During a new season of excavation at the cemetery of the ancient site, the team has unearthed a skeleton of woman, who died between the ages of 28 and 30, buried with her child and a marble goblet, the director of the team, Seyyed Mansur Sajjadi, said in press release on Monday.
Such a burial has never been seen during previous seasons of excavation in the Burnt City, Sajjadi said. The archaeologists have also unearthed skeleton of man between 26 and 32 who lacks one of his molars, Tehran Times reported Wednesday.
Based on studies on his other teeth, the archaeologists surmise that the tooth have been pulled out due to infection before his death. Accordingly, they say that people of the Burnt City had used the skills to pull out infected teeth.
Another highlight of this season of excavation is a skeleton of baby wrapped in a wool hide. The baby, who was between 18 and 24 month, wore a string of bone beads around its neck.
The archaeologists have also found bronze mirrors, kohl pots, and colorful dishes buried with women between 20 and 28. The team plans to reconstruct the ancient society of the Burnt City by excavations, collecting artifacts, workshop and laboratorial studies.
The Burnt City was one of rare ancient settlements, in which women were in charge of the financial affairs of their families. Located 57 kilometers from the town of Zabol in Sistan-Baluchestan Province, the Burnt City was the largest urban settlement in the eastern half of the Iranian Plateau.
Covering an area of 151 hectares, the Burnt City is composed of five settlements in its northeastern part, an industrial area, some monumental structures and a cemetery, which are located beside together in shape of consecutive mounds.
A 10-centimeter ruler with an accuracy of half a millimeter, an artificial eyeball, an earthenware bowl bearing the world’s oldest example of animation and many other artifacts have been discovered among the ruins of the city in the course of the many seasons of archaeological excavations conducted by Iranian teams.
The Burnt City was registered on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in June 2014.
Archaeological investigations uncover Elamite, Sassanid earthenware
Archaeological explorations in Namaz historical hills in Gaz have uncovered earthen works belonging to Elamite and Sassanid era.
Abbasali Ahmadi, the head of archaeology group told Mehr News that an Islamic period cemetery had also been uncovered during explorations. “the earthen works are related to the reconstruction period of the mausoleum; explorations in Namaz ancient hills were started in late September and lasted until mid-October,” he added.
Namaz ancient hills of Gaz is located 18Km north of Isfahan and in the vicinity of city public part and Shah Nematollah Vali (a great Iranian Sufi) mausoleum. He pointed to 12 different workshops during explorations; “the cultural items of the exploration include clay belonging to Islamic and late Sassanid eras; they were found in the vicinity of earthen works of the same period,” Ahmdi said.
Ahmadi however said that to speculate the application of these earthen works and large volumes of clay in the site would require further studies; “in addition to broken pieces of pottery, two earthenware jars were uncovered fully in a Sassanid-era chamber,” he added.
The head of exploration team asserted that the position of earthenware jars and their application would give rise to speculations which would require the next phase of explorations.
Unique marble jar found in Iran's Shahr-e Sookhteh
A distinctive marble jar found in excavation operations carried out by Iranian archaeologists in the site of the Shahr-e Sookhteh (Burnt City) in southeastern Iran, it was reported on Monday. According to the Iranian Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, the unique finding was excavated from the grave of a young woman and her child in the Shahr-e Sookhteh cemetery.
Shahr-e Sookhteh is an archaeological site of a sizable Bronze Age urban settlement, associated with the Jiroft culture. It is located in Sistan and Baluchistan Province, the southeastern part of Iran, on the bank of the Helmand River, near the Zahedan-Zabol road. In July, 2014 it was placed on the World Heritage List of UNESCO.
Artifacts recovered from the city demonstrate a peculiar incongruity with nearby civilizations of the time and it has been speculated that Shahr-e-Sookhteh might ultimately provide concrete evidence of a civilization east of prehistoric Persia that was independent of ancient Mesopotamia.
Covering an area of 151 hectares, Shahr-e Sookhteh was one of the world’s largest cities at the dawn of the urban era. In the western part of the site is a vast graveyard, measuring 25 hks. It contains between 25,000 to 40,000 ancient graves.
Analyzing the findings from the ancient graves has led to making of a rich database about archaeological aspects of the city. The settlement appeared around 3200 BC. The city had four stages of civilization and was burnt down three times before being abandoned in 1800 BC.
According to Seyyed Sajjadi, head of the Iranian archeologist team working at the site of the Shahr-e Shookhteh, some 58 new graves and skeletons as well as 262 new subjects have been found in latest excavation operations carried out in the city.
The official said examining of the remains of the bodies have shown that the average of their age was between 25-35 for the adults, 4-7 for children and 1-3 months for the newborns.
Sajjadi said mirrors, colored objects, kohl pots and necklaces were found from the excavated graves.
Some palaeoanthropologists believe that mothers in the Burnt City had social and financial prominence.
The excavations at the Burnt City also suggest that the inhabitants were a race of civilized people who were both farmers and craftsmen.
Source: IRNA [December 28-31, 2014]