Iran’s cultural heritage endangered

There should be a law to protect our cultural heritage from war. Well, yes, there is, but who is enforcing it?
 
After the barbaric destruction carried out for several years since 2014 by IS, the Islamic State, in countries like Syria, Iraq, and Libya, we are now seeing similar damage inflicted by our ‘civilized’ world on Iran. By the end of March 2026, 120 museums and heritage sites in Iran had been damaged, whether they were UNESCO World Heritage Sites or not.
 

I held my breath, fearing for sites like Susa, Hamadan, Persepolis, and Pasargadae, although there are no nearby towns or industrial plants to justify an attack. So far, I had not heard anything about bombing ancient sites in Iran until I came across this article, “Severed Spaces: Documenting Cultural Heritage at Risk in Iran,” published by The Ancient Near East Today (Neumann, K. 2026).

 

The article tells of destruction all over Iran, but I concentrated on the capital, Tehran, and on the world-renowned city of Isfahan. Yes, I am drifting away from Alexander, but after all, Iran remains part of his heritage!

 

The first picture after a panoramic view of Maidan Square in Isfahan is that of the shattered Hall of the Marble Throne in Golestan Palace, Tehran, whose unique mirror walls and ceilings I recognized immediately. 

Before

After [picture from ANEToday]

Mirrors with perfect reflection were invented by the Venetian artisans of Murano, who created clear glass backed with an amalgam of tin and mercury. They jealously kept their manufacturing secret until the 17^th century. This is exactly when the Golestan Palace was built, using tiny hand-cut mirror mosaics to create geometric and floral patterns. A most expensive work of art, now lying in shatters all over the floor.

Inside Ali Qapu Palace

The gem of Isfahan is Maidan Square (Naqsh-e Jahan Square), measuring 160 x 560 meters, that counts several unique buildings on the UNESCO World Heritage List that have been damaged by military strikes. 

They include the Royal Mosque, famous for its wonderful acoustics, and the Ali Qapu Palace, which occupies a commanding position in the middle of the long side of the square opposite the Lotfollah Mosque. All noteworthy buildings at the very heart of Isfahan.

Inside the Pavilion of 40 Columns

One block to the west lies the Chehel Sotou or Pavilion of 40 Columns, which has suffered damage from shockwaves as well.

 
Beyond the damage and destruction of buildings, there is the danger of looting once the walls of palaces, mosques, museums, and other public buildings have crumbled down. It is so easy to smuggle small(er) antiquities out of the city and out of the country over the roads of the black market. 

With the economic decline in a country at war, illegal trade is a simple way to survive. That is understandable, but it does not justify the means.

How the Arabs saved our knowledge from antiquity

In my post, The story around Alexander’s copy of the Iliad, I briefly mentioned how the Abbasid Caliphs in Persia largely contributed to preserving the knowledge of the ancient Greeks. 

A few years ago, my attention was drawn to the glory days of Baghdad around 1000 AD, a city built inside a circle surrounding the central Abbasid Palace, a symbol of power and unity. More amazing than its shape was the fact that its Caliphs invested in hiring scholars to translate ancient Greek documents into Arabic. 

[Baghdad under the early Caliphs. Attribution]

Baghdad was built along the Tigris River in 762 AD, as the residence of Caliph Al-Mansur, the founder of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Abbasid Dynasty was named after the uncle of Prophet Muhammad. A Caliph was the title of the civil and religious leader of a Muslim state, seen as representing Allah on earth. 

Al-Mansur was the first Caliph to honor astrologers. The most famous astrologer was Mash’allah from Basra, who served the Caliphs from 762 to 809 AD. Al-Mansur was convinced that it was written in the stars that the Abbasids were the legitimate successors of the Persian Sassanid Empire. They had been in power from 224 until 651 AD, when they were conquered by the Muslims. Since astrology did not exist in Arabic, Al-Mansur needed to revert to Persian and Greek astrological texts. As a result, he needed these ancient texts to be translated into Arabic.

By 786 AD, Caliph Harun al-Rashid established the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, which originally may have been a Library, where scholars from across the Muslim world would organize their translations. The idea caught on, and other centers flourished a few centuries later in Cordoba and Granada in Spain, as well as in Cairo, Egypt. 

In the western Roman world, we saw our ancient knowledge and know-how disappear into the dark Middle Ages soon after the Fall of Rome in 476 AD. In the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, however, the science of Antiquity survived despite the rise of Christianity. Constantine the Great had made it the official religion, renaming its capital Byzantium after himself, Constantinople.

