اهالی باستان شناس

علی کش

Additional Images of the archaeologists at work at Ali Kosh.

 

 

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جارمو

Jarmo

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کریم شهیر

 

 

 

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تل یحیی

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برنز لرستان

LURISTAN BRONZES

by Donald N. Wilber

 

 

Figure, nude goddess, 7000 Years of Iranian Art, no. 204

PROBLEMS OF DATING

Figurine with arms akimbo, frontal and side views¹⁰ 77.64

 

Figurine of stumpy woman, hollow cast¹⁰ 77.33

Th

Amulets of hand and of foot, The Art of Iran, ³ figs. 59 and 60

M

Drawings of maces, Venden Berghe,⁷ p. 31

 

Quadruped with rider with large nose. Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri¹⁰ 77.67

 

Figurine on ring base, Venden Berghe⁷ no. 13, p. 43

 

Ceremonial axes, drawings, Venden Berghe⁷ p. 33

A smelting oven¹¹ Drawing by DNW

Horse harness¹¹ DNW

 

 

 

 

 

s

 

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هفت تپه

 

 

 

Haft Tepe, an archaeological site in Khûzestân province, in the southwestern alluvial plains of Persia, about 10 km southeast of Susa and 60 km south of Andîmešk (PLATE I).

 

This large Elamite site, composed of many individual mounds, forms an imposing mass rising about the surrounding plain. The ancient remains of Haft Tepe have long been a prominent feature of the flat Khûzestân plain.

 

The number seven, haft in Haft Tepe, the "Seven Mounds," is used loosely to indicate the number of mounds in this large archaeological complex.

 

 

Plate 1.

The ancient name of the site remains in doubt. Some scholars have suggested that it may have been Tikni, which is described in early documents as a religious center located between Susa and Choghâ Zanbîl (q.v.), but no evidence has yet appeared in the Haft Tepe excavation itself to support this theory. However, several seal impressions and clay tablets found at Haft Tepe contain the name "Ka-ap-nak" and it is possible that this was the original name of the Haft Tepe site (Herrero, 1976).

In the 1950s and 1960s, Haft Tepe became part of a large sugar cane plantation. In the course of leveling the land for planting, some of the archaeological remains were destroyed and others exposed. During the construction of the main road to the plantation, a baked brick wall was uncovered and the discovery reported to the Iranian Archaeological Service. An expedition organized under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Culture and Art, of which the Archaeological Service was then a part, began to excavate the site in 1965. From the fourth season of the expedition onwards, a program of field training in excavation technique was instituted for graduate students of the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Tehran and eventually a site museum was built together with permanent headquarters for the archaeological team. Although the expedition worked for fourteen seasons, until it was halted by political conditions in Persia, only a small fraction of the large site was uncovered.

The archaeological complex of Haft Tepe contains four-teen major visible mounds, the largest rising about 17 m above the surrounding plain which, with its related extensions, cover an area about 1500 m long and 800 m wide. This is a single level site with almost no evidence of occupation before the major constructional period and very minimal evidence afterwards. The massive sun-dried and baked brick buildings of Haft Tepe, perhaps of a religious or some other public function (PLATE II), were built during a single period, lasting for one or at the most two centuries during the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C.E., at which time Haft Tepe was a major Elamite city.

Plate II

 

Most of the construction is of sun-dried brick, with baked brick used only for very important buildings and in areas particularly exposed to weather. The sun-dried brick was put together with a simple clay mortar and the baked brick with an extremely strong gypsum mortar. Gypsum was also used as a covering for baked brick pavements and for plastering walls and the inner surfaces of vaulted roofs. Natural bitumen was used to seal basins and water channels and as a mortar and surface covering.

The architectural remains thus far uncovered include the Tomb Temple Complex, a royal tomb of baked brick with a barrel vaulted roof (PLATE II) and another subsidiary baked brick tomb also with a vaulted roof, now collapsed, both attached to a large temple of sun dried brick with two parallel halls opening onto a large portico which in turn opens onto a large courtyard paved with several layers of baked brick. This courtyard contained two broken stone stelae inscribed with the name of Tepti-ahar, the Elamite king believed to have built the Haft Tepe complex in the middle of the 2nd millenium B.C.E. (PLATE III).

