مجله مطالعات باستان شناسی
پیاپی 2 (پاییز و زمستان 1388)

The present article investigates the administrative structure of the Pottery Mound from an administrative management point of view. Data obtained from excavation of the Pottery Mound has generated an extensive archeological databank relating to the beginning of the historical era with a focus on the emergence of management and administrative systems in the Central Iranian Plateau. In the Proto-Elamite period, major changes are observed in the economic systems, as well as shifts from a kinship-based society towards one of a class-based nature, which contributed to the rise in the number of economic entities and the organizational growth of the labor force. As a specialized center for administrative management located in the northern area of the Central Iranian Plateau, the pottery mound was managed by a group of economic and social elites, i.e. the Proto-Elamite lords, supervised the production and exchange of merchandise, and embraced all the criteria necessary for a pre-governmental society. The Pottery Mound expands our knowledge of the role played by commercial exchanges in the development and progress of complicated societies within the area of the Central Iranian Plateau. According to the administrative and management data on the Pottery Mound region, the power hierarchy of this society, on whose foundation was an elite or a group of social elites, served to coordinate various decisions, while also organizing and controlling other contemporary societies with the Pottery region as the center within the location of Rey Plain. Drawing on the management data obtained in the course of four seasons of investigations into the Pottery Mound, the present article seeks to study the developmental trend of the pre-governmental institutions in the Central Iranian Plateau and the economic as well as social status of the Proto-Elamite lords at the end of the fourth and beginning of the third century B.C.

Bardsir region is one of the richest regions of metallic deposits, especially copper, in the east of Iranian Plateau. Most of the metallic deposits in Bardsir region are located on the western and southwestern parts, in Kūh Panj area. Some of the mines have been exploited since prehistoric times through historic to Islamic periods. The data presented here are collected during the second season of Bardsir Plain survey which was fulfilled in summer 2004. During this survey we found 27 mines and slag sites. Most of the mines are horizontal open cast in shape, but there are examples of well-shaped mines. Based on preliminary observations on small assemblage of surface finds it seems that most mines were extracted in Islamic period. Slag sites produced more surface sherds than mines; these sherds dated to Islamic (essentially Safavid period) and Partho-Sassanid periods. We found a diagnostic sherd on a slag site which is comparable with Protohistoric ceramics. Some of the slag sites are located just beside the settlement sites, and by this factor we may consider them contemporary with these settlements. The mines and most of the slag sites are associated with small stone structures which were built with no use of mortar.

By appearance of human societies, the spiritual needs of different individuals and societies to worship the creator and to donate in order to attain the health and to fulfill the wishes had caused them to erect the specific places for offering the sacrificial materials. This article is generally a brief study on the places to donate and offer the sacrificial materials to sacred places regarding the terminology, traditions, the structure and form of altars or fire places or sacrificial hearths as well as sacrificial materials in different historical eras and regions in Iranian plateau from c. 3rd mill. BC up to the Islamic period and continuing of the offering traditions until the present time. In this article the conclusion is that the altars and related traditions are not restricted to a specific period and region or a particular religion.

In Great Achaemenian empire different writings and languages have been used in diverse areas of the Achaemenian dominion for doing administrative-economic activities in administrative system. Persepolis Fortification archive in the empire’s center, belonging to the 13 to 28 years of Darius the Great’ reign, can be distinguished as the greatest and most important Achaemenid multilingual administrative organization. Although the main language of archive tablets is Elamite, there are tablets of the Aramaic language and samples of ancient Persian, Greek, Neo-Babylonian and Frigian writings. Multilingualism is representative of Persepolis and its surrounding regions’ social status of diverse nationality. The fortification multilingual documents are placed in a web of complex evidence. Of course their texts are related to similar administrative activities. In the present article we attempt to investigate the importance of these documents and their represented classification based on their shape, language and texts.

The vast ancient area of Vigol located in the northern part of the city of Ārān-o-Bidgol was identified by the authors of the present article in Autumn 2006 and underwent a systematic archeological study as a result of which remnants of the two independent cities were identified with two separate governmental castles. Since, apart from the said castles, other urban areas, works of architecture, and items of cultural elements were buried under flowing sand, archeological investigations were carried out with difficulty, yet due to the fact that the sands served as a means to protect the said pieces and works, items of the cultural elements were found in a relatively intact condition. Nevertheless, the team managed, upon permission by the Archeological Research Center, to conduct an investigation on some 100 hectares of the mentioned cities. Chronological study of the surface data revealed that the two cities were inhabited since the Sassanid era up to the end of the Seljuk Dynasty in Iran, that is to say, the end of the sixth century after Hegira. Following a brief introduction of the above two cities, the present study analyses the data derived from a field surveys on the settlement eras, form and functions of the cities, and where possible, the grounds underlying their decline.