When Islam entered the stage in the 7^th century AD, the Abbasid Caliphate, established in Damascus, was a serious competitor to Constantinople. In about 750 AD, the Caliphate was transferred from Damascus to Baghdad, meaning that the center of power moved east from a Greek-speaking region to a non-Greek-speaking area. Followed a series of wars between the Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire that lasted until the 11^th century. 

All that time, the knowledge from Antiquity flowed into Baghdad, where a vast translation project was set up, and top translators were highly rewarded in gold. They concentrated on matters like astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and even music theory. Aristotle was still held in high esteem, his works as well as his comments. Later translations included Claudius Ptolemy's Almagest, a mathematical and astronomical treatise on the motions of the stars and planets; Euclid's book on geometry; the medical works of Hippocrates and Galen; and Plato’s Republic and Laws. Many other ancient books were translated from Greek, Pahlavi, Neo-Persian, and Syriac into Arabic. 

Simultaneously with this translation movement, Islamic science developed, involving philosophers and scientists alike. A name that stands out is that of Ibn Sina, better known as Avicenna (980-1037), the Father of Early Medicine, whose work was standard in Europe for centuries. Another figure was Al-Khwarizmi (780-860), the Father of Algebra, who introduced the algorithms.

By the mid-11^th century, the ideas of antiquity reached Europe in Arabic, traveling to Sicily and Muslim Spain. Over time, they had been enriched with the knowledge that the Caliphs in the Middle East had acquired and developed. We owe it to the Abbasids that the knowledge from classical antiquity reached Europe, where it was generally translated into Latin. 

The Abbasid Caliphate ended in 1258 when Baghdad was sacked by the Mongols. The city was looted and thoroughly destroyed. The invaders burned piles of books, including those that were held in the House of Wisdom. 

Without Baghdad and its western expansion, we would have remained stuck in the dark Middle Ages, and there would not have been a Renaissance. 

Delphic Hymns and ancient Greek music

My first discovery of Greek musical annotations happened in 2012 when I saw the Seikilos column at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. This temporary exhibition held a copy of the Seikilos Epitaph from Copenhagen that showed ancient Greek music (see: Revealing ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph). It was presented as the oldest surviving example of musical composition in the world, dating back to between 200 BC and 100 AD. At that time, I learned that older Greek music inscriptions existed but only fragmentarily, as is the case for the Delphic Hymns. 

While the Seikilos Epitaph is the only complete song we have, the Delphic Hymns are simply the oldest surviving examples so far, dating from the 2^nd century BC. These Hymns were carved on the southern wall of the Treasury of the Athenians in Delphi. They contain hymns praising Apollo, his birth, his life, and his protection of Athens and Delphi, with music to be played on a shrill-sounding flute and a golden, sweet-sounding cithara. These hymns to Apollo were performed during the Pythian Games, a major venue for musical contests that originally focused on art and dance. 

The two inscriptions from the Treasury of the Athenians, now exhibited at the Museum of Delphi, belong to a series of about fifty similar hymns from ancient Greece. A study revealed that these songs of praise or triumph were composed for the Pythian Games of 128 BC, i.e., the ritual procession of the Athenians towards Delphi. Apollo is also hailed for his help in fighting the Galatians in 189 BC, as the Romans won the battle against these Celtic tribes in Asia Minor. 

Like the Seikilos inscriptions, the Delphic Hymns hold musical symbols for the instruments and other notations for the singing voice next to the lyrics. We owe the interpretation of these symbols to Alypius of Alexandria, a musicographer who lived in the 3^rd century AD. 

I followed the history of ancient Greek music and the reconstruction of ancient instruments, mainly the lyre/cithara and the flute, from 2016 onward, with several updates after Reconstructing ancient Greek music, an impossible task? We still find it difficult to accept that Homer's epics or the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides originally were sung partially or in their entirety.

The sounds produced by ancient instruments are a far cry from today’s music, even from what is considered classical music or medieval troubadours. Modern music is mostly loud, to be heard beyond the daily noises of traffic, airplanes, and too many people attending the open-air events with screaming amplifiers. It is hard to imagine a quiet, tranquil spot in nature where we could catch the sound of a faraway flute or a string instrument floating on the wind. The basic essence of musical notes no longer reaches us.

With new discoveries and future in-depth research, we may expect to learn more about the music played in antiquity that could have been familiar to Alexander. I hope.

[Pictures from the Delphi Archaeological Museum]

Alexandria-on-the-Tigris

Since the beginning of this year, Alexandria-on-the-Tigris has been repeatedly discussed on the internet, and I was hoping to find new information about its excavations. 

Sadly, nothing of the kind has been revealed. The articles basically confirm earlier results that mentioned a grid layout of the city with wide streets, housing blocks, temples, workshops, traces of canals, and harbor basins. 

