JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES
Year:2013 | Volume:4 | Issue:2 (SERIAL NO. 6)|Papers Count:10

The expansion of grey-black pottery tradition in the Iranian plateau, on the basis of Iron Age theory of cultural dynamism, was emerged by the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Such a pottery tradition is regarded as a cultural sign to point migrants who entered in the Iranian plateau from the northern outside of Caucasus the major. According to the theory, the migrants passed the river valley of Araxes towards the south; and finally settled around the Lake Urmia and other places through the Iranian plateau. Archaeologically, therefore, such a migration should be approved just on the base of material culture affiliations which are visible in both Iranian plateau and beyond, as the Central Asia and Caucasus.Analytically, at this article, a selected group of typical ceramic wares, found from a burial mound at the Himidan village of Khoda'afarin territory, are described and compared with some samples of pottery traditions in the regions of Nakhichevan, Caucasus and Urmia. Whether they were native people or northern migrants, the results of such analyses answer to the question about the origin of the people whom were buried at the burial mound of Himidan, the Khoda'afarin territory. The pottery tradition found from the burial mound at Himidan, despite of some similarities with pottery assemblages in the NW Iranian plateau and Nakhichevan, presents local characters. Therefore, it does not fall within the Iron Age horizon of the NW Iranian plateau. But, these ceramic wares should be compared with the Qarabagh tradition of the Iron Age in the southern Caucasus. Finally, c.900 BC is suggested for the burial mound at Himidan by the authors. Archaeologically, the Iron Age traditions around the Lake Urmia are indigenous. These traditions are not yet reported from Nakhichevan region towards the north. In addition, it is remarkable that Qarabagh tradition of the Iron Age were limited to the Southern Caucasus. Consequently, it seems that Qarabgh tradition have a local-native origin.

Archaeological evidence from Islamic era reflects trade contacts and flourishing commerce in the Persian Gulf. Indeed, some regional infrastructures surviving from Sassanian times could have acted as the basis for these interactions. Mahruban is one of the most important ports in the Persian Gulf with evidence of extensive trade contacts with such neighboring ports as Basra, Siniz and Ganaveh on the one hand and the Gulf’s northern hinterlands such as Arjan in Behbahan region on the other. The few available data on the port prior to the recent excavations was confined to written documents by early Islamic historians and a number of more recent references by Schwarz and Rawlinson. Given the great potentials of the port for increasing our understanding of the Iranian sea trade during Sasanian and in particular the early Islamic era, the excavation project was designed with the aim of determining its sequence and detecting the remains related to sea trade through the study of archaeological material. The present paper reports the provisional results of the excavation in Trench B at Mahruban, and combines them with the available written evidence in order to define its current location and its role in the trade ties through the Persian Gulf. The preliminary analyses show that ceramic assemblage from the trench parallels the material from Suhar in Oman, Ras al-Khaima in the UAE and Qal’at in Bahrain as well as such Iranian centers as Susa in Kuzestan and Siraf in Bushehr. In this paper, a location near the modern Deylam port is discussed and finally suggested for this historical harbor based on comparison of the archaeological finds with the historical texts from early Islamic period.

The current article is a research on the classification of the potteries found from a scientific excavations of Jafar Abad Kurgans. Kurgans are kind of graves that are mostly unknown which were paid less attention than other sites in Iran. Research on the potteries that are found in the graves enable us to identify some aspects of cultures moreover gives us insight into thoughts, beliefs, faiths and daily life styles of people and tribes who made them.Pottery art because of its plenitude and popularity in each region signify climatic characteristics and historical, economical, social, cultural and artistic characteristics those who have lived in the area. Forms, shapes, colors, patterns, decorations, construction techniques, heating methods that are used in the creation of the pottery vessels contain valuable concepts about different life styles and living conditions of the tribes and are considered as power of innovation of their makers after thousands of years.Data on Jafar Abad Kurgans potteries, although a few of them have been explored, show nomadic lifestyles. The main goal of this article is to identify Kurgans Culture who built those Kurgans graves and put the items burried in them. Pottery items by far is the most abundant of the finds and their typology and chronology could be the most important archaeological evidences and documents.

According to historical sources, in time of Oljaito reign the city was built at the foot hills of Bisotun mountain that called Sultan Abad-e Chamchamal. It was a main political region during the Ilkhanid period.Due to the lack of archaeological studies, the exact position of this important site remains unclear and its exact location is the problems questioned in the archaeology of that region.In this paper, first, we are going to show the probable location of Sultan Abad-e Chamchamal based on the historical sources, then by analyzing data which were gathered from our archaeological survey as well as linguistic information. We maintain that Sultan Abad-e Chamchamal may be located at the modern Tepe Hala Bag where the previous studies have no chance to discover it.