Surrounding the entire Tomb Temple Complex is a massive wall of sun-dried brick. Extending in an easterly direction from the outside wall of the courtyard are large constructional remains with a long wall of at least 60 m. About 100 m southeast of the Tomb Temple Complex, connected by this long wall, is a large solid sun-dried brick construction which forms a many-sided terrace built in sections, referred to as Terrace Complex I. This may have served as the foundation of a much higher structure, a ziggurat palace or temple, whose plan can no longer be distinguished. Around this massive solid terrace are numerous halls, many of whose walls had been covered by polychrome paintings on a gypsum surface. These halls had had flat roofs supported by large timbers of palm tree fiber covered with reeds and matting.

 

Plate III

 

On the eastern side of Terrace Complex I is a particularly interesting large hall, apparently an artist's workshop, partitioned into several sections in which various crafts were carried out. Bowls with dried paint, a sawn elephant skeleton, a solidified cluster of several hundred bronze arrowheads and small bronze hooks, fragments of colored stone mosaic framed in bronze, and a butterfly pin of gold and carnelian were all found here, but the most unusual objects in the workshop are two life-size painted portrait heads of an Elamite king and queen, together with a clay mask. Directly in front of this workshop is a very large kiln composed of two long partitioned wings with a fire chamber in the center, in which both pottery and bronze apparently were baked. South of Terrace Complex I is another massive solid brick terrace, which was only partly excavated when the expedition was halted.

 

Among the most important remains of Haft Tepe are the written records, including several stone stelae and many hundreds of inscribed tablets. These are for the most part Elamite tablets written in Babylonian and include letters, accounts, scholarly treatises, and works of divination. On one clay tablet the name of Kadashman Enlil is inscribed with an impression of the seal of King Tepti-ahar. Apparently Tepti-ahar, king of Elam, was a contemporary of Kadashman Enlil I, the Kassite king of Mesopotamia, who is known to have reigned before Burnaburiash III, whose rule began around 1375 B.C.E. (Negahban 1991). Many cylinder seals and seal impressions belonging to the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C.E. were also found, some with design details unique to Haft Tepe.

The bulk of the Haft Tepe pottery is comparable to pottery of the late Kassite period. Most of the vessels, including jars and bowls, are of plain unpainted pottery in various shades of buff, together with a very limited amount of plain gray pottery. Some stone vessels and mace heads were also found. Other objects from the site include many small broken figurines of Ishtar in a wide variety of costumes and headdresses, male figurines including musicians holding string instruments, and small animal figurines of various materials. Among the bronze objects are arrowheads, daggers, and various tools, including a wide variety of chisels.

The constructional complex of Haft Tepe was sacked and burned at some time. In the courtyard of the Tomb Temple Complex a solid platform formed of nine layers of baked brick with gypsum mortar was badly damaged. Scattered over this platform were pieces of stone with cuneiform writing, which belonged to stone stelae originally installed on the platform but were found lying elsewhere in the courtyard. After the stelae were broken away from the platform they apparently proved to be too heavy to carry away and so were abandoned. In many of the halls of Terrace Complex I traces of burned timbers were found on the floor, indicating that the rooms had been set on fire. Although nothing was found to show when this destruction took place, the material uncovered in the Tomb Temple Complex and in Terrace Complex I all point to a major occupation of the site for at most one or two centuries during the second half of the 2nd millennium B.C.E., corresponding in time to a previously dark period of Elamite history from 1505 to 1350 B.C.E.

Altogether during fourteen seasons of work at Haft Tepe one hundred and fifty trenches, 10 m by 10 m, for the most part concentrated together and covering an area of 15,000 m2, were opened. Since Haft Tepe itself was a single level site, a step trench was dug into the large mound of Abu Fandowa, about 1 km northwest of Haft Tepe, in the first season, in order to obtain background material on the prehistory of the area. This step trench revealed twelve archaeological levels, from the 6th millennium B.C.E. through the proto-literate period and Elamite periods. During the last two seasons at Haft Tepe work was reopened at Abu Fandowa, where on the northwestern and northeastern slopes kilns of the protoliterate period were uncovered. At the same time remains of the early first millennium B.C.E., including some inscribed cuneiform tablets of the Neo-Elamite period, were found in the topmost levels of the mound.

For nearly a century archaeological activity in southwestern Iran was conducted almost solely by the French Archaeological Mission in Iran, with headquarters at Susa. Their long span of survey, excavation, and research, concentrated on the massive ancient mound of Susa with some attention given to other remains in the Susiana plain, uncovered much archaeological information about the prehistoric and historic periods of this region where Elamite culture and civilization arose.

