Noam Backner
עברית

Writing

An archive, not a blog

Essays, field notes, research pieces, conversations and reading lists. Long-form, sourced, and revised when the ground contradicts them.

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  • Tash Rabat, a stone caravanserai of the fifteenth century set in a high valley in Kyrgyzstan.

    Essay · 19 July 2014 · 8 min · EN

    Caravanserais: The Strongholds of the Soul

    From frontier ribat forts to Safavid road inns — the architecture that made long-distance trade possible, and the metaphor it became.

    Anatolia · Transoxiana · Iran · Tash Rabat, Kyrgyzstan

  • Open grassland running up to bare mountains on the edge of the Central Asian steppe.

    Essay · 18 June 2014 · 6 min · EN

    In the Gates of Turan

    Why the Shahnameh's oldest quarrel is an ecological one: the sown land against the sea of grass.

    Iranian plateau · Transoxiana · The Eurasian steppe