مجله مطالعات باستان شناسی
سال چهاردهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 30، Summer 2022)

Shahdad is located on the western side of the Lut desert in the central Iranian Plateau. Shahdad has been a major focus of archaeological and archaeometallurgical research in the region due to extensive metallurgical activities documented at the site during the Bronze Age and for having the most abundant remains of copper metallurgy in southeastern Iran. The metallurgical developments at Shahdad have been well documented due to the previous studies by researchers working on the vast peripherial area of Shahdad dating to the period when the settlement was a permanently occupied city during the 3rd millennium BCE. Our latest surveys at the site have identified copper extraction metallurgy across a very large area based on significant amounts of ancient metallurgical remains on the surface including copper ores, moulds, crucibles, furnaces and complete metal tools. Pottery and slag have been observed macroscopically and microscopically in order to find particular traces of the metallurgical processes used during the EBA of Shahdad. Preliminary observations supply a new synopsis by re-tracing the ancient metallurgy at Shahdad. This research has revealed that the metal-workers of Shahdad mainly used copper sulphide (covellite) as their primary Cu-bearing ores. Three different slag types were identified according to their color, external texture and fabrication. Pottery samples were associated with copper metallurgy based on their phase characterizations, which were interpreted as the artefact of a distinct step in the metallurgical production process. This pottery is very porous and rough-textured due to the particular additives, leading to the formation of copper carbonate and copper oxide enrichments in the voids of the ceramic fabric

The Urartians ruled over the shores of Lakes of Van, Sevan and Urmia from ca. the 9th to 7th centuries B.C. There are several stone and rock inscriptions remained in northwest of Iran. A new Urartian stone inscription is dedicated in Maku Office of Cultural Heritage of the province and is in Urmia Museum at the moment. It was discovered during a construction project behind the fortification of Bastam. The stone block has been inscribed with a sixteen-line Urartian cuneiform text. As the block is damaged, especially from its right side, it appears that the missing lines are greater than in number than the preserved lines, necessitating some reconstruction to interpret the text. The inscription dates to the region of Rusa II, Argišti II’s son, who founded Bastam fortification. Its text concerns the perfect construction of "The Small city of Rusa" with the support of Ḫaldi. The inscription includes a rare cursing formula as well. But, there are a couple of questions to be answered. What is the context of the inscription? What are the possible reconstructions of the inscription? What are the other similar texts with the cursing formula at the ending part? Where is the possible installing place of the stone block? This article is written with the help of the field and library research and it is the aim of it to introduce and reconstruct the inscription text in order to mention the possibility that the stone block may have been installed at the place where the king received the tribute. It seems that the original context of the inscription might have been a place or gate of reception by the king. The end of the inscription features a cursing formula with a rare content in comparison with the other Urartian inscriptions.

The Central Zagros received pioneering research on the emergence of early agricultural and village life by R. Braidwood in 1959-60. However, later shifts in research toward the Levant put the Central Zagros in shadow for several decades until recently, when investigations have once again highlighted its key place in the Neolithization processes in West Asia. Unlike the Levant, where a protracted change from the Epipaleolithic to the Neolithic is seen, the border line between these two periods is evidently sharp in the Central Zagros suggesting that unprecedented features appeared during the first two millennia of the Holocene, a foundational time that is poorly known in the region. In light of new evidence, this period is addressed here under the chronological term ‘Transitional Neolithic’ (ca. 9800-8000 BCE). Current datasets suggest that, following an environmental improvement at the end of the Younger Dryas, local communities engaged in short-term inhabitations, collective or communal ceremonies, and had an increasing reliance on the wild progenitors of early domestic plant and animal species. This time span’s close interactions with natural resources provided people with growing ecological knowledge. We may think of longer occupation in desirable places and thereby population increases in the 9th millennium BCE. This instead could have gradually resulted in an environmental depression, however, caused either by population growth or by possible unfavorable climatic events. Archaeological evidence shows that from the mid-9th millennium BCE on, a change happened in subsistence strategies toward low-level food production. In fact, this was an eco-cultural event that broadened the human diet. The central Zagros saw multiple creative behaviors during both the early and late phases of the Transitional Neolithic, providing people with a robust foundation for the succeeding truly Neolithic way of life that took shape during the 8th millennium BCE

