Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

(exotic upbeat music)

I'm Christopher Clark,

and I'm traveling the world

to discover its true treasures,

the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

This time I'm in the Middle East,

with its relics of long-lost global empires,

its palaces, mosques, and legendary squares.

My journey will take me to Isfahan, to Persepolis,

to Iran, and Yazd in Iran.

But first I'm headed to Jordan,

into the desert of Wadi Rum

and to the old Nabataean city of Petra,

carved into the cliffs.

Wadi Rum is breathtakingly beautiful,

and it's much more than just a desert.

A spectacle of stone, sand, light,

in a time that seems to stand still,

this is the landscape of Wadi Rum.

For 12,000 years,

the Bedouins and their culture have occupied this place.

And what remains today of that long history?

That's what I'd like to find out.

These desert cliffs are up to 400 meters high.

The Arabs call them Hisma.

When the sand storms come,

it feels like you're on another planet.

This valley was created by a geological fault

more than 30 million years ago.

Even the stars bow down to this land with us,

as the Bedouins say.

They revere this region.

It has been their home since time immemorial,

and it's a World Heritage Site.

They live in tents that they weave themselves

from goat's wool and camel hair.

I am a guest of the Bedouin sheik,

the chieftain of the tribe.

The sound of the coffee mortar is an invitation.

Coffee is more than a drink to the Bedouins.

It came to them on the caravans from Yemen,

where the Sufis used it to keep themselves alert

during their nighttime devotions.

There's an entire ceremonial culture associated with coffee.

(man speaking in foreign language)

Hi, my name is Chris.

This is Sheik Abu Naser,

the chieftain of the tribe,

and his brother, who is also his deputy.

Abu Naser, how long has this tradition existed with coffee?

We've been brewing coffee

for thousands of years.

It's an important legacy from our ancestors.

You will find coffee in every household,

Drinking it is a valuable ritual for us.

Coffee's more than just a symbol of hospitality.

Business deals, negotiations, problem-solving,

nothing happens without coffee.

Even within the family.

You drink three cups,

say the Bedouins,

the first for your soul,

the second for your sword,

and the third, because you are our guest.

This is where the nomadic tribes who passed through

this region 3,500 years ago depicted their world.

Themselves, of course, as hunters,

but also the domesticated animals

without which life in this part of the world

would have been impossible.

And we see here not just images, but also letters.

Letters from the 3rd century before Christ,

a reminder that literary culture,

the culture of writing, has a long tradition in this place.

I am meeting with the Bedouin Ali Mohamad,

who is explaining the importance of this cultural site to me

and upholding the legacy of his ancestors.

Ali, thank you for coming.

My pleasure, thank you.

People use this round for camel caravans

between Hejaz and Arabia and the Mediterranean Sea.

The caravans traveled through our region, Wadi Rum.

This spot here was a campground.

The images and writings point to the coast.

Goods were traded here.

Leather from Arabia might be exchanged for silk or textiles

from India or China, for example.

Ali, are you personally proud

to be able to call these people your ancestors?

Yes, I'm very proud.

We are Bedouins.

We own camels.

We used to transport all the goods in our caravans.

Now we have settled in Wadi Rum and are very proud

of our ancestry.

(curious music)

When British agent Thomas Edward Lawrence,

known as Lawrence of Arabia was traveling in Wadi Rum,

he said that he felt humbled into insignificance

by this landscape.

And that makes sense to me and I find it difficult

to leave this magical place.

But my destination is something of a consolation.

I'm on my way to Petra, the millennia-old city carved

into the cliffs at what was once the heart

of an ancient Middle Eastern network of trade routes.

The Nabataean people lived here.

Petra was their capital

with palaces, temples, and tombs

once lining a processional route.

Relics of a great past,

a civilization that, despite extensive research,

is still shrouded in mystery.

The city can only be entered from one side.

At its narrowest point,

the path is only two meters wide.

This narrow access route made Petra impregnable

and some descendants

of this legendary people still live here.

The Nabataeans people who carved this area here,

they start carving the area

and the temples in the area here.

