Gates of Alexander

Here, he says gates with iron covered beams have been placed above a horribly odorous river, along with a fortress to bar the passage of the innumerable tribes.

[4] Josephus, a Jewish historian in the 1st century, gives the first extant reference to gates constructed by Alexander, designed to be a barrier against the Scythians.

In the second reference, it is informed that Alexander had confined the Alans among other savage nations but that, either due to a bribe or political conflict, they were able to persuade the king of Hyrcania to let them burst out.

[7] Jerome states in the late-fourth century in his seventy-seventh letter that "the gates of Alexander keep back the wild peoples behind the Caucasus".

Hegesippus, and unlike the later traditions of the Syrian church, Jerome was concerned with the Greco-Roman discourses on civilization and barbarity as opposed to apocalypse.

Anastasius, unable and unwilling to finance a garrison for the gates, loses them in an assault by the Sassanid King Cabades (Kavadh I).

The geographic location of these mountains is rather vague, described as a 50-day march away northwards after Alexander put to flight his Belsyrian enemies (the Bebrykes,[11] of Bithynia in modern-day North Turkey).

This prophecy whereby the Huns break through the gates is linked to the invasion of the Sabir people in 515 AD as Syriac texts would use the Seleucid calendrical system which began in 1 October, 312 BCE; by subtracting 311 or 312, a date of 514/5 is arrived at, representing a vaticinium ex eventu.

A second prophecy of an incursion appears for 940 SE, pinpointing to 628/9 AD and corresponds with the invasion of Armenia by the Turkic Khazars (not to be confused with a reference to the Turks which may not occur in this type of literature until the ninth century),[15] although this may have been an interpolation that was made into the text during the reign of Heraclius to update the narrative for a contemporary political situation.

[18] More indirect, the Tiburtine Sibyl records that Alexander "enclosed" the people of Gog and Magog to prevent their incursion from the north, coinciding with the statement that at some point in the future they will rise again and break through.

According to the Quranic narrative, Gog and Magog (Arabic: يأجوج ومأجوج Yaʾjūj wa-Maʾjūj) were walled off by Dhu al-Qarnayn ("possessor of the Two Horns"), a righteous ruler and conqueror who reached the west and the east.

The identities of the nations trapped behind the wall are not always consistent, however; Mandeville claims Gog and Magog are really the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, who will emerge from their prison during the End Times and unite with their fellow Jews to attack the Christians.

[citation needed] Knowledge of Chinese innovations such as the compass and south-pointing chariot is known to have been diffused (and confused) across Eurasian trade routes.

Other medieval literature, such as the Latin Frankish Chronicle of Fredegar in the first half of the seventh century and the tenth-century Armenian History of Movsēs Dasxurancʿi connected Alexander's gates especially to events during the reign of Heraclius, the Byzantine emperor who defeated the Sasanian Empire in their great war of the first decades of the seventh century.

In medieval world maps, the land of Gog and Magog is generally shown as a region in the far north, northeast, or east of Asia, enclosed by mountains or fortifications and often featuring a gate.

Derbent was built around a Sassanid Persian fortress, which served as a strategic location protecting the empire from attacks by the Gokturks.