Dating back to around 250 BC and reputed to be the royal necropolis of the Parthian Kings, today the archeological site of Old Nisa is UNESCO World Heritage listed. It was the capital of the Parthians several centuries BC and once part of the empire of Alexander the Great who referred to it as Antiocia. Thanks to the local travel agency, we were very fortunate to have a private tour with one of the local archaeologists who took us through most of what had been excavated. Wow and double wow!!
After walking up a lot of steps we cake out onto this. My initial reaction was ‘oh no not more walking. I’ll never make it there and back’. But I did! In the foreground are depressions used as water catchment reserves.
Our archaeologist guide, his skin burnt to a rich chestnut after being out in the blazing sun for decades on this dig, had marvellous stories to tell (our guide translated)
All the treasures have been taken to the museum for safe keeping but we found piles of mostly terracotta shards. I would have loved to scrounge but ..... Most of the structures are built of mud brick but the columns tended to be made of baked brick for obvious reasons.
The mud bricks used to rebuild some of the structures are made from the surrounding earth washed down by rain over the years from the walls of Nisa.
Incidental finds were wild flowers including poppies and a flowering wild caper plant identical to what we found in Hamlin Pool last year in WA.
We did a double take as part of a ditch moved - it was a little tortoise about 20 cm across stumbling along. Seems it is tortoise season as we found others wandering across the road oblivious to the danger they were in.
The fortress city was surrounded by walls now in ruins and inside those walls were large depressions which were used for water catchment. The whole structure is nestled at the base of that great dividing range which we drove through the following day. Staggering!
An amazing day topped off by a visit north to a wild and astonishing place ....
[To see a few more pix of this please go to www.flickr.com/photos/hwheat8pix/ and go to Albums and find ‘Old Nisa’. ]
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