It's our grand grandfather.

They carved that and they were Nabataeans,

but were originally Nabataeans,

they comes from Yemen to Petra

and to have this area as a capital for them.

And that is in five or six century BC.

You know, they do this.

It was very famous at the olden time,

because at the olden time in five century BC,

there were about 20,000 people of Nabataeans.

They were living here and they have their palaces

and they have their kings,

especially like Aretas the First and the Second

and the Third and the Fourth.

And they were the kings of the Nabataeans.

The Nabataeans came to the trans-Jordan region

in the 1st century BC.

Their caravan raids were widely feared.

Later, they hit upon a more lucrative business idea

and began serving as escorts to caravans en route

to the Mediterranean.

They also started trading.

Isn't there something a little surreal or even absurd

about the fact that there's an enormous city carved

into the rock in the middle of a desert?

Petra grew into a metropolis

because it was located directly along one

of the world's oldest trade routes,

the Incense Road.

Incense, myrrh, and spices

like saffron, pepper, and cinnamon.

Back then, all of these items were as valuable as gold

and they stimulated a flourishing international trade.

The Nabataeans, who were a bit like the oil sheiks

of the 20th century, transported this precious cargo

from the Arabian Peninsula, through the desert,

to the Mediterranean Sea via countless camel caravans.

It was a sort of living pipeline.

For a long time, it was believed

that the Nabataeans had left behind a golden treasure trove

in Al-Khazneh, the treasury hidden deep in the cliffs.

The rumor is what lent this place its name,

but the treasure was never found.

And now we know that in fact, this was a mausoleum

for a Nabataean royal family.

(mystical music)

The elaborate facade tells a story

of the power of this people

who conquered more and more territory.

At the pinnacle of their power,

the Nabataeans even conquered Damascus

and laid siege to Jerusalem,

but they'd clearly pushed their luck.

The Roman Empire was having none of it

and summarily annexed their territory.

The Nabataeans became Roman vassals.

The kingdom became the Roman province of Petraea.

But why did

this formerly flourishing mercantile city ultimately fade?

In the 3rd century, mercantile cities like Palmyra in Syria,

rose up as competitors

and on top of that, Petra was hit by multiple earthquakes.

No one knows exactly why the city was abandoned,

but we are learning more and more about the architecture

of this place, which is being explored

on behalf of UNESCO by archeologists like Giorgia Cesaro.

The style was very much influenced

by the Hellenistic style coming from Greece.

In fact, the Nabataeans were merchants,

so they were trading with the Greeks at the time

and they imported also some of their architectural styles.

So of course there were also local features.

For instance, the Nabataean capital is peculiar,

is typical Nabataean

and it can be seen at the main monuments

like the monastery or at there or in the treasury.

(mysterious music)

Today, Petra is mainly under threat

from the large volumes of water that collect

in the recesses of the cliff face during heavy rain.

The water continuously hollows out the structures

and can lead to avalanches.

The Nabataeans knew how to handle these risks.

Water needs to be managed appropriately,

and Nabataeans knew how to do that

and they were incredible engineers, hydraulic engineers.

So they were able to divert waters

in order to prevent floods in the site,

but also to manage water for leaving uses

and to store water, again, for the house and to leave.

And all these features are visible today.

And if we could reactivate all of these,

we could probably reduce the risk of floods at the site.

A large scale UNESCO program

involving a team of geologists has been set up

to protect the Petra sites from earthquakes

and from enormous chunks of falling rock.

Experts at training locals from the surrounding wadis,

they can help the missions to protect

this World Heritage Site

for which they feel an almost proprietorial responsibility.

Some decoration of the temples...

The knowledge of the Nabataeans

who were expert engineers is now being put back

into practice here.

We have severe channels.

We need repair or restoration that channels for the water,

because some water go from up there to the wall

to make some damage, to save.

To save these structures?

To save this structure, okay?

To make controlled land

and the management to the water.

Fantastic, thank you very much.

Okay-

You look through here, is that right?

Oh, oh yes.