There was nothing much I could add to my blogpost, Excavations at Alexandria-on-the Tigris, also known as Charax Spasinou, posted in May 2017, except perhaps the important role the city played as a trade hub with connections far into Central Asia. 

Alexandria-on-the-Tigris flourished in Hellenistic times and later under Parthian power. A port at the junction of the Karun and Tigris rivers on the Persian Gulf was a choice location. Unfortunately, by the third century AD, the riverbed of the Tigris had shifted further west, and the alluviums carried by both rivers led to the end of its prosperity, leaving very little for us to see. 

[Picture of Alexandria's wall from Archaeology Mag]

Today, the site of Alexandria-on-the-Tigris has very little to offer. The only recognizable feature in the otherwise flat plain is a kilometer-long ridge that has been identified as the city wall. In places, it rises up to eight meters. 

Future excavations will not happen any time soon, as the site sits so close to the Iran-Iraqi border and the Persian Gulf. Jebel Khayyaber, the modern name of the settlement, is located 50 kilometers from Basra, Iraq.

The story around Alexander’s copy of the Iliad

Throughout history, it transpires that Alexander liked to present himself as the new Achilles. His Companions jokingly said it was because he slept with Homer's Iliad under his pillow. 

Page from the Iliad found in Egypt, 
APM Amsterdam

This statement may be far-fetched, but Plutarch confirms that Alexander kept his copy of the Iliad in a jeweled casket. It was the king’s proud possession since the precious scrolls were given to him by his earlier teacher, Aristotle, who had commented on the script. 

Ironically, the luxurious box may have belonged to the Persian King Darius. After the Macedonians were victorious at the Battle of Issus, it fell into Alexander's hands, who considered it worthy to hold the scrolls of his beloved Iliad. 

What history does not provide is a detailed description of the box and what King Darius kept inside. 

It is everyone’s guess if the casket was made of wood and inlaid with precious stones, or perhaps made of gold with intricate decorations. 

As to its contents, it may well have held the translation of the ancient Persian Avesta, the sacred text of Zoroastrian belief written originally in Avestan, an old eastern Iranian language that dates back to 1400 BC. Zoroaster was the first to teach humanity the doctrines of Heaven and Hell, the Resurrection of the body, the Last Judgment, and Eternal Life. These principles spread among mankind to be picked up eventually by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Avesta must have been key to Darius’ ideology, and these ancient texts were his most prized possession. 

Zoroastrian Temple of Fire, Yazd, Iran

Nothing more is heard about Darius’ Avesta. I find it hard to believe that Alexander would have discarded these texts. The wrath of the gods was something to reckon with. Besides, he always respected people’s beliefs, and there is no reason to simply dispose of the Avesta. There were enough men in his entourage who understood and spoke Persian to recognize the content. Our history mentions Leonnatus by name when he visits the Persian Queen Mother in Issus to reassure her that her son, King Darius, was still alive, although not victorious. Alexander may well have given the Avesta texts to Queen Sisygambis, why not? 

However, some tales take a life of their own. In the first centuries of the Abbasid Empire in Persia (750-1258), it was believed that Alexander had stolen all the Persian books, which had to be translated back from Greek into Arabic to make them available to the Persians once again, who by now had adopted the Arabic script.

While in the West, the ancient world collapsed with the Fall of Rome in 476 AD, the knowledge of antiquity survived in the Eastern Roman Empire. The Abbasid Caliphs largely contributed to preserving the knowledge of the ancient Greeks.  Their work, except poetry and history, was translated initially into Syriac and later into Arabic as spoken at their court. As a result, the well-known works on geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and most of Aristotle’s oeuvre were saved.  Without the arduous efforts of their skilled translators, not even the Renaissance could have saved our Greek heritage. 

The Abbasid and Persian angle of perception of the facts was obviously different from ours, and led them to believe that Alexander had simply stolen the Persian books. Other sources argued that they were burned in Persepolis when Alexander set the Palace ablaze.

Unique opportunity to explore Alexander’s homeland

The team at Peter Sommer Travel has crafted a new unforgettable itinerary, ‘in this extraordinary part of the world’, Macedonia in Greece: Visiting Alexander the Great at Home.

To quote PST’s own tantalizing words from Facebook:

'... a tour ideal either for the first-time visitor to Macedonia, or as a profound deepening of the experience, revelatory even for those who have travelled there before. Meticulous attention has gone into every detail: superb accommodation in selected characterful locations, fascinating in their own right; excellent meals that reflect the full spectrum of the local tradition, wine-tastings highlighting this ancient product of the area, and a succession of site visits offering insights into the breadth of the region’s culture and history, eagerly brought to you by our trademark team of expert guides.’