Despite the lack of a clear understanding of the relationships of eastern and southeastern Arabia with different Iranian regions during pre-Sassanian era and the paucity of written evidence from this period, the huge corpus of archaeological evidence obtained from this region and the few available historical documents show that the region maintained close contacts with Iran and was under legal and formal control of the Parthians.As its main objective, the present work seeks to analyze the archaeological material from the Parthian sites in eastern and southeastern Arabia that corroborate these contacts.Pottery is among the major material that reflects the close ties that existed between sites in the southern and northern regions of the Persian Gulf. Pottery sherds are the most frequent evidence that support relationship between southern shores of the Persian Gulf and different regions of Iran during Sassanian and Parthian periods, in particular diagnostic examples that are widely known from Iranian sites. Of particular related examples are glazed, monochrome and bichrome painted, Londo, eggshell, and coarse black types.Apart from pottery, other categories of the material culture such as coins, metal objects, glasses, statuettes, architecture, and Aramian inscriptions are now available from a number of Parthian sites in eastern and southeastern Arabia to prove the close contacts of the northern and southern coasts of the Persian Gulf.

The Bakun phase, as one of most significant Chalcolithic cultures of Fars province attributed basic stage related to socio-economic transformation in early village societies of Iran. On the basis of varied archaeological researches regarding Bakun phase, revealed relatively homogenous culture on the whole of Fars and some its neighbors was characterized by Black on Buff painted ceramic assemblage. Northern Fars or Sarhad, as borderland, have had some social interactions between Kur River basin and surrounding regions during Bakun Phase. Rescue excavation at Tappeh Mehr Ali on the Eghlid district during two seasons in 2006 and 2008, uncovered evidences related to Bakun phase, which analysis of them is subject of the paper. The evidences monitor the cultural interactions, and also review Bakun stratigraphic sequences on Northern Fars.

Since the ancient times, burial practices have displayed certain characteristics among different Iranian ethnic groups and regions were influenced by the local religious orientations, traditions and environments, and are regarded as part of the spiritual culture of any given population. Indeed, religious beliefs play the main role in this diversity. Because of the empire’s long endurance and vast extent as well as its exceptional cultural diversity, various burial customs prevailed during the Parthian period. Large number of cemeteries with a plethora of different burial practices has been excavated at different Parthian sites lying both within and outside modern Iran, including jar burial, cellar burial, mausoleum, coffin burial, well burial, parallelepiped graves, simple pits and cairns.Unlike the most area in the Iranian central plateau, the vast plain around Tehran have no been the focus of any serious archaeological surveys or excavations thus the historical setting, archaeology and burial patterns of the region during the Parthian period remained totally unknown. However, a number of burials have recently been discovered and excavated during two seasons of excavations at Veliran. Their preliminary study has revealed important information on burial practices and religious attitude of the residents of Damavand area during the Parthian period. The results of this study are described in the present paper.

Khomein city is located between the Iranian central plateau and central Zagros. The relative importance of Khomein in Sassanian period is evidenced by presence of distinctive monuments such as fire temple of Atashkooh and Mile Malyon in eastern part of Mahallat and inscriptions of Gharghab valley and also passing of a branch of Silk Road through it. Nevertheless there is not so much information about the Sassanians in Iranian Central plateau, specifically in Khomein. This study aimed to determine and reconstruct the patterns and distribution of Sassanid settlements bases on historical documents, environmental and archaeological data, which are gained from archaeological surveys. Hence for determining the influential factors in the formation and distribution of settlements, archaeological information of Khomein were incorporated in GIS system by providing environmental as well as historical information of the region.

Qoheston is a region in the southeastern Khorasan which includes Kashmar, Tabas, Ferdos, Birjand, Qaen, Torbate Haidarie, Khaf and Taibad cities. This region is surrounded by Sabzevar and Nishaboor from north, central desert from west, Sistan and Kerman from south and Naomid plains from east. In addition to the geographical and climatic characteristics of the region the abundance of historical castles characterizes it from the other parts of Iran. This paper aims at study political, social, economic and geographical history of the Qohestan in order to understand the Qohestan culture. Moreover, the functionality of the castles the as well as the position and distribution of the castles also were studied.

It was constructed a palace, at 4th cent B.C, at the summit of Persepolis with a broad portico and staircase before "Hadish" courtyard that has not been remained except parts of the stair way. The ruins scattering caused documentation and organizing project at 1384, in coordination with Parseh Research Foundation when there were recovered some evidence to identify that the original and preliminary plan of the staircase needed some rectification which is discussed in detail here, based on records and documents.