Of course, of course.

Yes, I can see, right into that...

And this is also how they search for loose pieces of rock

that are on the verge of falling and causing damage

during the next storm.

Thanks to these special techniques,

loose rocks can be encased and secured.

It will take many years to complete this work,

but in the end,

it will help to preserve this World Heritage Site

for generations to come.

How many anchors you put in there?

(tool creaking)

(suspenseful music)

This is a human creation,

but it looks as though it grew naturally from stone.

Architecture in elegant synergy

with the physical environment.

Jordan is a land of many wonders.

I'm headed into the desert east of Amman,

which is home to this gem, Quseir 'Amra,

built in the 8th century AD.

Caliph Al-Walid ibn Yazid of the powerful Umayyad dynasty

commissioned the construction

of this little pleasure palace.

But why here, of all places, in the middle of a desert,

where at most, you could expect

to have a few Bedouin families as neighbors?

In the Middle Ages,

the German Kaisers traveled from palatinate to palatinate

and the caliphs of the Arab world did much the same.

They would relocate their entire court along with them

every time they had to travel in order

to demonstrate their power to the various Bedouin tribes

within their often enormously extensive territories.

This lovely spot, a little desert palace,

is only about the size of an average three-room apartment,

about 80 square meters,

but a whole universe was contained within this space.

The world of the Umayyads,

the first powerful rulers in the history of Islam.

(men speaking in foreign language)

The frescoes in this treasure chamber are unique.

They were painted into the fresh plaster.

The images depict the joyful, hedonistic quality of life

at an early Islamic court.

You may be asking yourself,

doesn't Islam strictly forbid the visual depiction

of living beings?

Well, it's true that today,

many Muslims believe that since God is the sole creator,

no artist has the right to imitate

that original act of creation.

Whether this injunction can really be unambiguously derived

from the Koran is debatable.

By the time that prohibition of images started

to come into effect in the late 8th century,

the sumptuous festivities of the court

of Caliph Al-Walid II, where a thing of the past.

As for what went on in this bath house back then,

I'll leave that up to your imagination.

These frescoes offer extraordinary insights

into early Islamic art.

One inscription reads,

may Allah make Al-Walid ibn Yazid virtuous.

Perhaps there was a reason for that.

In any case, it's clear that Al-Walid

had his pleasure palace built when he was still a prince

and he definitely made use of it.

Archeologist Romel Gharib.

knows this place better than anyone.

This place is a special place.

It's not for public.

It's only for the caliph who was, you know,

who's ruling this area, the capital in Damascus.

They are coming down here to the desert

to get sometimes fun, to get hunting,

to get relations with Bedouins,

or tribes who was living all over here.

So this is a very private site.

There is some images which you can read from this,

that this is a Christian site,

especially when you look at the images of Jesus

or the ancient images.

But also this is very simple

to say that people who was living here, artists,

they are doing the same images in the churches,

which in Jerusalem, in Damascus, in Amman, all over this.

So they are the same artists

who are doing this kind of fresco.

For years, the frescoes underwent restoration

using special techniques, but already in the 19th century,

an incredible discovery had been made.

Among the figures depicted here

are the Emperor of China, Ruderic of Spain,

the King of the Goths, and the King of Ethiopia.

The caliph apparently considered these rulers as his peers.

But pride comes before a fall.

Al-Walid's reign lasted for just one year,

after which he was overthrown and assassinated.

And that marked the beginning of the end

for the Umayyad dynasty.

This desert palace was abandoned forever.

It remained as a witness to an ancient heritage,

preserved here as though it were locked away in a vault.

I'm on my way to visit what remains

of the hub of one of the great civilizations

of the ancient Middle East.

Long before there were great empires in Europe,

Persian King Darius founded the ceremonial capital city

of his empire in 520 BC, Persepolis.

He found the perfect location in Persia's mountainous south.

(dramatic music)

The Old Persians called it Parsa.

Persepolis was its Greek name,

little remains of its palaces and temples

on this rocky 15-hectare plateau,

but you sense that this was once the headquarters

of an imperial power.

