Iran | Sultaniyya | Mausoleum of Ilkhan Ölziit

Wandered by the town of Sultaniyya, site of the mausoleum of Öljeitü (Ölziit in Mongolian), the eighth Ilkhan. Ölziit was the great-grandson Khülegü Khan, founder of the Ilkhanate, and the great-great-great-grandson of Chingis Khan. It was Ölziit (r. 1305–1316) who had moved the capital of the Ilkhanate from Tabriz to Sultaniyya, 175 miles to the southeast. At the insistence of his mother Uruk Khatun, a Nestorian Christian, he had been baptized as a Christian and given the name Nicholas. When he was still in his teens, however, he married a Muslim girl, and apparently under her influence he converted to Islam. At first he was a Sunni Muslim, but he eventually became disillusioned by Nit-Picking Sunni Jurists and switched to Shiism. Perhaps to burnish his credentials as a Shiite he hatched a scheme to move the bodies of the two proto-martyrs of Shiism, Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, and Ali’s son Husain, from their shrines in Iraq to Sultaniyya and house them in an enormous mausoleum of his own making. It is not quite clear if he also intended the building to be a mausoleum for himself.  The mausoleum was built, but the plan to move the remains of Ali and Husain to Sultaniyya came to naught.  The building ended up as the repository for Ölziit’s own remains. 

The structure is 161 feet high, with a dome eighty-four feet in diameter, reportedly the third largest brick dome in the world. Larger are the brick domes of the Cathedral of Florence in Italy (138 feet), and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (103 feet). Apart from brick domes, the largest dome in the world is the steel dome of Cowboys Stadium in Texas, built by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, the Khülegü of our age (click on photos for enlargements).

For comparison, here is the dome of Hagia Sophia

Mausoleum of Ölziit

Mausoleum of Ölziit

Mausoleum of Ölziit

Mausoleum of Ölziit

Mausoleum of Ölziit

Mausoleum of Ölziit

The vast interior of the mausoleum is undergoing renovation 

Interior of the mausoleum

The interior of the mausoleum was once covered with decoration. This eight-foot high panel is one of few surviving examples.

Catacomb under the mausoleum. This space may have been built for the remains of Ali and Husain.

The open walkway just below the dome

The open walkway just below the dome

Decoration of walkway

Decoration of walkway

Detail of decoration

View of Sultaniyya from open walkway.  Sultaniyya, once the capital of the Ilkhanate, is now a sleepy little town with a population of just over 5000. The freeway from Tehran to Tabriz passes by three miles away and many people make a side trip to Sultaniyya for its justly famous kebabs. We had lamb kebabs in Sultaniyya and they certainly lived up to their reputation.  

Mongolia | Khovd Aimag | Baitag Bogd Mountains

The Baitag Bogd Mountains, located in Khovd Aimag at the southwestern-most corner of the country, are probably one of the least visited places in Mongolia. Which is a shame, since the flanks of the mountains cradle gorgeous little oasis-like valleys which make wonderful places to while away a week or two far from the madding crowd. To get there you have to drive from Khovd City, the capital of Khovd Aimag, over the Mongol-Altai Mountains to the town of Bulgan. 

Hotel in Bulgan. Notice the wolf pelt drying in the window (click on photos for enlargements)

 Streets of Bulgan

Along the Bulgan River west of Bulgan City we were able to hire two camel men and camels for the trip to across the desert to Baitag Bogd.

 Local camel man and camels

 Riding across the desert-steppe to Baitag Bogd

 Riding across the desert to Baitag Bogd

Approaching Baitag Bogd 

 Oasis-like valley in the foothills of Baitag Bogd—wonderful places to camp.

Small stream with superb drinking water running out of the mountains. 

We camped here for several days so I could drink tea made from this water. New Tie Kuan Yin (Iron Goddess of Mercy) Oolong And Eight-Year Old Puerh Tea matched up especially well with Baitag Bogd water. 

Another excellent camping spot. Inveterate star-gazers will find the skies here are incredibly clear at night, the nearest sources of air or light pollution being hundreds of miles away.

The Baitag Bogd Mountains are right on the Mongolian-Chinese border. Here two Mongolian border guards ride along the fence which separates the two countries. Permits are needed to visit this border area. 

 Baitag Bogd Mountains

Mongolia | Khovd Aimag | Baitag Bogd Mountains

The Baitag Bogd Mountains, located in Khovd Aimag at the southwestern-most corner of the country, are probably one of the least visited places in Mongolia. Which is a shame, since the flanks of the mountains cradle gorgeous little oasis-like valleys which make wonderful places to while away a week or two far from the madding crowd. To get there you have to drive from Khovd City, the capital of Khovd Aimag, over the Mongol-Altai Mountains to the town of Bulgan. 

