Tepe RahmatAbad: A Settlement of Achaemenid Period on Southern Gorge of Bolaqi Valley

Fars province as the origin of the Achaemenid Empire has a great number of monuments of this cultural period. Recent studies on the Pasargadae area and Bolaqi valley led to discovery of new sites of this period such as Dokhtar- Bor (the road has been dug in to the Bolaqi valley rocks which is attributed to the Achaemenid period), a small palace and the mud brick structures at the top of Tepe Rahmat Abad. Rahmat Abad is a small tell site (Half an hectare) in front of southern gorge of the Bolaqi valley. The site was excavated in 2005 and 2009. This site has a cultural deposit of Neolithic period (including two different phases: Pre-Pottery Neolithic Phase (RahmatAbad Phase) and Pottery Neolithic Phase (Formative Mushki and Mushki Phase), Middle Bakun period, Achaemenid period and Late Islamic (Qajar) period. In the 2009 season a mud brick structure with a semicircle plan was identified just at the top of the site which belongs to the Achaemenid period. The function of this structure is reasonable in connection with the royal road between Pasargadae and Persepolis. The absolute dating on one charcoal piece provided the date belonging to the beginning of the Achaemenid Empire.