New Findings of Medieval Islamic Metals in Troglodyte Tahyagh in Khomein

Troglodyte Tahyagh is one of the important sites of the medieval Islamic period in Iran. During the first season of archaeological excavations at this site, in addition to identifying various architectural spaces, pottery and various beads, as well as other valuable artifacts such as various types of metal and bronze containers, gold coins and gold ornaments were found. In terms of variety and abundance, the metalwork of Tahyagh, it is one of the few known archaeological sites in Iran during the Middle Islamic period. Moreover, it is one of the few known sites of this period with this amount of metal artifacts of the Islamic period has been obtained in its excavations. This is important because the total number of archeological sites of this period, which have been found in archeological excavations with a large volume of different types of metal artifacts, does not exceed the number of fingers of one hand; at the same time, most of these sites have several stages of settlement and it cannot be said with certainty that all the metal artifacts discovered from them belong to a specific time period, such as what has been obtained at Nishapur. This is an indication of the importance of these works that yet have not been addressed in any research. In this regard, the main purpose of this study is to introduce and investigate the metal artifacts obtained from archaeological excavations at  Tahyagh. The method of this research is based on field studies at the site and the identification of similar works in museums through library studies. In these studies, it was found that these objects were probably produced and used in the 12-13th centuries, based on comparative studies and the existence of evidence from coins of this period in the archaeological excavations of Tahyagh. In addition, some of these works were likely produced in Nishapur or Jorjan and exported to this area.