The archaeological activities of the French Mission produced a general framework for the prehistoric development and historic periods of the Elamite kingdom. Although the resulting picture of Elamite-Iranian political history was rather continuous from 2700 B.C.E. to 640 B.C.E, three major dark periods remained, the first between 2200 and 2000 B.C.E., the second between 1505 and 1350 B.C.E., and the third between 1110 and 760 B.C.E. The excavations at Haft Tepe succeeded in producing material illuminating the second dark period of Elamite-Iranian history, i.e., between 1505 and 1350 B.C.E.

 

Bibliography 

(for cited works not given in detail, see "Short References"):

 

	G. Beckman, "A Stray Tablet from Haft Tepe," Iranica Antiqua 5/36, 1911, pp. 81-83.
	J. J. Glassner, "Les Textes De Haft Tepe, La Susiane et l'Elam an 2eàme Mille‚naire," in L. De Meyer and H. Gasche eds., Me‚sopotamie et Elam. Actes de la XXXVIeàme Rencontre Assyrologique Internationale, Gand 10-14 Juillet 1989, Mesopotamian History and Environment Occasional Publications 1, Ghent, 1991, pp. 109-26.
	P. Herrero, "Tablettes Administratives de Haft Tepe," CDAFI 6, 1976, pp. 93-116.
	P. Herrero and J. J. Glassner, "Haft Tepe: Choix de Textes I," Iranica Antiqua 25, 1990, pp. 1-45.
	Idem, "Haft Tepe: Choix de Textes II," Iranica Antiqua 26, 1991, pp. 39-80.
	E. O. Negahban, "Excavation of Marlik," Actes du VIIeàme Congreàs International des Sciences Pre‚historiques et Protohistoriques, Vol. 1, Prague, 1971, pp. 220-22.
	Idem, "Brief General Report of Third Season of Excavation of Haft Tepe," Memorial Volume, Vth International Congress of Iranian Art and Archaeology, Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, 11th-18th April, 1968, Special Publication of the Ministry of Culture and Art, Vol. I, Tehran, 1972, pp. 153-63.
	Idem, "Brief Report of Haft Tepe Excavation, 1974," Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Symposium on Archaeological Research in Iran, Tehran, 1975, pp. 171-78.
	Idem., "Haft Tepe," Iran 5, 1969, pp. 173-77. Idem, "Die elamische Siedlung Haft Tepe," Antike Welt, Zeitschrift für Archäologie und Kulturgeschichte, Vol 2, Feldmeilen, 1977, pp. 42-48.
	Idem, A Guide of Haft Tepe Excavation and Museum, Tehran, 1977.
	Idem, "Architecture of Haft Tepe," AMI, Suppl. vol 6, 1979, pp. 9-29.
	Idem, "Haft Tepe Roundels: An Example of Middle Elamite Art," AJA 88, 1984, pp. 3-10.
	Idem, "The Haft Tepe Bronze Plaque," in F. Vallat, ed., Contributions aà l'histoire de l'Iran: Me‚langes offerts aà Jean Perrot, Paris, 1990, pp. 137-42.
	Idem, Excavations at Haft Tepe, Iran, Philadelphia, University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Monograph 70, 1991.
	Idem, "Seal Impressions on a Jar Stopper from Haft Tepe," in G. Possehl, ed., South Asian Archaeology Studies, New Delhi, 1992, pp. 87-99.
	L. Vanden Berghe, Bibliographie analytique de l'archae‚ologie de l'Irân ancien, Leiden, 1979, p. 115-16.

 

 

 

Figure 1. Proto-Elamite administrative account of four sheep herds. (Scheil, 1905, no. 212; scale 1:2).

