JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES
Year:2012 | Volume:4 | Issue:1 (SERIAL NO. 5)|Papers Count:11

Archaeological excavations at Bishapour have begun in 1921 by Asian department of Louver museum and then continued by Iranian archaeologists till 2009. The 9th season of excavation at Bishapour was carried out by Mosayyeb Amiri in summer 2011 which have resulted most informative finds. As an important characteristic of the recent work was considering a new approach for documentation and reordering of data. The recent work was conducted on the part of the site known as monarchy citadel located in the south of mosaic hall. So, due to the importance of shard gathered from the last excavation, this paper will focus on classification and typological study of shards of the site.

The research layout of surveying Sonqor’s caves and rock shelters has been presented according to the region’s importance in archeological studies, lack of documented data, and necessity of registering most monuments which have been less considered as a result of uneasy access. The need of this project is characterized with regard to former surveys which just considered registering the region’s plains. Sonqor’s caves and rock shelters were specified in this study in assisting of Kermanshah Cultural heritage organization, and necessary actions were taken to document its data.A total of 32 caves, rock shelters and 2 Paleolithic open sites have been acquired in this survey but only 13 of them had cultural material dispersion in front of the entrance. The registered caves and shelters can be divided in to three main groups:- Those caves and shelters, due to the quality and quantity of the collected artifacts, which, assessing their chronological periods is not possible.- Those caves and shelters which we can propose a likely chronology for them, based upon the collected artifacts.- And finally the caves and shelters which are dated partially according to the quality and quantity of their artifacts. Their importance will be more prominent because of the existence of cultural Paleolithic deposits in these sites.Anyhow, this study tries to consider the following aspects as well as aforesaid most important executive goals.1- Studying and presenting the chronological identified sites in comparison.2- Presenting the identified sites’ dispersion plan.

One of the most important archeological remains in the eastern part of north-west Iran is the existence of thousands of kurgan graves with a complex structure. Despite the lack of concurrent residential sites, it can be concluded from the structure and contents of safely discovered graves that there was a kind of society with chiefdom structure which were able to build such magnificent mausoleums. Their identity has not been illustrated up to now and their secrets have been obscured through the passing time. This paper explains the findings from one the kurgans in Nir Boyni Yoghun castle and analyzes them through comparisons with some similar sites.

The limit and definition of the cultural zone of Jazmurian in the southeastern Iran is identical with the geographical boundarise of Jazmurian basin and in geographical setting. The cultural zone of Jazmurian could be identified with the ancient Makan of Akadian period, Gedrosia and Achofadjia of historical period. The remains of ancient city of Jiroft during Islamic period at the Archeaological site of Shahre –e- Daqyanus with more than 12 sq. km have been identified.The city was a metropolitan with various quarters, squares, streets, four gates, market, mosque, different public bathes, mint, industrial quarter and workshops, kilns of pottery and cemetry. There is mass production of different types of Islamic Ceramics in Jiroft from 7th – 13th centuries. These types of ceramics have connection & similarity with other contemporary types in other cultural centers such as China, Oman and inside Iran Such as Nishapur, Suse, Kashan, Rey and Jurjan.The prosperous and wealthy city of Jiroft was destroyed by the continoues attacks of Ghoz and finally was abandoned in the 7th century (13th A.D).

This paper examines some of the results of the archaeological survey conducted in Ardabil Province in summer 2001. Ardabil Province is situated in northwest Iran and in the neighborhood of of Azerbaijan Republic. The survey of the surrounding area gives an account of the different graves. The greaves are characterized by simple grave; Megalithic graves with and without Stele and Kurgan mound. The large Megalithic are a form of graves with large stone structure, such as Gale Khosro and Shahrieri. The burial mounds or Kurgans are a form of monumental architecture found throughout Ardabil Province, in Meshkinshar, Idier and Gozalou near Parsabad. Most of the graves in Ardabil Province are dated to the late Chalcolithic -early Bronze Age to Iron Age.

The Abharroud basin is an important region in the archeological studies of northwestern outskirts of the central plateau, and west and northwest of Iran. Considering its environmental capabilities and geographical location, studying the region can leads us to a better understanding of regional relations and also inter-regional interaction between the mentioned cultural-geographical regions. However, archeological studies in the region have not been taken into consideration satisfactorily and we know very little about the early settlements and their nature in the region. The archeological survey in the Abharroud basin was carried out in two seasons in 2003 and 2005. During the survey 257 archeological sites and monuments were discovered, dating from lower Paleolithic to recent ages. Of these, 34 sites contained prehistoric remains. The study results indicate that most of the prehistoric settlements belong to the Chalcolithic period and, in contrary, the least show the Paleolithic and Neolithic evidence. Most of the identified sites are the remains of villages scattered in different areas of the basin, on the plain and also impassable heights. A preliminary study on the surface finds of these settlements suggests a close cultural relation between these settlements and the prehistoric cultures of the central plateau, west and northwest of Iran, from Neolithic to Bronze Age.

