Positioning Tukrish

The data collected from friezes and cornices can help one know about the geographic history of a land. The Mesopotamian scripts since Ur III to the early middle Elamite period, mentioned a land named Tukrish which exported gold, lapis lazuli, chlorite, and marbled dishes to Mesopotamia. This paper studies the Mesopotamian written resources and compares them with the documents discovered in the archeological excavations of BMAC in the Northeast Iran and South Turkmenistan. Based on this comparative study, the paper intends to locate Tukrish somewhere within the boundaries of Northeast Iran and South Turkmenistan. In this comparative study, the traded products of Tukrish which have been listed in the Mesopotamian scripts were assessed against the Mesopotamian domestic products and the items discovered in the excavations of BMAC settlements. The most important questions concerned how the scripts correspond to the iconographic and geographic history interpretations and how the archeological discoveries in the area match the list of the traded products in the Mesopotamian scripts. The results indicated that the list of the traded products from Tukrish, detailed in the Mesopotamian scripts, correspond to the products and merchandise of BMAC. Moreover, BMAC is chronologically contemporaneous with Tukrish, as mentioned in the Mesopotamian scripts. Considering these points and the cultural-artistic propinquity between the Northeast Iran-South Turkmenistan region and Mesopotamia at that point in history, the study suggests Tukrish be positioned somewhere within the cultural-geographic limits of BMAC. Keywords: Tukrish, BMAC, Geographic history, mesopotamian scripts, Traded products (merchandise)