Along the only road that runs through the heart of Iraq, you can see where people first learned to write, use mathematics and invent the bicycle.
“This is not a scenic trip,” said Konstantin Kryvopust, a specialist in adventure travel. “But what’s incredible about Route 1 is where it takes you: the birthplace of some of the world’s oldest civilizations, the birthplace of many of humanity’s greatest innovations.”
Willcox, who was responsible for the logistics and security of my trip, briefed me before I set off on the 530km, two-day journey from Basra to Baghdad. My journey will follow Iraq’s first and longest highway, the 1,200-kilometer Route 1, as a conduit to explore the heart of ancient Mesopotamia. Despite the fact that the region has experienced the last decades conflicts it was also once home to a number of notable historical empires (the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Sumerians, to name a few), and Willcox assured me that the trip would be memorable as long as I followed a few simple rules: “Keep your cool, dress conservatively, and don’t take any pictures from armed checkpoints,” he said.
I flew to Basra, the largest port in Iraq. The city is located on the Shatt al-Arab River, which is formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, two mighty waterways that inspired the name Mesopotamia (Greek for “between two rivers”).
Fisherman Razak Abu Haida lives along the Al Ahwar Wetlands, one of the world’s largest inland delta systems
It was from Basra that the fictional seafarer Sinbad the Sailor set out on his travels to supernatural realms in the Arabian Nights. By comparison, the beginning of my own journey was much more down-to-earth. After I met up with my driver, we pulled onto Route 1 on the outskirts of town and spent the first two hours stuck in heavy traffic, crossing desolate landscapes dotted with oil fields shooting gas flares into the sky. But after 150 km the desert finally turned green as we turned off the highway and entered the vast Al Ahwar Marshes, or Swamps. Considered by some to be the site of the biblical Garden of Eden, these southern Iraqi marshes are one of the world’s largest inland delta systems and are slowly recovering after being drained by Saddam Hussein in the 1990s.
There, in the town of Chibayish, the fisherman Razak Abu Haida was waiting for me on the pier, wearing a traditional kufie headdress in a black and white box. He started the outboard motor and together we raced into the maze of shallow lagoons lined with scrub and papyrus where the Madan, or Marsh Arabs, have lived for over 5,000 years.
We stopped at a water buffalo lying around mudifi(reed house) of the Alahvari family, one of 25 families now living in the swamps near Chibayish. Razak, the father, helped moor the boat and his wife, Naima, brought us drinks. “Milk, fresh from the udder,” she said, serving cups of warm, frothy liquid topped with thick black buffalo hair that had fallen into the urn. The couple told me that they spend their days herding buffalo, catching carp, baking bread on dung fires and cutting reeds to build houses and thatch. Although many have moved to a more modern life in nearby cities such as Chibaysh and Nasiriya, they said they are content with their simple existence, which has changed little since the Marsh Arabs settled the area and traded with the great Sumerian city-states . .
The Sumerians were the oldest known civilization in Mesopotamia, credited with inventions such as the wheel, the sail, the plow, mathematics, hydraulics, and writing. According to Lana Haddad, an archaeologist from TARII (Academic Research Institute in Iraq), the settlement of the Sumerians in the east of the Fertile Crescent was a key factor in their success: the region’s rich soils not only provided the people with enough food to allow them free time to innovate, but the region’s location between Africa, Asia, and Europe allowed them to dominate world trade. “From 5,000 BC until the Mongol conquest in the 13th century, it was a center for the movement of all goods, and as a result they became very rich and powerful,” Haddad said.
A reproduction of the Ishtar Gate marks the entrance to the legendary city-state of Babylon
Haddad also explained that unlike other civilizations, the Sumerians “did not destroy the achievements of those they conquered,” but instead “respected their discoveries and improved upon them.” The Sumerians’ cuneiform system allowed them to record and share this knowledge, which, according to Haddad, “provided the beginning of the first systematically collected and cataloged library in the ancient Near East (Royal Library Ashurbanipal ), as well as one of the oldest forms of written law: Code of Hammurabi “.
The Codex system of 282 laws originated during the reign of King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC), who helped turn Babylon into the largest city-state in Mesopotamia. From Marshiv, the driver and I took route 1 again and drove three hours northwest to the ruins of this legendary city. Babylon became the largest city in the world under King Nebuchadnezzar II, who oversaw the construction of its legendary Hanging Gardens (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), the Etemenanki Ziggurat (known as the Tower of Babel), and the Ishtar Gate, the modern entrance to the historic city.