Even the ruins are awe inspiring.

And this is how Persepolis looked in Darius's day.

In the center was the Apadana, the king's audience hall.

His residence was next to that as were smaller palaces

for the members of the royal court.

The decisions made in this place had a lasting impact

on the history of the world.

The Persian Empire continued to expand,

subjugating growing numbers of people.

Conquered people sent envoys to Persepolis once a year

and they were always warmly received.

King Darius and his successes were not arrogant in victory.

The delegations sent by the 28 conquered nations

entered the city of Persepolis

through this Gate of All Nations.

The Persian empire was the largest the world had ever seen

up until that point.

Around 500 years before Christ,

the empire comprised 44% of the global population

at the time

and it extended from Egypt and the west through Turkey

and all the way to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the east.

(mysterious music)

The Gate of All Nations was an advertisement

of the empire's pretensions.

It opened like a large, friendly maw

to accept the envoys of other nations

that were now a part of the greater Persian Empire.

Once they pass the gate,

they were permitted to climb the stairs

to the audience hall, just like the Persian nobles.

On the day of the Persian new year, Nowrus,

delegations from all 28 countries climbed

these steps up to the palace to pay tribute to the king.

We can still picture it now,

as though we were watching a film.

The Arabs with the camel,

the Cherians or Sarangians with weapons and a cower,

the Libyans with a goat and cart,

the Ethiopians with a jug and ivory.

All of them came here to honor the king of kings.

At the eastern stairs of the Apadana Palace,

you can still make out the courtiers

in the incredibly detailed reliefs.

They're are over 2,500 years old.

Some archeologists believe

that the emperor invited Greek artists

to create these depictions.

The differences between the delegations

and their cultures are clearly visible.

These images show only harmony and peace.

There are no representations of strife or war.

To be immortalized in a relief

in this most sacred of places was considered an honor,

naturally, but it was also a clear declaration,

set in stone, literally,

that these peoples owed the Persian King

their undying obedience and service.

All delegations had to report to the ruler.

This was how he held together

an empire made up by such diverse parts

of the ancient world

and the monumental Apadana was the place

where they all came together,

the center of the king's empire.

(dramatic music)

This was the seat of imperial rule.

And in the conquered territories,

governors known as satraps were installed.

Just like the Romans 1000 years later,

you might be thinking,

but there's one important difference here.

The Roman emperors wanted their subjects

to identify with Rome, to become Roman.

The Persians too were absolute rulers.

They referred to themselves as Shahanshah

or king of kings, but unlike the Romans,

they permitted diverse religions and cultures

in their empire.

In fact, they were proud of that diversity.

Naturally, they ruled with an iron fist,

but that iron fist was wearing kid gloves, so to speak.

(dramatic music)

In October, 1971,

the shah at the time, Reza Pahlavi,

celebrated the 2,500th anniversary

of the Persian monarchy in Persepolis.

He invited monarchs and presidents from around the world

to the grandiose festivities,

as though he were pretending to be Darius the First.

Everybody had an active role

in a Achaemenid culture.

No nation was dead during the Achaemenid period.

It appears everyone was

in constant interaction and cultural exchange.

If we were to pinpoint the major foundations

that helped the formation of this civilization,

it appears that the relative freedom established

at that time facilitated all

those interactions and cooperations.

Therefore for each culture was given the chance

to show what it had to offer.

In that sense,

the great audience hall and its columns

are still an important part of many Iranians identity,

despite, or perhaps because of the fact,

that they represent a time before Islam had come

to this country.

This is another reason why,

after the Islamic Revolution in 1979,

the Ayatollahs wanted to tear out the last roots

of the monarchy and finally raze Persepolis to the ground.

But they were prevented from doing so.

UNESCO named Persepolis a World Heritage Site

in the same year and the Iranians pride helped

to preserve this place.

Of course, the Persians weren't merely

kindhearted philanthropists.

If they had been, they wouldn't have waged bloody wars

or conquered so many nations,

but when Cyrus the Great took Babylon,

he did something that no conqueror before him

had ever attempted.

