Chapar Khaneh
A was a postal service station in the Achaemenid Empire.
Established by Cyrus the Great and later developed by Darius the Great, the Achaemenid Empire's extensive postal service network served as the principal royal method of communication across most of the major cities of the ancient Near East. Each was mainly located along the Royal Road, an ancient highway that was reorganized and rebuilt by Darius the Great to facilitate the rapid movement of Persian couriers between Sardis in the west and Susa in the east.
The couriers, also known as angaros in Greek, alternated in stations a day's ride apart along the Royal Road. The riders were exclusively in service of the Great King, and the network allowed for messages to be transported from Susa to Sardis in a matter of just nine days, as opposed to roughly 90 days on foot. Thus, a was fundamentally an express courier; he would be provided with fresh supplies and horses at each station on his route, allowing him to greatly accelerate his journey by eliminating any delays associated with procuring supplies on his own or waiting for his horse to rest.
Known as the in Latin, the ancient Persians' postal system was hailed in the Greco-Roman world for its remarkable efficiency, consequently being adapted as the cursus publicus in the Roman Empire. was used for the postal service, which provided official communication in the Ottoman Empire, and for the accommodation points of the army.
In Herodotus
Herodotus, in about 440 BC, describes the Chapar Khaneh in the Histories. His description of the Royal Road and the various Chapar Khanehs along it is in Book V:In Book VIII, he describes the messengers:
A sentence of this description of the angarium, translated as "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds," is famously inscribed on the James A. Farley Building in New York City, former main United States Postal Service branch in New York City.