The present paper involves the investigation and identification of the insignia of 240 Achamenid shekels, from the collection of the Mazandaran Museum. Investigation of law enforcement indicates that the collection was seized from looters in the Asalooyeh region (ambiguous locality). Subsequent preliminary work suggests these are typical coins of seven kings who reigned for around 184 years between 522 BC to 338 BC. Some 195 coins of the total 240 have signs, mostly with one sign, while rare samples present up to 9 signs. Numismatists and archaeologists have assigned them various functions, including mint sign, finesse, and weight affirmation. Do the definitions include the studied collection? Why do some of the coins have no signs? The investigations led to the discernment of 567 signs, typically from plain to geometrical and zoomorphic ones. There are many signs in the collection that are similar to known samples in many ways, however, there are unique signs unsimilar to any other marks thus far identified, which are not necessarily mint marks, because they are more obvious than the king’s figure that is eroded in most of the cases. Obviously, they are later engravings, whereas, 45 coins lacks any signs. The other conclusion is the transition of concepts of the signs as hidden mysterious messages such as a king death and reign of a new king.

Excavations at Gird-i Ashoan, an archaeological mound in Piranshahr County in the Lower Zab Basin, have provided remarkable insights into the cultural traditions of the region during the Late Chalcolithic. Whilst reflecting some indigenous peculiarities, its material culture exhibits broad affinities with Northwestern Iran, the Caucasus, and Anatolia. This evinces the spread of the Late Chalcolithic (LC) cultures, especially LC2‒3, over vast territories, which could imply either population movements or the spread of a certain pastoralist subsistence system. The central stimulus was favorable climatic conditions, presumably a significant reduction in cold that fostered a climate almost similar to present conditions. Building on the finds from Gird-i Ashoan, the present paper addresses the reasons for the chaff-faced pottery’s extension over a wide geographic area from the Caucasus to Mesopotamia, northern Syria and northwestern Iran. Excavations at the site brought to light a Late Chalcolithic settlement of an unprecedentedly substantial range, consisting of about 8 m of continuous deposits. The pottery assemblages from the site include chaff-faced ware and Painted Pisdeli ware, suggesting that the site’s strongest interactions were with the Caucasus, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia..

Artifacts recovered from the Bam surface survey and Tal Atashi excavations, as well as Kerman's discoveries, have sometimes been compared to the Neolithic industries of Balochistan, Pakistan, and have sometimes been described as having local characteristics. In this article, we analyze the artifacts mentioned with the samples found in the South Zagros according to the three variables of raw material, technology and typology. The ancient sites of the South Lut and the South Zagros have followed the same pattern in choosing the type of raw material and how to access it, from the beginning of the Neolithic (aceramic) to the pottery Neolithic. The raw materials were generally local. According to studies, chert and flint were the most important and andesite, sandstone and limestone were the least used raw materials. Bullet cores have been documented in most areas. These cores are few at Tal Atashi, Darestan and Ashkaft Haji Bahrami (Aceramic Neolithic), but at Rahmatabad, Mushki and Hormangan they are relatively numerous. Bullet cores became insignificant from the middle of the Mushki Period, and their numbers declined during the Jari Period. The frequency of geometrics in the Fars region, from the beginning of the Neolithic to the Jari period, has fluctuations in shapes such as backed crescent and trapezoid. Crescent geometrics were one of the most important tools at Tepe Yahya and Tal Atashi across all phases of Neolithic in Fars province. The production process of sickle blades in Yahya was increasing whereas at Tal Atashi, it decreased over the same interval. The frequency of these tools was high at Rahmatabad, and low during the Mushki and Jari periods. This trend may be related to the technological developments of stone artifacts and changes in the type of economy during the Neolithic.