He refused to create a regime of fear

or to enslave his new subjects.

He tolerated all

of their customs, traditions, and languages,

and he freed the Jews from Babylonian captivity

and ensured that they could return to Jerusalem

and rebuild their ruined temples.

With this act, Cyrus the Great earned himself

a place in the Old Testament of the Bible.

And it was in Babylon, too,

that a more than 2000-year-old object was discovered,

which, at first glance, looks like a terracotta rugby ball.

But the engravings on this object,

known as the Cyrus Cylinder, are actually something

like the first Charter of Human Rights.

The cylinder has been compared to the English Magna Carta

or the American Constitution.

The cylinder reads,

"I declare today that every person is free

"to practice any religion they desire

"and to live where they please on the condition

"that they do not infringe on the property of others."

Some tombs of the Kings of Persia are carved deeply

into the rock.

But sadly, it seems as if they've taken with them

the idea of tolerance and respect

for other cultures and beliefs.

There are, of course, many downsides to empires.

They're forged in war and they rule by force.

But in order to survive,

an empire also has to secure the allegiance

of many peoples representing more

than one ethnicity, language, and religion.

Persepolis continues to act as a reminder

of one of the most powerful world empires

and it's a source of pride for Iranians

who remember that their country once hosted

this most civil of ancient civilizations.

A civilization whose descendants extended

into the modern era.

Here in Persepolis,

you find inscriptions all over the ancient ruins

and they stem from different historical periods.

This one is 1700 years old.

It comes from the Sassanid era

and it marks the visit by one of the satraps of the shah,

a certain Shapur,

the visit that he made to Persepolis about 1700 years ago.

And of course he's wanted, with this inscription,

he's sought to connect his name with the prestige

and the value of this place.

And here, on the other hand,

we have an inscription from the 19th century,

from the year 1876, to be precise,

when the ruler of that time, Naser al-Din Shah,

came to Persepolis, and this inscription marks his visit.

But what's interesting about this particular inscription

is that in 1979, at the time of the Islamic Revolution,

the name of that ruler, Naser al-Din Shah, was removed.

It's been chiseled away by a supporter of the revolution.

And over here,

the same has happened with the formula Shahanshah,

king of kings.

Because after that revolution,

this figure in particular, Naser al-Din Shah,

had become an unperson.

He was no longer wanted.

The memory of him was to be erased.

He was irrelevant.

And then in the middle of the First World War,

Sergeant Lucas of the 21st Lancers inscribes his way

into world history with this very simple piece of graffiti.

It's the presence in one place of all these layers of time

that's so fascinating.

It almost makes you dizzy.

(mysterious music)

The glories of Persepolis were already a thing of the past

when Alexander the Great defeated the armies

of Darius the Third in 331 BC.

Alexander marched into Persia

and committed a supreme act of vandalism

when he entered Persepolis

and put the city's magnificent buildings to the torch.

It's widely believed that he did so as revenge

for the partial destruction of the Acropolis in Athens

by the Persians.

(fire crackling) (ominous music)

(mysterious music)

In the 18th century,

Tehran in the north of the country became the capital

and the shah's place of residence.

The official seat of the monarchy was Golestan palace,

with its extensive gardens.

At first glance,

it seems as though this place is a celebration

of the ancient Middle East, but a new era was beginning.

Soon the country would no longer be called Persia, but Iran,

the land of the Aryans, a master race.

It was a message to the rest of the world,

to which Iran was increasingly turning its attention.

For 2,500 years, the mixing of diverse cultures

was a key feature of the Persian Empire

in its various iterations.

And then in 1848,

when Shah Naser al-Din ascended the throne,

a new element was added, Western culture.

The shah was an enthusiastic traveler to Western Europe,

and he was determined to implant its culture

in his Persian homeland.

Persian influences were pushed into the background

and the Golestan Palace in Tehran is a fascinating symbol

of a process of cultural change that would come

to a tragic end in the 20th century.

