Archaeology Magazine - March 1962 - 30

SHAHRIYAR

continued

In the late autumn of 1957 excavation was begun
in Shahriyar. Owing to contrary weather, digging
could not be carried out to the deeper levels at the site
intended, a big mound at a village called Jukin, and
instead shafts were sunk at two sites which were easier
to work. One of these was Kara Tepe, about twenty
miles west of Teheran. This was a village occupied at
the time known as the Sialk II, or Hissar I a, period
(late fifth to mid-fourth millennium B.c.) . This phase
is not well known, for little has been found at Sialk
itself beyond potsherds, and few even of these at Tepe
Hissar. Some years ago a few complete bowls of the
period found their way to Europe; one is in the
British Museum and the rest appear to be in Finland.
They come from an area about one hundred miles
south of the Shahriyar district, not very far from
Sialk. A number of vases of this period were excavated
before the war at Cheshme Ali, a suburb of Teheran,
but these have not been published. Consequently the
vessels illustrated here are of types as yet largely unknown.
So far as present knowledge goes, the lovely blackon-red painted pottery of Sialk II, Kara Tepe and
Cheshme Ali is not found at any site west of the
Shahriyar area. How far east it extends is also not
known, though the scanty remains of the earliest levels
at Tepe Hissar indicate that this, or a closely similar
fabric, will be found in the lands southeast of the
Caspian Sea. Whether the black-on-red painted ware
of the earliest levels at Anau, in western Turkestan, is
to be connected with the Shahriyar pottery is doubtful, but as the Anau finds have not yet been fully
published one cannot come to any conclusion about
this point. The black-on-red painted pottery of the
Indus Valley civilization is, no doubt, of a later date
than the Kara Tepe and Sialk II deposits, but perhaps
it derives from some common original. There are certain parallels despite the difference in date- not indeed very close in shapes or in decorative motifs,
but perhaps to be sensed in the general style of ornament. If this relationship could be established it might
suggest that there was a fairly closely defined area in
central and eastern Persia, perhaps çxtending toward
Anau, where in early times there flourished a people
who made black-on-red painted pottery. Their descendants could have been the remarkably civilized
and competent folk who built Mohenjo-daro and its
neighboring cities, and thence spread widely over
northern and western India.
The work done at Kara Tepe sheds much light on
the way of life of the people who lived there. One of
the pots, for example, a bowl on a tall stand, seems
30

from its worn surface to have been in use for a considerable time. It is a shape sometimes called a "fruitstand/' The bowl is too flat to be convenientlyused as
a drinking cup, and the term "'fruit-stand" begs the
question. But this particular vessel may have had another use- it might have been a finger bowl. When it
had been washed after restoration, it was placed to
dry not far from a small electric fire. After ten minutes
or so the whole room became scented. The scent appeared to be a flower scent, perhaps from a lilac. The
explanation put forward by a colleague at Manchester whose opinion was sought is that water was
shaken with flowers in a vessel so that a little of the
essential oil of the flower was mixed with the water.
This water was then poured into the bowl. If this
process had been repeated often it is likely that in the
course of time some of the essential oil would have
been absorbed by the porous clay. Washing and drying
the bowl could then cause the scent to appear, even
thousands of years later. If this is indeed a correct
interpretation of the process involved in the scenting
of my office, it sheds light on the sort of thing that
people then liked, and it may be the earliest scent yet .
m
recognized.
Another unusual detail at Kara Tepe is provided by
the discovery of what is certainly a well made and no
doubt efficient public convenience- a sewer provided
by a channel in the ground some two feet below the
ancient surface, with a, pit filled with stones leading
to it. This drain was close to the edge òf the mound,
and would have led to the outward inclined slope. It
is curious to reflect that, though simple to make, very
few such conveniences have been reported from ancient sites.
No trace of metal objects was found at Kara Tepe,
but as the area excavated was small and the depth but
slight, this does not mean that metal was unknown
there. Indeed this is unlikely, for metal objects were
found in the Sialk II strata. But the pottery all looks
very early, and it could well be that it is to be dated
before 3000 b.c., perhaps some centuries earlier.
Various stone objects were found at Kara Tepe, most
of them carelessly shaped flint and chert blades. But
there was one very well made microlith, of what
would be Neolithic type farther west, and a polished
stone axe-head.
The pottery found at Kara Tepe, which is all handmade, ranges from rough and heavy vessels to bowls
of a quite extraordinary delicacy, as fine and thin as
teacups of Wedgwood porcelain, or even thinner.
Some of the bowls of this quality are about eight
inches in diameter.
One can trace parallels in pottery shapes and designs appearing in other regions, but they are certainly

Archaeology Magazine - March 1962

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - March 1962