É. Apor (ed.): Stein, Aurel: Old Routes of Western Iran. (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 2.)
Chapter II. —In Kohgalu Tracts
62 IN KOHGALU TRACTS [Chap. II two at the south-east and south-west corners and two each on the south and west curtains being just traceable. Within the circumvallated area walls of great thickness, but for the most part much decayed, indicate a kind of keep. The distances between this and the enclosing walls vary considerably. On the south side this distance is only 11 feet. The south wall of the keep had apparently a thickness of only 2 feet 6 inches, while the other walls are 6 feet thick. Judging from the heavy debris encumbering the interior, this hall, A, measuring about 26 feet square, may be supposed to have been vaulted. Two doorways open from it northward into what may have been an outer hall, B. Here is found a deep well surrounded by a low platform. It lies exactly in the line of a qandt traceable from the mouth of the gorge for some distance to the south. This channel is said to have carried water within recent times, and so accounts for the occupation of this now waterless ground. The space between the keep and the east and west walls of the enclosure seems to have been occupied by quarters, the dividing walls of which are too far decayed for measurement without excavation. The entrance to the enclosure lies in the middle of the northern wall and is flanked by two walls running towards the solid oblong base, C, of what may have been a kind of outwork protecting the gate. The whole seemed curiously reminiscent of one of those Roman castella to be seen on the Limes in the Syrian desert. Might he who ordered or directed the construction of this fortified post have become personally acquainted with some of those border defences by which Rome succeeded for centuries in warding off Persian inroads into its Near Eastern provinces ?