(mysterious music)

The tens of thousands of mirrors endow

this UNESCO World Heritage Site with an Oriental mystique,

but the architectural style was conceived

in imitation of English and French palaces.

This palace is a synthesis

of everything the builders had seen

on their many trips through Europe.

Alienated from their own traditions,

they wanted to play cultural catch-up.

English paintings and French porcelain were essential.

We're in the throne room where, in 1967,

Shah Reza Pahlavi crowned himself emperor,

and his wife, Farah, the first empress in Persian history.

In so doing, she later said,

he made all the women in Iran empresses.

The monarch, a determined and authoritarian ruler,

initiated reforms that did not sit well

with the deeply religious members of his society.

Islam was also undergoing a process of revival

and intensification in the country

and many Iranians felt that the shah's interest in the West

represented a threat to their values.

This process had already begun under the shah's father,

who was also named Reza and resided in these rooms

I can't help wondering what pious Muslims made

of images like this.

For example, the clergymen,

who were also routinely invited to court occasions.

And then came the revolution in 1979.

Many groups supported the revolution,

but it was the religious who came

to dominate the new regime.

The shah and his family fled the country

and Ayatollah Khomeini transformed Iran

into a strict theocracy.

Persia had once absorbed Islam, Persianizing it.

Now Islam absorbed Iran.

The imam's name and image are still omnipresent

in the Islamic Republic.

(people shouting)

The square in front of the Jameh Mosque in Isfahan

was renamed after Khomeini.

The city's ancient tradition was folded

into the new normality of clerical rule,

but history can never be completely erased.

When French traveler, Jean Chardin,

arrived in Persia in 1666,

he wrote that he found himself in the happiest

and most flourishing empire in the world,

a magical place full of luxury,

and yet so much more than a mere Eastern fantasy.

Isfahan was located on the Silk Road

and the Persians traded

with India, China, Central Asia, and Byzantium.

This was essentially the world's first common market.

The carefully constructed network of roads

was the perfect compliment to the ports

of the Persian Gulf and alongside Constantinople and Cairo,

Isfahan became one

of the world's most advanced metropolitan cities

in the 17th century, with bridges and bazaars,

with gardens and palaces.

(awe-inspiring music)

The heart of Isfahan is a square, and not just any square,

it's said to be the largest in the world,

the length of five football fields.

This UNESCO World Heritage Site tells the story

of the city's golden age.

It began when Shah Abbas the First

named Isfahan his capital in 1598.

He summoned architects and artists

from every corner of the empire,

an empire that was already more than 2000 years old.

There was plenty of material to work with.

He wasn't exactly starting from scratch.

From this spacious, airy terrace,

Shah Abbas could survey his entire city of paradise.

He called this expansive square in the city center,

the image of the world.

Just opposite was his private house of prayer.

To the right was the enormous royal mosque

and to the left,

the gate of the bazaar that he loved to visit on his own,

without body guards.

Isfahan was a safe place back then.

The city didn't even have a prison.

Abbas the First succeeded in establishing Isfahan

as a global center for art, handicrafts, science, and trade.

And this is the shah, surrounded by his royal court.

No one before or after him

has been so passionately revered in this country,

Iranians still come to admire the enormous paintings

in his garden palace.

And the people of Isfahan are still proud

of what was created under his rule.

The rich artisanal traditions are alive and well

here at the bazaar.

Shah Abbas loved to chat with people.

He would look over the artisans shoulders as they worked,

carpet makers, textile printers, glassblowers,

and especially metalworkers.

In the late 2nd and early 1st millennium BC,

the art of metalworking was already flourishing in Persia.

This technique is known as Ghalamzani,

the art of engraving elaborate reliefs in silver, copper,

or brass plates.

(hammer tapping)

(men speaking in foreign language)

Almost all of these objects

have very elaborate patterns on them.

Are these patterns,

do they have a meaning or are they just decoration?

Oh no.

These are ancient Persepolis patterns.

This here, for example, there's an old Persian King.

Darius?

Yes, and these are his soldiers

and the deity Ahura Mazda.