 

 

Susa was excavated almost continuously from the late nineteenth century until the Persian revolution of 1357 Š./1978. Both Jacques de Morgan and Robert de Mecquenem, the successive directors of the French archeological mission from 1897 to 1946, were trained as mining engineers and brought that background of large-scale earth removal to archeology. They were also uninterested in the excavation of mud-brick buildings and little concerned with archeological contexts and associations. Roman Ghirshman, director from 1946 to 1967, adopted the "organic" method of excavation, clearing large areas of mud-brick buildings, in order to gain an idea of the overall city plan in the 2nd millennium B.C.E (above figure). Controlled stratigraphic excavations at the site began only in the 1960s, when first M.-J. Steve and then Jean Perrot became directors of the French archeological mission at Susa. Although large numbers of objects were found in earlier campaigns, the relative chronology of this material has only recently been established (Carter, 1992, pp. 20-24). Other excavations, in Khûzestân, Fârs, Lorestân, and Kermân, have been so much smaller in scale and shorter in duration that comparisons with Susa are difficult (for summaries of these smaller excavations and surveys in both Khûzestân and the highlands, as well as comprehensive bibliographies, see Carter, 1984, pp. 108-10; Hole, 1987, pp. 293-321).

 

The setting.

Elam was distinct from the contemporary civilizations of Sumer and the Indus valley in the episodic cultural and political integration of large expanses of geographically diverse territory. The lines of communication between Susa and Anshan, the largest cities of Elam, as well as with other, more distant mountain regions, were limited in number and generally difficult, owing to rugged topography. Neither Susa nor Anshan was centrally located in its own region or lay directly on major international trade routes; both could easily be bypassed through the Persian Gulf, on the sea route between Mesopotamia and the Indus valley. Susiana, the plain in which Susa is located, was the only large lowland region in Elam, an extension of the Mesopotamian plain. It is the best known from excavations, but, because of its location, its material culture was also the most heavily influenced by Mesopotamia of any Elamite region. Many upland valleys in the folds of the Zagros were linked with Susa culturally or politically at various points in its history. Most prominent were the Kor river basin in Fârs ca. 500 km southeast, where Anshan was situated, and Lorestân and Kordestân, where the Simaški lands may have been located (Henrickson, 1984; for another view, see i, above). These highland areas, which are still for the most part unexplored, are considered to have been the Elamite core. The southeastern Zagros, where large deposits of copper ores have been identified, are known through excavations at Tepe Sialk (Sîâlk), Tepe Yahya (Yaháyâ), Tall-i Iblis (Eblîs), and Shahdad (Šahdâd). Excavated finds suggest that this region was part of the Elamite cultural world, at least in some periods (cf. Amiet, 1986, pp. 160-70, referring to the region as "trans-Elamite"). Both Susiana in the west and the regions to the southeast in the Kermân range should perhaps be considered the Elamite periphery. Mobile pastoralism and agriculture formed the basis of economic life in Elam, but trade and exchange with lowland Mesopotamia, particularly in metals, timber, and various stones, also played a part in the Elamite economy from as early as the 4th millennium B.C.E. (Alizadeh, 1988; Algaze, pp. 11-18).

 

The Proto-Elamite (Susa III/Banesh) period, ca. 3400/3200-2800 B.C.E.

 

 

Plate.1. Undeciphered Proto-Elamite tablet, Malyan, no. M-1000.

Photograph courtesy of William M. Sumner.

 

The Proto-Elamite period was characterized by a distinctive assemblage of artifacts and an artistic style distributed from Lorestân in the west to Kermân in the east. The artifacts include administrative texts written in the still undeciphered proto-Elamite script (see iii, below; Plate I); a distinctive glyptic style (Pittman, 1992a; see CYLINDER SEALS, p. 485); ceramics (cf. Le Brun, 1971, figs. 60-66); and various stone and metal objects made from materials mined, worked, or both in the Iranian highlands and shipped east and west. The establishment of a city at Anshan during the Proto-Elamite period (also called Banesh after the corresponding archeological phase in central Fârs) and smaller outposts at Tepe Sialk and Tepe Yahya in the eastern highlands suggest that the foundations of the union between lowland and highland regions characteristic of later Elam were first laid in the late 4th millennium. The archeological evidence also indicates that in the Kermân range an indigenous population coexisted with a foreign, Proto-Elamite group; the latter had an administrative technology and material culture closely linked to, if not imported from, those known from Susa or Anshan (Carter, 1984, pp. 115-32).

 

 

Plate.II. Aerial view of Susa showing the Acropole, foreground the Apadana, and background part of the Ville Royal. Photograph courtesy of William M. Sumner.