After more than one hundred years from the beginning of archaeological studies in Iran, the eastern regions of the country have received scarce or no attention from archaeologists, and there are very limited publications resulting from archaeological activities in this part of Iran. The prehistoric site of Kale Kub Ayask is one of the few prehistoric sites of South Khorasan province, and indeed in the whole eastern Iran, containing sufficient cultural deposits to provide a reliable chronology of the prehistoric cultural sequence of this region. Excavations at the site have led to the identification of the unknown prehistoric cultures in the area. The most significant achievement of the excavation is the identification of cultural materials dating to the fourth millennium BCE with southwestern and Mesopotamian origins. This cultural evidence, which can be considered as horizons of the culture of Susa II or the Late Uruk period, includes the typical pottery types of this period, such as beveled rim bowls, coarse Banesh trays, tubular vessels, nose-handled jars, patterned, and fine wheel pottery. This evidence has been long known in the southwestern, western, northwestern, southeastern, and central plateaus of Iran, but this is the first time they have been identified in eastern Iran. Based on geophysical studies, pristine places were selected to survey during the second season of excavation at the Kale Kub site, and the excavation of trenches with wider dimensions has lead to the identification of the prehistoric architecture of the site

The societies of the northern and southern zones of the “Iranian Central Plateau” flourished during the last quarter of fourth millennium BCE. This floruit was marked by the rise of complex social systems, long distance trade, and new systems for the management of economic activities, such as the “proto-Elamite writing system” (Vidale 2018; Helwing 2019; Fazeli Nashli and Nokandeh 2019). This evidence supports the view that the inhabitants of the Iranian Plateau during this time were connected to each other, represented by a relatively uniform writing system and similar economic organization. However, nowadays we know that the similarity of the “Grey Ware Culture” occurring in Proto-Elamite sites of the north-central Plateau such as Sofalin, Qoli Darvish, Meymanatabad and Sialk also suggests inter-regional contact, beyond the “Proto-Elamite phenomenon” during the last quarter of fourth millennium BCE. The population of the whole of the north Central Plateau appears to have dispersed during the third millennium BCE and current information suggests that most Chalcolithic settlements were gradually abandoned beginning around 3400 BCE, and that the hiatus in settled occupation continued throughout the third millennium BCE. This may be connected with climatic events during the last quarter of the fourth millennium BCE, characterized by aridity and increased aeolian activity, which destabilized the agriculture system. As Vidale postulated (Vidale et al. 2018) the social evolution of the Central Plateau, based on non-centralized networks during the Chalcolithic period and were extinguished shortly after 3000 BC but shaped again shortly which was different from the previous period.  This paper will summarize the findings of these excavations and propose a chronological framework for these social and cultural changes from the late fourth to the early 1st millennia BCE. In this paper we document the intra-regional societal developments and inter-regional material culture connections that made the third and second millennia BCE such a dynamic time.

Srōš is a great Zoroastrian diviniy in the Avesta and Middle Persian texts. He functioned as a warrior and a fighter against evil, a high priest, and one of the judges of the soul in the afterlife. In the Avesta, four separate hymns are dedicated to Srōš, which implies his important position among the Zoroastrian divinities. The name of Srōš survived as a divine messenger in the Iranian literature of the Islamic period. However, Srōš’s name was missing in royal inscriptions, and his name did not appear among the pantheon of Iranian divinities in Greek, Roman and Syriac sources. Due to this absence, the status of Srōš in ancient Iran and his possible visual representation has not given due recognition or attention. In this paper, first the characteristics and functions of Srōš in Zoroastrian literature studies are described. Then, on the basis of Zoroastrian textual sources, and Srōš’s status and iconographic evidence in pre-Sasanian Iran and in eastern Iran, and his possible visual representation is investigated during Sasanian period. The results of this study indicate that Srōš was probably depicted both anthropomorphically (charioteer motif) and non-anthropomorphically (the rooster and ear motif), and these images were inspired by Zoroastrian beliefs

Until recently, the culture of the late Iron Age in the central Iranian Plateau had only been identified at the southern mound of Sialk. In this study, a newly discovered site, called Qolam Tepe, is introduced in the foothills of western Kashan at a very close distance to Sialk. None of the surface findings of Qolam Tepe show any era other than the Iron Age III, or there is no Sialk VI, so we have ascertained one of the satellite sites of Sialk VI. Since the Qolam Tepe is exclusively a single-period site (Iron III), given the apparent fact that the decorative bricks found in Qolam Tepe in every aspect match the decorative bricks of “la Grande Construction” of Sialk. They can be attributed to a single cultural period and are surveyed as a single chronological horizon, thus again leading to the attribution of the “la Grande Construction” of Sialk to the end of the Iron Age. Surface survey finds from this site indicate that it is contemporaneous to the Iron Age, layers 5 and 6 of the southern mound of Sialk (and Cemeteries A and B)