Oh, Ahura Mazda!

Isfahan is a center of metal work and of engraving,

but also of many other handicrafts.

Why is this city such an important center for handicrafts?

How did it become that way?

Because, since ancient times,

Isfahan has been the home of great Iranian kings.

The main road connecting different parts

of the world passed through Isfahan

and it was a center of trade.

Merchants from all over the world came to Isfahan.

All sorts of handicrafts and other things

could be found in Isfahan.

This is how Isfahan became a cosmopolitan city.

Shah Abbas also commissioned the construction

of this bridge.

People from other cultures crossed it to enter the city,

Muslims, Jews, Zoroastrians, Christians,

and people of other faiths managed to live peacefully,

side by side, in this place.

Even today, Isfahan still radiates tolerance

and a zest for life.

(mysterious music)

In Abbas's day, the bazaar represented trade,

the palace sovereignty, and the mosque religion

Today, the 11th-century Jameh Mosque

is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It is the mother of all mosques in Iran

and the largest one in the country.

Every leader over the centuries expanded it further,

added more to it to honor Allah.

The result is breathtaking.

The shah, who incidentally was born in the same year

as astronomer Johannes Kepler and painter Caravaggio,

invited craftsman and artists

from around the world to Isfahan.

They brought cobalt and indigo pigments

from India and China,

using a secret kilning process

to create the perfect blue that we see

in the tin -glazed pottery and mosaics.

Koran verses are harmoniously interwoven

with patterns from nature.

The Koran views nature as a book

in which God reveals himself to humanity.

This is another reason why gardens play such a vital role

in Persian culture.

The most important design elements

include effects of light and shadow

that highlight plants, pavilions, and masonry.

Gardens were so important to Persian culture

that the old Persian term, pairidaēza,

which was synonym for garden,

became the word for paradise in many other languages.

The Persians essentially invented

the enclosed, structured garden

and its elements influenced countless other cultures.

It all goes back to Cyrus the Great

who had a garden planted around all of his palaces

in the 6th century BC.

They were ornate, private oases,

but also symbols of his power and greatness.

Persian gardens are part of UNESCO's World Heritage.

Even Marco Polo described them as a paradise

where the best fruits in the world grew

and where the canals that ran through them flowed

with milk, honey, wine, and water.

Well, I couldn't find the canals Marco Polo mentions.

Like many Europeans of the time,

the Venetian trader bigged up his reports of the Orient

with fantastical inventions.

Today, our image of the Middle East is shaped more

by media reports of extremism, political tyranny,

and mass migration.

And particularly in this age of deepening alienation,

UNESCO World Heritage is all the more important.

It reminds us not of what divides us,

but what unites us.

In his "West-Eastern Diwan",

inspired by the Persian poet, Hafiz,

the German writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

finds words that still feel fresh after 200 years.

"If you truly know yourself and you know another's heart,

"then you'll know

"that East and West cannot be pulled apart."

I'm on my way to the remote city of Yazd,

in the barren heart of the country.

Approximately one sixth of Iran is desert

and the Iranian deserts are legendary.

The hottest and most arid areas of the country.

There's very little humidity.

Rain is rare.

The weather is extremely hot in summer

and cold and dry in winter,

but there's a lot of beauty in these desert regions.

Some areas are dominated by dunes.

The deserts of Central Asia and the sub-continent

are mostly sand covered,

but the largest impassible area lies on the Iranian Plateau

in Southeastern Persia.

(mysterious music)

Yazd's location in the middle of a desert protected it

from wars for thousands of years.

When Genghis Khan's hordes descended on Persia,

artists and philosophers sought refuge here.

The traditional structure and design

of this earthen city earned a place

in the list of World Heritage Sites.

The city of Yazd is located in the Bafgh Desert,

close to the ancient spice and silk roads.

The people here have found ingenious ways

of making do with the scarce resources available

in a desert region.

Water flows into the city through a sophisticated system

of pipes and channels.

Modernization has so far spared this remarkable city

This city will truly make you feel

as if you've traveled back in time.

