An ancient highway of the Achaemenid Persian Empire connecting Susa to Sardis across roughly 2,700 kilometres, reorganized and improved in the fifth century BC, likely under Darius I. It was equipped with 111 posting stations stocked with fresh horses, letting mounted couriers cross the whole route in nine days versus about ninety on foot. There is no single construction year: the road reused and formalized older routes, so no completion-year fact is recorded here.
Facts
SignificanceHerodotus praised the courier system's speed as unmatched in the ancient world, a line of admiration later echoed in the motto inscribed on New York's James Farley Post Office; the road predates the Roman Via Appia by roughly two centuries and is the strongest rival claim to Rome's in this atlas's open question on the first engineered long-distance road network. 1 Connections
Followed By
Source Wikipedia: Grand Trunk Road
Chronologically the Persian Royal Road (organized 5th century BC) precedes the Roman network (from c. 300 BC): Roman Roads preceded-by Persian Royal Road, checked against the RelationKey preceded-by / InverseName Followed By reading before writing (subject was preceded by object).
Open Questions
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Royal Road
WikipediaSignificance
There is nothing in the world that travels faster than these Persian couriers.
In Group: Ancient Roads and Trade Routes, Lead sentence
The Royal Road was an ancient highway reorganized and rebuilt for trade in the 5th century BCE by the Achaemenid Empire.
View the Source Wikipedia: Grand Trunk Road
WikipediaFollowed By: Grand Trunk Road, HistoryQuote, Followed By: Grand Trunk Road, History
Emperor Chandragupta Maurya constructed the precursor to the modern road in the 3rd century BCE, inspired by the Persian Royal Road.
Open Questions (1 open question)
Which civilization first built engineered, standardized long distance roads: Persia, Rome, or an earlier network?
The Roman road network is the most famous engineered ancient road system and the one this atlas most often names by reflex, but it was neither the first nor necessarily the most extensive. The Persian Royal Road, built under the Achaemenid Empire and described by Herodotus, predates the major Roman roads by roughly two centuries and connected Sardis to Susa with a maintained relay postal system. Earlier still, evidence exists for engineered roadways in the Indus Valley Civilization and in Bronze Age Anatolia. Which of these counts as the first depends on how strictly the road must be engineered, standardized and centrally maintained rather than simply a well used route.
What would resolve this A settled archaeological and textual consensus on the earliest confirmed centrally engineered and maintained long distance road network, which current evidence does not yet provide with confidence beyond the Persian Royal Road as the earliest well documented case.
Archaeology, ancient historyWikipedia: Silk Road
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