Hotel in Bulgan. Notice the wolf pelt drying in the window (click on photos for enlargements)

 Streets of Bulgan

Along the Bulgan River west of Bulgan City we were able to hire two camel men and camels for the trip to across the desert to Baitag Bogd.

 Local camel man and camels

 Riding across the desert-steppe to Baitag Bogd

 Riding across the desert to Baitag Bogd

Approaching Baitag Bogd 

 Oasis-like valley in the foothills of Baitag Bogd—wonderful places to camp.

Small stream with superb drinking water running out of the mountains. 

We camped here for several days so I could drink tea made from this water. New Tie Kuan Yin (Iron Goddess of Mercy) Oolong And Eight-Year Old Puerh Tea matched up especially well with Baitag Bogd water. 

Another excellent camping spot. Inveterate star-gazers will find the skies here are incredibly clear at night, the nearest sources of air or light pollution being hundreds of miles away.

The Baitag Bogd Mountains are right on the Mongolian-Chinese border. Here two Mongolian border guards ride along the fence which separates the two countries. Permits are needed to visit this border area. 

 Baitag Bogd Mountains

Greece | Kavala | Apostle Paul

From Thessaloniki I took a bus 100 miles up the coast to the city of Kavala. Two thousand years ago Kavala was known as Neopolis (New City). It was one of the main ports in Europe for ships arriving from the Levant. The Apostle Paul, he of Road to Damascus Fame, first set foot in Europe here around A.D. 50. I do not know why, but I seem to keep visiting places where Paul had trod before. First there was Larnaka and Paphos on Cyprus Island, then Athens, Corinth, and Thessaloniki in Greece and now Kavala. This was not intentional, I assure you. I am not a Christian, and certainly not a fan of Pauline Christianity. Indeed, I am perfectly aware that many now consider Paul An Insufferable Douchebag Or Worse. However, I am more than willingly to entertain the idea, posited in the book Jesus and the Lost Goddess, that most if not all the books in the New Testament attributed to Paul are forgeries and that he himself was a secret Gnostic:

Of all early Christians, Paul was the most revered by later Gnostics. He was the primary inspiration for two of the most influential schools of Christian Gnosticism, set up by the early second-century masters Marcion and Valentinus. Christian Gnostics calling themselves 'Paulicians' ran the 'seven churches' in Greece and Asia Minor that were established by Paul, their 'mother Church' being at Corinth. The Paulicians survived until the tenth century and were the inspiration for the later Bogomils and Cathars. Marcion was originally a student of the Simonian Gnostic Cerdo, but when he set up his own highly successful school it was Paul he placed centre-stage as the 'Great Messenger'. 

Even his later Literalist critics acknowledged that Marcion was 'a veritable sage' and that his influence was considerable. Valentinus tells us he received the secret teachings of Christianity from his master Theudas, who had in turn received them from Paul. Based on these teachings, Valentinus founded his own influential school of Christian Gnosticism, which survived as a loose alliance of individual teachers until it was forcibly closed down in the fifth century by the Literalist Roman Church. The number of second and third-century Valentinians that we can still name is testimony to Valentinus' importance: Alexander, Ambrose, Axionicus, Candidus, Flora, Heracleon, Mark, Ptolemy, Secundus, Theodotus and Theotimus. Paul was such an important figure in the Christian community that at the end of the second century the newly emerging school of Christian Literalism could not simply reject him as a misguided heretic but felt compelled to reshape him into a Literalist. They forged in his name the (now thoroughly discredited) 'Pastoral Letters', in which Paul is made to spout anti-Gnostic propaganda. 

Throughout his genuine letters, however, Paul uses characteristically Gnostic language and gives Gnostic teachings, a fact that is deliberately obscured by Literalist translators. Like later Christian Gnostics, Paul addresses his teachings to two levels of Christian initiates, called psychics and pneumatics, describing the latter as 'having Gnosis'. Of himself he writes, 'I may not be much of a speaker, but I have Gnosis.' He sees his mission as awakening in initiates an awareness of 'the Christ within' — the one 'consciousness of God' — by 'instructing all without distinction in the ways of Sophia, so as to make each one an initiated member of Christ's body'. Paul tells us that when he personally experienced Christ it was as a vision of light on the road to Damascus. 'Damascus' was a code word used by the Essenes to refer to their base in Qumran, which suggests that Paul, like Simon, had Essene affiliations. He uses the same language as the Essenes, for example when he describes human beings as being enslaved by the powers of fate, imagined as 'the elemental rulers of the cosmos', the 'archons of this dark cosmos', from which 'Christ has set us free'.