For me, Macedonia is all about Alexander and his legacy, of course. I marvel at how many historical markers PST's tour has included, all set in this wonderful landscape where we can breathe the same air Alexander did so many centuries ago.

This Exploring Macedonia Tour covers an incredible amount of sites familiar to Alexander, his predecessors, and his successors.

Back in 2007, I had the immense pleasure of following Alexander's conquest of the Persian-occupied cities in what is now Turkey with Peter Sommer, based on his own memorable walk from Istanbul to the Syrian border. Sadly, that tour, In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great, no longer exists. It was an unforgettable three-week experience that led me to look at Alexander's world from his point of view, which I still do today. I would expect this Macedonia Tour to have the same impact on the visitors.

Excavations restarted in Ptolemais, Cyrenaica region of Libya

It is heartwarming to read that excavations in the city and harbor of Ptolemais have resumed in 2023.

The initial diggings began in 2001 and were carried out by a Polish Mission (see: Ptolemais, heritage of the Ptolemies). Work was, however, interrupted in 2010 because of the Libyan Civil War that led to the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi and years of unrest and chaos. 

[Picture from TVP World]

After its return, the Polish Archaeological Mission focused on Ptolemais’ Acropolis, sitting on a plateau some 300 meters above the city. Following a hitherto unknown road, they discovered remains of a residential area from Roman times. The layout of a residence revealed several rooms surrounding an inner courtyard, including a kitchen and a staircase leading to the upper floor. At least one of the rooms was paved with mosaics. The most remarkable feature was perhaps the presence of a basin at the center of the courtyard where rainwater was collected. From there, the water was led into two underground cisterns for storage. Also, a plaster mask was retrieved from one of the cisterns. It has been modeled on a human face, and its purpose remains unclear. It is thought to be related to some unknown Libyan tradition, as similar masks were found in a sanctuary at Slonta, in northern Libya.

Nearby, a Roman milestone with a Greek inscription was unearthed. It has been dated to the days of the Severan Dynasty Emperors, who ruled between 193 and 235 AD.  In the meantime, conservators in Poland are joining their efforts to restore the excavated mosaics and frescoes. 

The ancient port of Ptolemais lies about four kilometers to the East, where its remains sit close to the surface of the Mediterranean. What appeared to be a single shipwreck turned out to be a series of sunken ships: a 100-meter-long scatter of fragments and amphorae, probably used to transport wine, was located. The underwater explorations carried out in 2024 and 2025 exposed submerged port structures, traces of roads, discarded anchors, and sounding weights among fallen columns. 

A rare find was that of a bronze aequipondium, literally a counterweight used in Roman weighing scales, in this case in the shape of a woman’s head and filled with lead. 

Obviously, a lot of work remains to be done in this country, where excavations are a precarious enterprise.

Antiquity in full color

Since 2013, I have repeatedly highlighted how colorful our world was in Greek and Roman antiquity.
 

In my first post, Ancient Greece in full Technicolor, I explained the modern techniques used to analyze and define the true original color pigments applied on statues, reliefs, temples, theaters, and many other monuments in a world we know basically as bright white. The technique is very well explained in a video I posted in 2022, Gods in Color – How it’s done.
 
In our modern concept, marble is such a precious material because of its structure and natural color that shines by itself. Nobody in their right mind would apply paint to a marble bust, for instance. The vision of our forefathers was entirely different.
 

Our ancient world was very colorful as we witness inside the houses of Ephesos and Pompeii, or in Etruscan and Macedonian tombs, to name only a few examples. Why do we find it so difficult to accept and imagine that the outside of monuments and their statuary decoration was painted as well?
 
An answer to this intriguing question is given in this French video (with English subtitles), Les couleurs de l’antiquité, which is well worth watching. However, it may not be available after 11 June 2026.
 
It’s always a pleasure to share this kind of thorough research!

[Top picture by Marsyas]

Uniqueness of Agrigento’s Gymnasium

Antique Greek and Roman cities come with a standard number of very recognizable monuments, such as the temples to their gods and goddesses, the Bouleuterion, the Theater, and the Stadium. Less impressive but still important is the Gymnasium and/or the Palaestra.
 
Among the many quoted examples, perhaps the most striking one is the impressive Gymnasium of Olympia, home of the Olympic Games. We can easily visualize the layout, with its central courtyard surrounded by a wide Stoa whose roof was supported by a double row of Doric columns. It was 220 meters long and 120 meters wide, a size that is very close to that of a Stadium (see: Olympia, an ongoing excavation project).