 

 

Susa remains the site of reference for any discussion of the Proto-Elamite period, as controlled stratigraphic work on the Acropole (Le Brun, 1971; idem, 1978) has led to a more exact definition of the assemblage. Earlier excavations had also yielded more than 1,450 tablets written in the Proto-Elamite script and a large corpus of contemporary seals and sealings (Damerow and Englund, p. 2 n. 4; Harper et al., pp. 70-77 nos. 48). Excavations at Anshan (Sumner, 1974; idem, 1976) have revealed the construction of a city wall and a sequence (ABC levels IV-II) of mud-brick public buildings dated to the Proto-Elamite (Banesh) period (Plate II). Most remarkable are the building phases from levels III and II in operation ABC. The level-III structure was precisely constructed and had painted walls (Plate III); the level-II building was a fragmentary large structure containing twelve painted pithoi, indicating a central storage facility. Some idea of daily life in Proto-Elamite Anshan can be gained from a building characterized by domestic installations and areas of small-scale craft activity, called TUV, on the edge of the city (Nicholas). By 3000 B.C.E. Anshan, estimated at 50 ha (Sumner, 1988, p. 317), had become the largest known settlement in Elam. Contemporary Susa is estimated at less than 11 ha. There were no other large settlements in Susiana during the Proto-Elamite period. The rapid growth of Anshan, coinciding with the decline of population in Susiana, led J. R. Alden (1982, p. 620; 1987, pp. 159, 164 table 28) to suggest emigration from lowland Susiana to Anshan just before 3000 B.C.E.

 

 

Plate. III. Wall painting, Malyan, operation ABC, Level III, Proto-Elamite period.

Photograph courtesy of William M. Sumner.

 

 

The Old Elamite period (ca. 2600-1600 B.C.E.).

The dynasties of Awan and Simaški. The period in which these two dynasties reigned corresponds approximately to periods IV-V at Susa (ca. 2600-1900 B.C.E.; Schacht). At sites in the Kermân range Proto-Elamite administrative texts and associated glyptic and ceramics fell into disuse at some time between 2900 and 2800. At Anshan a gap in the sequence occurs at ca. 2600, and the site was not reoccupied on an urban scale until the Kaftari phase (ca. 2200), when the Proto-Elamite city wall was repaired (Sumner, 1988, p. 317). Proto-Elamite tablets and seals disappeared at Susa at about the same time as in the Kermân range. Statues and wall plaques found without clear contexts on the Acropole indicate the presence of a temple of Mesopotamian type, albeit a rather poor example (Amiet, 1976). Susian ceramics datable to the mid-3rd millennium are not of Mesopotamian inspiration, however. Monochrome-painted wares decorated with birds, plants, and geometric motifs (Henrickson, 1986, pp. 15-16 table 3) and accompanying plain wares have their closest analogues in assemblages from Lorestân and Kordestân (Godin III6-5; CERAMICS vii).

Susa grew from approximately 11 to 46 ha during the 3rd millennium. According to textual sources, it was a border city alternately under control of the highland polities of Awan and Simaški and the Akkadian and Ur III empires of Mesopotamia. To a degree these shifting relations are reflected in the archeological record, for example, the increasing popularity of Akkadian glyptic and ceramic types and the disappearance of monochrome-painted wares in Susa IVB (Carter, 1980, pp. 25-30). After the Akkadian period, seals (CYLINDER SEALS, pp. 486-92) and ceramics in Susiana continued to be strongly influenced by Mesopotamian styles through the 3rd and most of the 2nd millennia; at Susa, for example, buff-ware cups, bowls, and goblets were similar to, though not identical with, Mesopotamian pottery forms (CERAMICS viii).

Only a few small scattered settlements appeared elsewhere in Susiana during the last centuries of the 3rd millennium. Tepe Mussian (Mûsîân), on the Deh Loran (q.v.) plain 90 km to the northwest of Susa, was the only other large town (14 ha) of this period in Khûzestân (Schacht, pp. 174-75; Wright, 1981, pp. 192-95).

In Lorestân, in the Pošt-e Kûh, several small groups of stone-built underground burial chambers have been investigated; they are located apart from settlement sites. These cemeteries, datable ca. 2600-2400 B.C.E., attest to a period of prosperity in the region (Vanden Berghe, pp. 39-50). Funerary goods in the larger tombs included copper or bronze weapons and ceramic pots closely paralleling those of Susa IVA and Godin III6-5 (Henrickson, 1986, pp. 23-25). Around 2400 these tombs were superseded by smaller stone cist graves also grouped in cemeteries isolated from settlement sites. Claire Goff (pp. 150-51) points out that new settlements were appearing along traditional migration routes during the late 3rd millennium and that these changes in the locations of settlements away from prime farming land may have reflected a shift from agriculture to stock breeding and the beginning of transhumance in the region. Farther north the establishment of towns at sites like Godin (Gowdîn) Tepe, Girairan (Gereyrân), and Tepe Giyan (Gîân) indicate a period of growth in Lorestân. The painted-ceramic assemblage called Godin III, dating from the mid-to-late 3rd millennium, though modified over time, continued in use in Lorestân until the second half of the 2nd millennium, when it was superseded by Iron I wares (Henrickson, 1987).