Richly decorated with glazed brick reliefs depicting dragons, oxen and chamomile flowers (an emblem of the Babylonian Empire, which was believed to cure everything from wrinkles to male impotence), the foundations of the gate are original, while the upper part was removed in the 19th century. to Berlin Pergamon Museum and eventually replaced with a vivid reproduction as part of Husayn’s difficult reconstruction.
In the main part of the city, after clay bricks engraved with Nebuchadnezzar’s name were discovered, the former dictator ordered new brick walls to be built on top of the 2,500-year-old foundation with the inscription: “During the reign of the victorious Saddam Hussein… may God preserve him as the guardian of great Iraq, the restorer of his revival and the builder of its great civilization”. Hussein’s initials and images were also used to decorate the monolithic palace he built on top of a hill overlooking Babylon (one of 100 lavish residences he owned), with staff on hand 24 hours a day in case he decided to spend the night. (He never did.)
The Imam Hussain Shrine is one of the holiest places among Shia Muslims
The driver and I spent the evening in far less luxurious conditions, enjoying warm Iraqi hospitality and by malfuf-betinjan (eggplant rolls stuffed with meat, slowly cooked in tomato sauce) with the owners of our boarding house. Waking up the next morning to the muezzin’s call to prayer, we left early for the city of Karbala, 65 km away.
Considered one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, Karbala is home to Imam Hussein (grandson of the Prophet Muhammad) and his half-brother Abbas . These sacred sites attract up to 40 million pilgrims a year, and visiting them is believed to have great spiritual benefits for both the living and the dead. (Both are available to non-Muslims.)
In the glittering prayer hall of Hussein’s shrine, I watched as a procession of pallbearers ferried coffins back and forth to sanctify them before internment, part of the organized funeral trade known as the “corpse trade.” The business is said to have started as far back as the 16th century, when Shiite corpses were transported by mule caravans from as far away as India and Iran to be buried near these sacred figures. Bodies are now brought by land and air before going to the Karbala cemetery or Iraq’s other major shrine city, Najaf, 75 km to the south, which can be reached via the Route 8 bypass.
The Valley of Peace Cemetery in Najaf, established more than 1,400 years ago, has become the largest in the world, resting around six million bodies, most of them Shiite Muslims. “Birds taught Muslims to bury bodies, not cremate them,” said Karrar Ayad, one of the 600 cemetery caretakers who run the site, as he repaired the stonework of a family crypt at the heart of the sprawling necropolis. “After Cain killed Abel, the bird covered him with dust and stones with its wing.”
The Peace Valley Cemetery in Najaf is the largest burial ground in the world
Ayyad also explained that after burial, two angels are believed to descend to test the faith of the dead in their tombs; the righteous will go to heaven, but sinners are punished by angels every day (except Friday) until Allah decides otherwise.
Faced with such a potentially terrifying afterlife, I asked a family of cemetery visitors, who were washing a relative’s grave nearby with rose water, whether it is common for Shiites to fear death. “The rich only do it because they don’t want to give up their wealth,” said Zeinab Al-Hakim. “Perhaps the poor want this to escape their suffering. But most of us don’t want that; we believe that your day is your day, however that may be.”
After leaving Najaf, we drove east for an hour to return to route 1. After 160 km, the outskirts of the Iraqi capital revealed a dusty suburb, and we turned towards its historic center. Encountering a sign that read: “Welcome to Baghdad, the city of peace,” we walked around the impressive monument to martyrs built in honor of those who died in the Iran-Iraq war, which rather inexplicably stands next to theme park “Land of Sindbad “. We parked on the banks of the Tigris River in the old city, the heart of a once great trade network whose caravans and maritime silk routes connected the cities of the ancient world.
I wandered into the 1000-year-old Al-Safafir bazaar . The ancient market of coppersmiths was named ” sasafeer ” from an onomatopoeic word meaning “hitting copper with a hammer” – a sound that has become muffled in recent years. “There used to be 126 artisan workshops, now there are no more than 16,” said fifth-generation coppersmith Amir Syed Al-Saffar, creating the handle of a traditional coffee pot.
Al-Saffar is a fifth-generation coppersmith working in the Millennium Bazaar
Al-Saffar told me that trade in intricate copperware has declined in Baghdad as cheaper alternatives from China and India have flooded the market. “It saddens me, but it has always been like that since ancient times,” he said. “New political and economic forces are passing one after another. It’s just turning another page in the Iraqi history book.”
Al-Saffar’s words were a fitting end to my journey along the glorious Iraqi Route 1. The mighty Mesopotamian empires that the highway connects may have risen, fallen and eventually turned to dust, but their remarkable contribution to human development still resonates throughout the centuries and around the world . wide world, until this day.
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