Founded next to an oasis nearly 3000 years ago,

Yazd is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities

in the world.

Its architecture is perfectly adapted

to the hot climate here in the middle of the desert.

Even today, many buildings are constructed

using clay bricks and the city's residents still benefit

from the ancient wind towers constructed

on top of residential homes and above cisterns.

In fact, they're part

of a centuries-old air conditioning system.

It's a very clever design and I want to take a closer look.

The landmark wind towers jut out above the city,

shaping the skyline.

It's really hot outside, 36 degrees in the shade,

but here, it's pleasantly cool.

Why?

Because of water and wind.

This structure is basically

a gigantic architectural heat exchanger.

Cool air comes down through the tower,

it's further cooled by contact with the surface of the water

and the warm air inside the house pulled up

by a thermal current, leaves the house

through this half of the tower.

It works like this.

(mysterious music)

The water required for this system comes

from the high mountains nearby.

Deep below the Jameh Mosque of Yazd is the entrance

to a system of channels that was constructed back

in the 5th century and provides the city's water supply.

It's a technological masterpiece.

A whole network of these channels, known as qanats,

extends like a spiderweb from Yazd

into the surrounding country.

This system also became the standard

in other parts of Iran very early on.

It too belongs to the UNESCO World Heritage.

The water is collected in qanats outside the city of Yazd,

close to the nearby mountains, where the rain tends to fall.

The qanat system performs with amazing consistency.

There are only small variations in flow

from year to year.

In this dry region,

a regular supply of water

is an almost miraculous achievement.

Yazd is on the UNESCO World Heritage list

because the city and its surroundings

are an outstanding example of a traditional settlement.

It represents the interaction of humans and nature

in a desert environment.

And most of all, it is still intact,

architecturally and culturally.

Today, Yazd remains an important center of a religion

that emerged nearly 3000 years ago

and is said to have been founded by Zarathustra,

a Persian poet and philosopher.

There's some debate as to whether

or not he actually existed at all,

but the teachings of the Zoroastrian religion

still survive today.

They focus on the battle between good and evil,

between light and darkness.

It's said that good will triumph over evil on judgment day.

Until then, people can make conscious decisions

to follow the right path, the path of truth.

There are three maxims in Zoroastrianism.

Good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.

Mozart picks up on these themes in his most famous opera,

"The Magic Flute", when Sarastro sings:

(Chris singing in German)

It's said that Zarathustra guards a flame

in the Zoroastrian temple that has burned continuously

for 1,550 years as a symbol of light and goodness.

In addition to the temples,

the country is dotted with dakhma, or towers of silence,

the most striking architectural evidence

of Zoroastrian belief.

One commandment of Zoroastrianism dictates

that the earth be kept pure.

So in order not to pollute the ground,

the bodies of the dead were kept

in these towers of silence outside the city.

(mysterious music)

In these stone circles,

their remains were left to the elements

and to the birds of prey,

who picked the flesh clean off their bones.

The towers remained in operation into the 1970s

when the practice was ultimately banned,

for hygienic reasons, as the authorities put it,

but the Zoroastrian faith lives on in Iran.

As I leave this remarkable country,

I recalled a line of a poem by Rumi,

the celebrated 13th-century Persian poet,

"Far out beyond our notions of orthodoxy

"and error in religion,

"there is a field.

"I'll meet you there.

"When the soul lies down in that grass,

"the world is too full for words."

Here was a Muslim poet proposing

that the foundation of faith lay not

in a specific religious code,

but in the compassion and love between humans.

It sounds radical today.

Rumi came up with it 700 years ago.

For modern Europeans,

the Middle East is both a politically contested region

and a fantasy of sensuality and opulence.

What we actually find here are the relics

of great nations and civilizations and political cultures,

united and divided by religion.

The UNESCO World Heritage Sites are interesting

because they show us what has stood the test of time.

Places recalling a world of diversity

and sometimes of tolerance, places of memory,

but also maybe points of departure for a better future.

(dramatic music)