If these assertions about the genuine Gnostic teachings of Paul are true, then what has become known as “Pauline Christianity”—basically mainstream Christianity as it is practiced today—must be regarded as one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated upon the human race.  

City of Kavala (click on photos for enlargements)

Greek Orthodox Church in downtown Kavala. In front is a mosaic commemorating the arrival  of the Apostle Paul in Kavala in A.D. c. 50. 

Mosaic commemorating the arrival  of the Apostle Paul in Kavala in A.D. c.50. 

Detail of mosaic, Note the view must be from north looking south, since Paul  is stepping onto Europe on the right. 

Greece | Kavala | Apostle Paul

From Thessaloniki I took a bus 100 miles up the coast to the city of Kavala. Two thousand years ago Kavala was known as Neopolis (New City). It was one of the main ports in Europe for ships arriving from the Levant. The Apostle Paul, he of Road to Damascus Fame, first set foot in Europe here around A.D. 50. I do not know why, but I seem to keep visiting places where Paul had trod before. First there was Larnaka and Paphos on Cyprus Island, then Athens, Corinth, and Thessaloniki in Greece and now Kavala. This was not intentional, I assure you. I am not a Christian, and certainly not a fan of Pauline Christianity. Indeed, I am perfectly aware that many now consider Paul An Insufferable Douchebag Or Worse. However, I am more than willingly to entertain the idea, posited in the book Jesus and the Lost Goddess, that most if not all the books in the New Testament attributed to Paul are forgeries and that he himself was a secret Gnostic:

Of all early Christians, Paul was the most revered by later Gnostics. He was the primary inspiration for two of the most influential schools of Christian Gnosticism, set up by the early second-century masters Marcion and Valentinus. Christian Gnostics calling themselves 'Paulicians' ran the 'seven churches' in Greece and Asia Minor that were established by Paul, their 'mother Church' being at Corinth. The Paulicians survived until the tenth century and were the inspiration for the later Bogomils and Cathars. Marcion was originally a student of the Simonian Gnostic Cerdo, but when he set up his own highly successful school it was Paul he placed centre-stage as the 'Great Messenger'. 

Even his later Literalist critics acknowledged that Marcion was 'a veritable sage' and that his influence was considerable. Valentinus tells us he received the secret teachings of Christianity from his master Theudas, who had in turn received them from Paul. Based on these teachings, Valentinus founded his own influential school of Christian Gnosticism, which survived as a loose alliance of individual teachers until it was forcibly closed down in the fifth century by the Literalist Roman Church. The number of second and third-century Valentinians that we can still name is testimony to Valentinus' importance: Alexander, Ambrose, Axionicus, Candidus, Flora, Heracleon, Mark, Ptolemy, Secundus, Theodotus and Theotimus. Paul was such an important figure in the Christian community that at the end of the second century the newly emerging school of Christian Literalism could not simply reject him as a misguided heretic but felt compelled to reshape him into a Literalist. They forged in his name the (now thoroughly discredited) 'Pastoral Letters', in which Paul is made to spout anti-Gnostic propaganda. 

Throughout his genuine letters, however, Paul uses characteristically Gnostic language and gives Gnostic teachings, a fact that is deliberately obscured by Literalist translators. Like later Christian Gnostics, Paul addresses his teachings to two levels of Christian initiates, called psychics and pneumatics, describing the latter as 'having Gnosis'. Of himself he writes, 'I may not be much of a speaker, but I have Gnosis.' He sees his mission as awakening in initiates an awareness of 'the Christ within' — the one 'consciousness of God' — by 'instructing all without distinction in the ways of Sophia, so as to make each one an initiated member of Christ's body'. Paul tells us that when he personally experienced Christ it was as a vision of light on the road to Damascus. 'Damascus' was a code word used by the Essenes to refer to their base in Qumran, which suggests that Paul, like Simon, had Essene affiliations. He uses the same language as the Essenes, for example when he describes human beings as being enslaved by the powers of fate, imagined as 'the elemental rulers of the cosmos', the 'archons of this dark cosmos', from which 'Christ has set us free'.

If these assertions about the genuine Gnostic teachings of Paul are true, then what has become known as “Pauline Christianity”—basically mainstream Christianity as it is practiced today—must be regarded as one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated upon the human race.  