During the second half of the 3rd millennium B.C.E. cities, presumably the centers of larger states, also grew up in the areas southeast of Anshan. Shahdad, on the western edge of the Dašt-e Lût, and Shahr-i Sokhta (Šahr-e Sûkhta) in the Helmand river valley on the Afghan border are the two best-known sites (Hakemi; Lamberg-Karlovsky and Tosi). It is possible that Shahdad (Šahdâd) should be considered an Elamite center, but limited excavation and publication of the archeological finds prevent final identification. Material remains discovered there and at Tepe Yahya, 250 km to the southwest, date from the late 3rd through the early 2nd millennium. These finds show links with the east (in ceramics, compartmentalized stamp seals, various exotic stones) and the west (cylinder seals, stone and ceramic vessels, a Proto-Elamite B inscription; Carter, 1984, pp. 136-41; Amiet, 1986, pp. 160-70). Growth in the Shahdad region may perhaps have been initially stimulated by an earlier Proto-Elamite presence in the area, but by the mid-3rd millennium the city was the major urban center in the region, identified by Piotr Steinkeller (1982; 1990) with Marhaši and by François Vallat (1993, pp. cxiii-cxviii) with Simaški.

At Tepe Yahya a workshop for making chlorite vessels was discovered in level IVB (ca. 2600-2300 B.C.E.). Chlorite vessels decorated in the intercultural, or "old," style were shipped from Yahya and presumably neighboring sites to Mesopotamian temples, as well as to destinations in the east (Kohl, pp. 464-66). A simpler, "new," style of chlorite vessel and "Persian Gulf seals" were found together at later sites on the Persian Gulf and in Susa and Mesopotamia. These discoveries, as well as the use of Omani copper in Mesopotamia by the mid-3rd millennium, attest to use of the sea route between Mesopotamia and eastern Iran in the late 3rd millennium. By period IVA (ca. 2300-1800 B.C.E.) Tepe Yahya had reached its maximum size and come within the sphere of influence of the Shahdad culture (de Miroschedji, 1973; Carter, 1990, pp. 97-98).

The Sukkalmah Period (ca. 1900-1600 B.C.E.). Early in the 2nd millennium Susa expanded and became a city covering an estimated 85 ha. New towns and villages appeared all over the Susiana plain and in the surrounding upland valleys (Schacht, pp. 177-80; Carter, 1984, pp. 146-55). Anshan and the Kûr river basin also experienced a period of growth, and settlement in both areas reached a peak that remained unparalleled until the Achaemenid period (Sumner, 1988; de Miroschedji, 1990, p. 49-62). The distribution of small settlements across the Susiana plain and the Kûr river basin suggests the agricultural exploitation of the two plains and the use of irrigation canals (Sumner, 1989; Carter, 1984). Texts from Susa and the relatively large number of villages and towns found in the plains indicate a high level of agricultural development in the period. Susa became a political capital and an international city active in Near Eastern politics and trade, a locus of cultural and commercial interchange between the mountain folk of the Zagros and the inhabitants of the Mesopotamian plain.

The excavations in Ville Royale A and B at Susa, conducted by Roman Ghirshman (for a complete bibliographic summary, see Steve et al., pp. 148-54), yielded archeological and architectural sequences spanning most of the 2nd millennium B.C. and provided evidence of town planning. Courtyard houses of mud brick opened from large intersecting streets or from smaller alleys. The dead were frequently buried in baked-brick (family?) tombs under house or courtyard floors; this custom remained in use at Susa until the middle of the 1st millennium.

In this period the repertoire of buff-ware ceramics at Susa was expanded to include such new forms as the "Elamite flask" with painted decoration and gray wares; these objects permit cross dating with the Kaftari assemblage at Anshan (Carter, 1979; idem, 1984, fig. 10).