The most important characteristics of the occupants of the second millennium BC in northern Iran and its adjacent regions such as the provinces of East Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Azerbaijan Republic, Armenia and southern Russia, is the settlements containing castles with defense walls and huge stone graves as well using bronze artifacts and production of gray and buff polished pottery. The presence of a large number of Kurgan graves distributed on the wider areas of East Azerbaijan to southern Russia which often lack residential areas, have been the fundamental problems concerning architectural patterns of their culture. In this paper it is attempted through comparative study to represent the main features of the second millennium BC in Eastern Azerbaijan on the basis of zard khaneh excavation and nearby regions.

In the face of strategic and geopolitical importance of Nishapur, this city was not much taken into consideration by the archeologists of the historic period. The analysis of the new findings of the ancient castle of Sasanian Nishapur as well as the identification of some Sasanian settlements in the plain of Nishapur can make it possible to re-configure the eco-political structures of the communities that populated this area of Iran to a large extent.This paper assesses how the the interaction occurred between Nishapur and its hinterland by ceramic analysis in the framework of the quantitative models such as regression analysis and rank-size model.According to the historical records and archeological analysis, the magnitude of Nishapur’s influence on its hinterland brings it to mind that the pattern of eco-political interaction in Nishapur’s hinterland at the time of Sasaninas have resembled the core-periphery model.

Historical earthquakes play a notable role in engineering seismology. The historical Kashan-Sialk region, 3 Km south of Kashan, was surveyed in the viewpoint of historical earthquakes events. Several devastating historical earthquakes, occurred in the BC time, identified based on archaeological studies and evidences gathered from field study. In this respect a variety of information, namely time of settlement evacuation due to a natural disaster, walls and roofs collapses, unusual positions of skeletons, cracks and fractures on bones and earth were investigated. Signs of destructions and archeoseismology evidences suggested that an earthquake, with a magnitude of about 7, completely destroyed the Sialk hill. Kashan fault was introduced as an active and causative fault for this event. Effective distance from source (mezoseismic radius of Ambraseys), was used for the events which no evidences were available for their estimation. An empirical magnitude-radius relation was calculated, using regression on Ambraseys historical earthquakes catalogue to assign minimum magnitude to historical seismic events. Finally, a seismicity catalogue for Sialk ancient region and the neighboring area was prepared.

During the first Islamic centuries, Kurdistan is one of areas that there has been little information on architectural and monumental structure of this area. In such a situation, Imamzadeh Aghil monument can provide a valuable insight into the architectural patterns of the perion in the area. This monument is located in the middle of a major archaeological site and its architectural style and archaeological evidence wittneses that it may be built in the Seljuk period and is Comparable with Gonbad Alavian in Hamadan, Red Gonbad in Maragheh and the tomb of Pierre in Takestan. Despite of the destructions happened, this monument especially in terms of the construction and decoration still remains an important one although the information on grave owner is not revealed but according to the comparable monuments of this period it is possible to assign it to have been for a local rulers.

Elymais regions include the elevated plains and valleys of Bakhtiary Mountains in east of Karun River and in fact it is the northeast of Khozestan province. Although the exact determining of the region extend is difficult but during its life the extend has changed in terms of the new conquests of parthians and some more or less important parts of Elymais were dominated by small neighboring states. In the Seleucids era and especially during the parthians era the regions which are now located in Ize, Shoshtar, Dezful, Ahvaz and even Susa were completely under influences of Elymaises. So far in the Elymais region some reliefs are discovered and introduced and every few years one or more samples are added to this category such as Sang-e Mahi relief in Andika region. The subject of this sample displays the war scene like other reliefs. So far the war scenes are not specially addressed, while the effect of this issue is absolutely obvious in the Elymais reliefs and Sasanian period. This issue is pointed in literature, poetries and stories. Besides introducing the new relief of Sang-e Mahi, some other reliefs displaying the war scenes of Elymais part are examined and the Elymais artistic relationship with Sasanian art will be discussed in this paper.