we were offered the choice of iced water, pepsi-cola or Canada Dry.
Once again we loaded ourselves into the car and drove about 5 miles into the country to see a carpet factory. It was very different from what we are used to seeing in Halifax or Kidderminster. The ‘factory’ consisted of a large courtyard enclosed by a high mud-brick wall; inside were several low buildings, also of mud-brick, over which vines were trailing, under trees were rough bamboo shelters. In each building and under each shelter a team of six or eight women worked on a superbly beautiful Qachqai carpet. The women wore the gaily coloured pleated tribal costume and worked sitting on the part of the carpet they had finished. The warp threads were tightly stretched between stout wooden beams, each woman—their ages varied from 10 to at least 65—had a supply of coloured wool which she deftly threaded between the warps and cut off with a knife. The intricate pattern of each carpet was so well known to each member of the team that they worked without a plan, each one using the right colour at any particular moment. At regular intervals a thick weft was passed across in front of the woollen tufts and beaten tightly into place with combs by the whole team. Hens picked about behind the women on the finished part of the carpet.
The colours are obtained entirely from local vegetable sources and the wool from local sheep. The dyeing is done by boiling the wool in iron pots over a wood fire with the appropriate vegetable ingredient. There is never any doubt about such questions as matching or fastness. Each woman is paid the equivalent of 5/- per day, they work for 12 hours daily and a team in that time completes about 6 inches of carpet. We were shown one carpet which when finished would measure about 25 ft. by 18 ft. and would sell for £1,750.
Persia is not only The Land of the Magic Carpet, it is also The Land of the Rose. Nearly every house has a little patch of ground, some of course have big and very beautiful gardens, where lovely scented roses bloom from April to October. At the time of our visit they were in the glory of their first flowering. Hybridisation has not, as in Europe, deprived them of their scent. Before leaving Firuzabad we were taken to a big orchard-garden full of roses, with apple and palm trees and vines. The Persians think that the little sour unripe apples eaten at this time of the year are a great delicacy and we were given a basket of these and a huge bunch of roses, whose petals we kept and dried in the sun during our journey back fo Europe.
As a parting gift the schoolmaster gave us two little books of the poems of Saadi and Hafiz, Persian poets who lived in the XIHth and XlVth centuries and whose tombs in Shiraz one must make a point of visiting, if only out of courtesy. When we asked what we could give him in return he said “A good dictionary of the English language”. We have ordered it and hope it reaches him safely.
Once again we took a bus for the first stage of our homeward journey, the 800 miles from Teheran to Erzururti in Turkey. This cost us £5 each, l^d. per mile, and took two days, with an overnight stop at Tabriz and a six hour delay in crossing the frontier into Turkey at Bazargan. The bus was not the height of comfort or luxury and we were glad not to be with it all the way to Munich, its ultimate destination; nevertheless on the second day it took us through some fine country. The north of Persia is pasture country of green undulating hills and the valley up which the road ran on the way to the frontier station was ablaze with brightly coloured flowers, deep scarlet poppies and massed blue and yellow flowers making the hillside look almost like the Dutch bulb-fields. The birds were as brightly coloured as the flowers and we spotted golden orioles, hoopoes, rollers, bee-eaters, kestrels, buzzards, shrikes, egrets, storks, nut-hatches, firecrests, herons and a pair of golden-yellow geese with brown wings.
The tiresome six-hour delay at the frontier was to some extent compensated by a close-up view of the majestic snow-covered cone of Mount Ararat, 17,346 ft., rising alone above a black base of lava—it last erupted in 1840—with all the dignity and beauty of Fuji-san. Here also we found growing wild a very lovely iris with pale mauve and deep purple petals.
At Erzurum we left the bus to rattle its way through Asia Minor to Ankara, Istanbul and Europe and we gave ourselves the luxury of doing the last 200 miles to Trebizond on the Black Sea in a large American taxi. The last 60 miles to the coast was like an alpine valley, snow on the peaks, pine forests on the hillsides and below vineyards, orchards and vegetable plantations. Rhododendrons were growing wild and at one point the hill was yellow with wild azaleas. The filth and squalor of Trebizond and the discomfort of its ‘best’ hotel were something of an anti-climax and it was with relief that we boarded the M.V. Marmara’ for the 4-days’ run along the coast to Istanbul. The Black Sea coast is hardly to be recommended for a seaside holiday; in spite of its great natural beauty it seems to collect a permanent cloud cover, although a few miles out to sea the sun shines; the little towns are uniformly squalid and the sea itself a dirty green colour.
We explored Istanbul and Salonika for Byzantine churches with their lovely mosaics and frescoes, some going back to the Vth century A.D. We grieved at the neglect and wanton destruction of so much of this beauty by the Turks subsequent to their conquest of south eastern Europe at the end of the XVth century.