Been A Long Long Time

The West’s interest in Afghanistan goes back a long way – it’s always been the strategic high ground in the Middle East. In 510 BC, a Greek guy called Skylax was working for the Persian (Iranian) navy. He travelled overland to the source of the Indus in the Afghani Hindu Kush Mountains, sailed down the river and popped out in the Arabian Gulf. Getting to the Gulf was no biggie, it had been done as far back as 2750 BC (when the Egyptian Hannu) sailed between the Gulf, the Red Sea, and Egypt). But Scylax explored the whole region, the western Indian Ocean, Oman, Saudi. When he got back, big bad Persian Emperor Darius used the handy geographical strategic info to annex the Indus valley and made Persia for a while the regional superpower. Until the Greeks and the Punjabs kicked their ass, of course.