City of Kavala (click on photos for enlargements)

Greek Orthodox Church in downtown Kavala. In front is a mosaic commemorating the arrival  of the Apostle Paul in Kavala in A.D. c. 50. 

Mosaic commemorating the arrival  of the Apostle Paul in Kavala in A.D. c.50. 

Detail of mosaic, Note the view must be from north looking south, since Paul  is stepping onto Europe on the right. 

Greece | Thessaloniki | Alexander the Great

The train left Athens on time at 7:18 a.m. and arrived at the train station on the western outskirts of Thessaloniki forty-six minutes late at 1:27 p.m. According to my GPS my hotel near the center of the city was nine-tenths of a mile away. I had planned to walk, but that morning in Athens I had checked the weather forecast and discovered that temperatures were expected to reach 100º F. by mid-afternoon. The forecast for the next day was 105º F., which would tie the highest temperature on record for the date. There was a long line of taxis at the train station,  and after being staggered by the heat when I stepped off the train I was sorely tempted to take one, but I finally decided to stick to my original plan and walk. I had this fantasy of entering the city on foot through one of gates in the fourth-century walls around the city, as if I was a humble pilgrim wandering through the domains of Byzantium. Of course if I started feeling queasy from the heat I could always hail a taxi.

Following the arrow on my GPS through several side streets and alleys I finally arrived at the Letalia Gate, which was one of the four major entrances to the ancient city. The monumental tower that housed the gate is long gone, although the ruins of the old fourth century walls can be seen to the north and south. 

Fourth Century walls to the south of the old Letalia Gate (click on photos for enlargements)

Fourth Century walls to the north of the old Letalia Gate

Busy Agiou Demetrioui, one of the main east-west trending streets through the city, now runs  through the gap in the city walls. Just inside the walls, to the south, can be seen the domes of the 14th century Church of the Apostles, one of the fifteen or so Byzantine-era churches in Thessaloniki that have survived to the present day. Had I been a fourteen century pilgrim I probably would have headed straight to the church to give thanks for my safe arrival in the city, but now I was more concerned with getting to my air-conditioned hotel. I will return however. I am visiting Thessaloniki not on business nor because, as one web site claims, it is the “hippest city” in Greece, chock full of boutique hotels, chi-chi cafes, trendy restaurants, and overflowing bars and discos, but instead to wander at random and daydream among the city’s Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman-era monuments and ruins. In short, I am an unapologetic antiquarian and an unrepentant flâneur.

I proceed east along Agiou Demetrioui until the arrow on my GPS veered sharply to the right, then turn south on Ionos Dragoumi. After a few blocks I arrive at the Pella Hotel, named, presumably, after the town of Pella, the birthplace of Alexander the Great, located twenty miles west-northwest of Thessaloniki. Reviews on the internet damn this place with faint praise; it is “adequate”, “acceptable”, “simple but clean”, “good for an overnight stay”, etc. Back in the 1950s it may have been a pretty ritzy joint. Now it appears to be the haunt of lower-tier traveling salesmen, down-market tourists, and grubby backpackers splurging on a bed, shower, and air-conditioning. The receptionist was certainly cordial. I was a bit taken back by her effusiveness; for a second I had the strange sensation that I had been here before and that she were welcoming me back. Unusual for a hotel in the Eurozone, she did not ask for any ID. Despite the warm welcome I am exiled to the seventh floor, but I heave a sigh of relief when I see the perfectly adequate desk and chair and the nearby electric outlets. At least I can work comfortably on my computer. The narrow single bed is, in a word, acceptable, and the pillow is firm and chunky and can do double duty as a meditation cushion. The air-conditioning works and there is even a small balcony. After storing my portmanteau in my room I walk down Ionos Dragoumi to the harbor area and then turn left on the esplanade along the sea.

Aristotelous Square, which extends north from the Esplanade

The Esplanade

Finally I reach the statue of Alexander the Great (356 b.c–323 b.c.) One of Alexander the Great’s generals, Cassandros, founded  this city in 316 b.c. and named it after his wife Thessalonica, who was the daughter of Philip II of Macedonia and Alexander’s half-sister. Alexander was the son of Philip and the notoriously snake-loving Olympias (so memorably played by Angelina Jolie in the 2004 epic Alexander), while Thessalonica was the daughter of one of Philip’s other wives. Alexander the Great had, of course, died seven years earlier in Babylon, so he never got to see the city named after his half-sister Thessalonica.

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great