نشریه پیام باستان شناس
پیاپی 22 (پاییز و زمستان 1393)

Having a glance at the archaeological data in North West of Iran during prehistoric era, we can see that most studies in the area focused on the edge of Urmia Lake. Unfortunately, most of the studies which have been done in the North West are related to the Bronze Age and later periods, and fewer studies have been done on the Chalcolithic period. Moreover, most of the information published about this area, is related to the same time periods. There is little information about Dalma Period and related publications do not exceed the fingers of one hand. For this reason, most researchers, due to the complexity and lack of knowledge about this period, refer to it as Wonder Period. In particular, Dalma period and the area of its development are surprising and noteworthy for them. One of the shortcomings is Dalma pottery. In this article, we review the Dalma pottery in the regions of East and West Azarbaijan and Kermanshah to provide a rather clear picture of Dalma pottery tradition. Generally, Dalma pottery is classified as four categories which probabely have specific functions depending on their coverage and form.

We witness the appearance of a new pottery tradition in Tepe Guran in Hulailan valley, at the beginning of Iron Age. There are several striking pottery types in the potteries of this phase of Tepe Guran, that, the most striking type is goblets. These goblets are rarely reported from the regions of around the Hulailan valley; nevertheless, Tepe Guran goblets have much close similarities with Mesopotamian Kassite goblets and Elamite goblets at Susiana plain. Important studies have been done about the appearance conditions and source of this goblet type in Hulailan valley, but their appearance conditions is still unknown. In this article, we attempt to find out the relationship between the goblets of Tepe Guran with their original distribution territories at Mesopotamian or Susiana plain through analyzing the results of archaeological studies that have been done at regions around the Hulailan valley and tracing the distribution position of this goblet type. Examination of archaeological findings indicates that so far this goblet type has not been found in the regions between Hulailan valley in the north and Susiana plain in south, including regions of Dehloran and Abdanan and Saimareh and Romeshghan valleys. Apparently, regions of Dehloran and Abdanan became abandoned at this time; nevertheless, results of studies at Mahidasht indicate presence of this goblet type at north of Hulailan valley. In fact, presence of this goblet type at Mahidasht, joined Hulailan valley to Mesopotamia through Khorasan Road and it seems that Tepe Guran goblets have Kassite origin.

Castle and village of Göyce Qala are located 46 kilometers southeast of Maragheh, with traditional structure and Rocky architecture. There is a catacomb in engraved rocks which was misinterpreted as storage for rainfall. Some scholars, local people, and internet materials have wrongly identified it as a storage place for water. The authors attempt to reject such claim and identify the chronology and functions of the site by surveying the site and drawing its plan and comparing it with foreign and Iranian similar sites. The tomb consists of a main chamber with attached spaces and a symbolic square yard that is integrated with stony staircases that reach to them and can be presented as rocky Urartu tombs known as “integrated single unit”. Apparently, in Urartu, tomb types indicated the buried people’s status and since catacombs usually were for royal family and local governor, understanding and presenting can be profitable for a better realization of the region in Urartu period.

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.

Dahan-e Gholaman is the most important excavated site of Achaemenid period in the southeast of Iran. This site was discovered in 1960 by Umberto Scerrato and was excavated twice. First archaeological excavation was in 1965- 1962 by an Italian Expedition under Scerrato’s supervision and the second archaeological excavation was undertaken in 1379-1384 by an Iranian Expedition under Sajjadi’s supervision. Archaeogeophysics has been used in recent studies in Dahan-E Gholaman by Kourosh Mohamadkhani. Pottery is the only valuable archaeological finding of Dahan-e Gholaman. Therefore the investigation of the potteries is useful for improving our knowledge of Achaemenid ceramic tradition in southeast of Iran. This paper is devoted to discovered beakers from this site and has been written based on statistical analyses and quantitative variables of 412 beakers. For this purpose, all of beakers have been studied and analyzed using different aspects and variables. The statistical analyses and technical characteristics of Beakers show that this ceramics were produced on certain standards and for specific purposes in Dahana-e Gholaman.

Pottery is the most abundant and one of the most important archaeological materials, which can be used by Archaeologists for the purposes like dating, specifying the technological and socio-political complexity level of various human groups, artistic transitions and study of economic and cultural interactions between past societies. Therefore making acquaintance with this material culture and presenting more and more exact classifications is a basic, but of high importance work to be done in the archaeological recognition of past societies. Yet, unfortunately our archaeological knowledge of the Sasanian ceramics is negligible. Finding a large number of Sasanian shards from the archaeological survey of Farsan County in Chahar-mahal & Bakhtiari province, the present paper deals with description, typology and comparison of Sasanian ceramics from this county. Based on that, it has been specified that Sasanian Pottery of Farsan has the clear similarity with acquired samples from the neighboring cultural zones of Khuzestan and Fars which according to the dynastic character of Sasanian political system, geographic specifications of the region and the prevailing livelihood mode of nomadism of these societies make sense. The results of this research gave a new sight to the interaction between the under study region, which is lying at the crossroad of southwest, west and central plateau routs of Iran, and neighboring regions during Sasanian era.

With the rise of Islam and the conquest of Sassanid cities by Muslims, the fate of political, economic, religious and physical structure of these cities were greatly changed. This article explains spatial changes created with the rise of Islam in Sassanid cities based on the case study of Bishapour. The results show the breakdown of the Sassanid class system in the social structure of the city. That means in the early centuries of Islam, because of equality and Islamic brotherhood, texture of the city was changed and in quantitative terms, there was strong growth in housing of the poor class and lower class accede to elite spaces that previously belonged to upper class in Sassanid city. Social discrimination derived from Zoroastrianism disappeared largely from Bishapour in Islam period. With the increase in Muslim population and the power of rulers and the establishment of Islam in the country and relative security, Islamic thinking and worldview shows itself clearly in the urban spatial structure in the late third and fourth centuries. Arrangement of buildings in urban spaces and the urban spatial structure in Islamic period changed according to Islamic ideology and necessities. At the same time buildings such as Grand Mosque, Madrasa (school), Caravansary and Bazaar entered the urban context. In conclusion it must be said, urbanism in Islamic period, is created from transformation of the urban spaces of Sassanid period under the influence of Islamic thought.

Urartians expanded their kingdom in the area between Lakes Sevan, Van and Urmia for about three centuries from 9th century B.C. The bronze bracelet with Urartian inscription from Tul-e Talesh has been studied by the scholars as a proof of Urartian border expansion and their effects on the region or even as a looted object. This inscription is known to belong to Argišti I or Sarduri II. But the solder in the bracelet has been the cause of arguments and also distractions from other details. The inscription was written with two sorts of epigraphy and with no sufficient attention. Therefore the era when this inscription was written is hard to be determined. The inscription contains only two words as mar-giš-ti and uš-tú-ú. The second part is incomplete and could be uš-tú-ú-ni or uš-tú-ú-ri or uš-tú-ú-li. The author of this paper suggests that it was possible for this object to be moved from one site to another as an ancient tradition. It is also possible that the inscription was cut from another longer inscription and was made into a bracelet with adornments. The words in the beginning and the end of the inscription are incomplete and it is also possible that the metalworker cut the word Argišti for any reason and used another part (ni-še uš-tú-ú) with no attention or knowledge of Urartian grammar. Therefore, the translation is useless as there are two words of “Argišti” and “dedicate”. “ḫi” as a paternal sign could have possibly been hidden under the solder as well. The poor epigraphy of the inscription is the reason for the author not to accept the idea of the bracelet as a temple dedication.