In Islamic architecture, the architect always tried to decorate the internal and external areas in different ways. One type of these decorations is called Brick Working, which was current in Pre-Ilkhanid, Ilkhanid period, and after this period. This decoration was used in two ways. In Ilkhanid period, the architect used a type of brick which was exactly formed in favorite shapes before baking. The slots between the bricks could be filled by plaster decorative hubs and decorative stamps, such as holy names, flowers, geometric motifs, besides mortar. This kind of decoration was current in Seljuk and Ilkhanid periods and is visible in monuments such as: mosques, tombs, towers, caravanserais, madrasahs and shrines. In this paper, the writer will explain about the history and origin of decorative stamps during Ilkhanid period and their different kinds in used different buildings and their comparison with the earlier period, i.e. the Seljuk period.

Historians and geographers of the early and middle centuries of the Islamic period have recorded a place known as Veymeh or Deymeh in their writings, which have apparently been among the major flourishing cities in that era. In terms of reputation and prosperity, the city was mentioned in parallel with some significant and large cities such as Damāvand, Khār and Shalanbeh and was known even to be larger than some of those cities. The geographical boundaries of the city are mentioned by some historians to be within the area surrounded by Rey, Tabarestān, and Damāvand. Such records notwithstanding, and in spite of the studies carried out by some contemporary researchers, the accurate location of the city has not been specifically identified, and the views held on the present-day location of the city of Veymeh is a question the answer to which is in need of further accuracy. In the course of an archeological research in the city of Firūzkūh in 2002, authors of the present article came across the above problem and decided to conduct a careful and intensive study to identify the geographical location of the city of Veymeh or Deymeh and its present-day location. What this paper presents is the findings of the above researches.

The archaeologists who have investigated Ziwiyeh have presented different views about the constructors of material culture and its artistic styles. The majority of them, relying on one single object and analyzing its inscription and comparison with similar cases of adjacent cultures and sites, have attributed the origin of materials and artistic styles with respective region, and on the basis of the comparison, have dated all of the collection of Ziwiyeh. What is wrong with them about the stylistics and chronology of objects is that they coincided all the collection of objects found in Ziwiyeh. It seems, one of the reasons for this imagination have been discovery of the majority of treasure items in the bronze coffin. In this research I try to consider all different styles in Ziwiyeh complex and present more suitable dating which includes all styles and material culture. Proposed chronology expands from the end of Iron Age II to the Median period.

The Iranian origin of some pottery was confirmed by discovery of various types known as Kūbācheh, including black, green and colorful pens found in archeological excavations of the different Iranian regions such as Khorasan, Rab’-e Rashidi in Tabriz, Ardebil, Emāmzādeh Benis near Shabestar, the historical city of Gaskar (Haft Daghnān) near Some’eh-Sarā, Tamisheh in Golestān Province, Alamut Castle, Nargeh Hill in Tākestān, and Shurpaz-khāneh Hill in Khānlaq village in the suburbs of Shahr-e Rey near Tehran. Findings of the petrography of certain samples further indicate the above fact and identify the production centers for this type of pottery to be the cities of Neyshābur, Mashad, Tabriz and Isfahān. Based on the samples which carry dates and figures, Kūbācheh is known to have been produced in Iran since the second half of the ninth century AH in the two forms of black and green pens which continued up to the 12th century AH in its colorful forms. Whereas production of this type of pottery has decreased considerably since then, it has not been abolished completely and has survived up to the present time in some limited regions including Mend in Gonābād.

Chahārmahāl-o-Bakhtiyārī Province has an area of some one percent of the area of Iran and is situated in the northern basin of Karun river, which is one of the most vital flows of the south-west Iran. For various reasons, the region has been ignored in the national archeological studies. In a quick glance, the present study seeks to show the significance of the findings obtained in the course of two decades of archeological surveys conducted by the Iranian and foreign researchers. Offering some generalities of the related archeological facts, the article aims to attract the attention of researchers, experts and those interested in the Iranian archeological studies to this not-very known region. It hopes to open new horizons into the purposeful scientific surveys which aim at the examination of the developmental stages of human societies in the mountainous area of Chahārmahāl-o-Bakhtiyārī.

If we consider the starting of Achaemenian Empire in 559 BC, the year that Cyrus, the second, came to power and its ending in 332 BC, the year that Iran was conquered by Alexander, the Macedonian, in these 227 years of military and political development of Achaemenian empire, some of the nations and countries for example Egypt, within Achaemenian territory came under Iranian military, economic and political power which were known as Achaemenian settled Satrapies. Achaemenian Suez Canal was an important project in that a Nile-Suez canal is to facilitate contact by ship between the Mediterranean Sea or the Nile Valley (especially Lower Egypt) or both and the Red Sea and the points in the east more specifically, one or more of the northeast African coasts, (south) Arabia, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Saith King Darius: ‘I am a Persian. Setting out from Persia, I conquered Egypt. I ordered this canal dug from the river called the Nile that flows in Egypt, to the sea that begins in Persia. When the canal had been dug as I ordered, ships went from Egypt through this canal to Persia, even as I intended.’ There are some typical archaeological materials in Egypt that refer to Achaemenids: the inscriptions of Darius I in the banks of Suez Canal.