Contemporary Anshan is much less well-known than Susa. The Kaftari ceramic assemblage, characterized by painted buff ware decorated with rows of birds (Plate IV), is clearly a local development, as are the plain and painted Kaftari red wares (cf. CERAMICS vi). These vessels were used along with plain buff wares reminiscent of Susian and Mesopotamian types. Cuneiform documents from Anshan also underscore the ties of the city with the lowlands in the sukkalmah period. There was a scribal school at Anshan (Stolper, 1976, pp. 90-91), and all known documents were written in both the language and format usual in Mesopotamia. So far no Elamite tablets from the early 2nd millennium B.C.E. have been found in Anshan, but it seems possible that they will appear in future excavations. The glyptic includes Mesopotamian-inspired pieces, an eastern group of cylinder and stamp seals distinguished by ladies in "crinolines," and "popular style" seals, usually of bitumen (cf. CYLINDER SEALS, pp. 489-90).

 

There is still little archeological evidence for this period from areas farther east, but to the northwest, in Lorestân and Kordestân, the older towns of the Godin III4-3 cultures continued to be occupied.

 

Plate IV. Kaftari painted pot, Malyan, Operation H5, no. M.1437; height 53.4 cm.

Photograph courtesy of William M. Sumner.

 

 

The Middle Elamite period (ca. 1600-1000 B.C.E.).

The beginning of the Middle Elamite period is marked historically by the disappearance of the dynasty of the Sukkalmahs and the revival of the royal title "king of Susa and Anshan." The end is conventionally placed at ca. 1000 B.C.E. Few changes in material culture can be identified before the 8th century, however (de Miroschedji, 1981a; idem, 1982, pp. 60-63), and there are gaps in the written sources at both the beginning and the end of the period.

 

Middle Elamite I (1600-1350 B.C.E.)

The archeological and art-historical distinctions that mark the beginning of the period are matters of debate (e.g., Carter, 1984, pp. 144-45; idem, 1994b; Steve, Gasche, and De Meyer, p. 78; Spycket, 1992a, pp. 230-33). This uncertainty reflects the absence of published stratigraphic information on the Ville Royale A at Susa and a scarcity of other documentation (cf. Vallat, 1990, pp. 124-25). Architectural remains from Susa AXII-XI include the large central building (ca. 1600-1450), possibly a beer hall and brothel associated with the cult (Trümpelmann, pp. 36-44), and a large courtyard house (the eastern complex) with a long construction history. The use of four pilasters attached to the long walls of the main reception room distinguished the Susian house plan from those common in Mesopotamia (Roaf, p. 82).

The major architectural remains known from this period are, however, at Kabnak (Haft Tepe) in the Susiana plain 25 km southeast of Susa. Excavated structures include a funerary temple and associated vaulted baked-brick underground tombs, as well as two mud-brick terraces (possibly the eroded cores of ziggurats) and adjacent rooms (Negahban, pp. 12-19, plans 1-7). One fragmentary inscribed stele found in the temple courtyard near the largest of the tombs indicates that the complex was part of a funerary cult center maintained by, if not built for, King Tepti-ahar in the 16th century B.C.E. (Reiner). Attached to the larger mud-brick terrace were a double-chambered kiln and a workshop area, providing evidence of metal, bone, mosaic, and shell-working, as well as ceramic production and the modeling of unbaked clay heads. Painted clay funerary heads first appeared in Middle Elamite I contexts at Kabnak and continued in use throughout the period (cf. Amiet, 1966, figs. 347-53; Spycket, 1992b, pp. 135-36; Negahban, pp. 37-39; Plate V).

 

Plate V. Painted clay head from Haft Tepe, Middle Elamite I; height 28 cm.

Photograph courtesy of Ezat O. Negahban

 

 

Characteristic Middle Elamite I ceramic types include a variety of round-shouldered, button-, stump, or pedestal-based jars or goblets (Negahban, figs. 2-7; Gasche, type 20 a-b). The final date at which these forms were in use appears to have been ca. 1350, for they are unknown at Âl Untaš Napiriša (Chogha Zanbîl, q.v.; the ancient city was also known as Dûr Untaš). Glyptic of this period from Susiana shows close links with seals and sealings from Nuzi in northern Mesopotamia; the latter are well dated to the 15th-14th centuries B.C.E. (cf. CYLINDER SEALS, pp. 492-93).

 

 

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