Less known is that besides being a center for physical training, the Gymnasium served for intellectual education, where young men studied rhetoric and the duties of civic life. How exactly this formal education was taught remained rather obscure till this year’s excavations in Akragas (modern Agrigento), the largest colony the Greeks founded in Sicily in 580 BC.
 
This Gymnasium from the 2^nd century BC revealed a semi-circular covered classroom or auditorium in the style of a theater with eight rows of seating, which could accommodate some 160 youngsters. The orchestra was the central space where teachers and students presented their exercises before the audience. This room is a unique example known so far in the Greek world. Archaeologists found two blocks of white limestone with a Greek inscription that could have been used as a pulpit. This inscription, with traces of red pigment, holds the word gymnasiarchos, the director of the Gymnasium, and tells us about the renovation of the apodyterion, the large changing room that got a new roof. The project was appropriately dedicated to Hermes and Heracles, underscoring the role of the Gymnasium as a center for both physical and intellectual development. These gods were associated with youth athletics, and strength.
 
This inscription is also important because, on the one hand, it is one of the very rare texts found in Akragas and, on the other hand, confirms that the Greek language and customs continued to be used far into Roman times.

The auditorium in Akragas opens onto a 23-meter-long and 11-meter-wide hall that holds benches designed for classes and intellectual competitions. Competitiveness was key in the Greek education!
 
Akragas’ Gymnasium also housed a Palaestra, i.e., a section reserved for boxing and wrestling. At present, work is underway to define its layout and role within the entire complex. Elsewhere in the antique world and particularly in smaller cities, a Palaestra could exist as a standalone facility, but that certainly is not the case here. 
 
The premise also included a 200-meter running track and a swimming pool. This year (2026), research will focus on the water supply and map the entire hydraulic system. The team will also investigate the western rooms of the Gymnasium, hoping to find traces of its construction’s history that ranged from the 2^nd century BC to the early days of the Roman Empire.

[Pictures from Institut für Klassische Archäologie]

A few words about Syedra

Syedra was discovered as recently as 1994, but excavations only slowly exposed parts of this ancient port city, a good 20 kilometers south of modern Alanya on the coastal road to Anamur and Tarsus beyond. In antiquity, the city was either part of Cilicia or Pamphylia.
 

I read the name Syedra while visiting the Archaeological Museum of Alanya, before knowing where to look for it. I was struck by its mosaics, clearly Roman and belonging to the 3rd century AD.
 
Archaeological excavations have revealed standard elements of the town, but none show signs of in-depth study. The structures are listed as a street lined with columns, shops, several staircases, remains of a town hall (Odeon?), a temple, a theater, and several cisterns that provided water to the city.
 
On the upper terrace that holds the Acropolis stands a building tentatively identified as a Heroon. Its walls with traces of frescoes welcome the visitor at the end of the colonnaded street. It is not known to whom this shrine was dedicated.
 
Important sections of the city walls display the remains of entrance gates, for instance, on the southwest and western side; the latest being the strongest, which is recognized as the main access to the city.
 

[Picture from Daily Sabah]

Another interesting feature is the Roman Bathhouse, where a large floor mosaic depicts the Twelve Labors of Heracles with life-size human figures. It was excavated in late 2020 and dated to the 2^nd century AD. The rectangular mosaic with an apse-like recess at one end measures 21.95 x 7.92 meters, which would typically fit the layout of a Caldarium. 
 
The reports also mention a statue of Nike, the goddess of victory, that I have not seen at the Museum of Alanya at the time of my visit.
 
By the end of 2025, a huge Stadium from the 2nd or 3^rd century AD was discovered, when Syedra reached its height. It is about 190 meters long and 16 meters wide and can accommodate 2,000-3,000 people. Since it was cut into the solid rock, it remained hidden till now.
 
Researchers also mention some 40 inscriptions on Syedra’s walls providing information about sports and entertainment.
 

At the Museum of Alanya, I had noticed a large inscription in which Septimius Severus praised the city for its bravery and loyalty in resisting the pirates that constantly raided the eastern Mediterranean (see: Exploring Olympos, next to Chimera). In the text from 194 AD, the Roman Emperor underscores Syedra’s “goodwill towards the Romans”.
 
The city also has two Necropolises, one to the northwest and the other to the south, which one day may reveal more important information about its citizens and their burial practices.

Sadly, excavations have not been structured so far, and even the intrepid visitor will have a hard time imagining the layout and monuments that graced this commercial hub and bustling harbor during the twenty centuries of its existence. Syedra was founded in the 7^th century BC and remained inhabited until the 13^th century AD.