Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Tag: Archaeology

  • Technological Traditions in Late Antiquity Dashtestan Ceramics

    Naderi, Sona and Zohreh Zehbari. 2026. Technological traditions in Late Antiquity Dashtestan ceramics: A multiscale analytical approach. Primitive Tider (Special Issue 2026: Espens Festskrift): 147-162.

    This paper presents a multiscale analysis of ceramic technology from the Dashtestan region of southern Iran, focusing on the Late Antique period (approximately 3rd–9th centuries CE). Rather than treating pottery types as fixed cultural markers, the study investigates the organization, transmission, and evolution of ceramic production practices across the period and the regional landscape. The analysis begins by defining technological traits using a standardized set of macroscopic characteristics of pottery sherds. These variables act as proxies for underlying technological choices and ceramic recipes. By combining multivariate similarity analysis (Gower Distance), lowdimensional visualization (UMAP), and community detection (Leiden Clustering), the research identifies nine discrete technological groups of production practices operating within the larger ceramic landscape in the region. Chronological and locational overlays reveal temporal drift and spatial participation within these traditions. This suggests that technological changes were gradual and embedded in regional interaction networks, rather than occurring through breaks or isolated workshop traditions. The results suggest a regionally connected ceramic production system, in which recipes and techniques were shared across many sites.

  • Iran (2025 & 2026)

    Iran (2025 & 2026)

    Among the papers published in the journal Iran over the past two years, the following deal with various aspects of ancient Iran:

    • Mozhgan Jayez & Roghayeh Rahimi Sorkhani: The flaked stone assemblage of Soha Chay Tepe and the chalcolithic chipped stone industries of the Zagros Region
    • Zohreh Zehbari: The men who wrought the metals: On Achaemenid-era metalworkers based on the Persepolis tablets
    • Ali A. Vahdati, Raffaele Biscione, Roberto Dan & Marie-Claude Trémouille: Grave 12 at Chalow: The Burial of a Young Lady of the “Greater Khorasan Civilization”
    • A. Mani Irannejad: The Indo-Iranian Approach to Greater Iran
    • Gad Barnea: Some Achaemenid Zoroastrian Echoes in Early Yahwistic Sources
    • Marco Fattori & Marco F. Ferrari: Zeus Pharnauas and Persian Mazdaism in Cappadocia
    • Farzaneh Tajabadi: Persian Loanwords in Qurʾānic Arabic
    • Nolwen Rol, Reinhard Bernbeck, Lisa Wolff-Heger, Hassan Akbari, Morteza Hessari, Susan Pollock & Daniel Schäfer: Chalcolithic Painted Pottery of the Sialk III Period: Quantifying Stylistic Continuities and Changes on the Northern Central Plateau
    • A. Mani Irannejad: The Old Avesta and Birth of Iranian Identity
    • Behrouz Khanmohammadi, Annarita Stefania Bonfanti & Roberto Dan: A New Decorated Bronze Belt from Orumiyeh Region, North-Western Iran
    • Mehrdad Malekzadeh, Reza Naseri, Somaye Boroomandara, Andrea Cesaretti & Roberto Dan: Preliminary Report of the First Season of Excavation at the Achaemenid Period (Iron Age IV) Cemetery in Mersin, Semnan Province, Iran
    • Rhyne King: Trips to the King, Taxation, and the New Year in the Persepolis Fortification Archive
    • Meysam Labbaf-Khaniki: Discovering a Fire Temple in Qalʿe-ye Dokhtar of Bazeh Hur and Some Remarks on Ādur Burzēn-Mihr
    • Fatemeh Karimi & Abed Taghavi: Zoroastrians in the Economy of Yazd During the Qajar and Pahlavi I Dynasties

  • David Stronach and British Archaeology in the Middle East

    David Stronach and British Archaeology in the Middle East

    Maras, Sabrina. 2026. David Stronach and British Archaeology in the Middle East. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

    Drawn from interviews conducted between 2007 and 2020, this account of the life of renowned archaeologist and former director of the British Institute of Persian Studies, David Brian Stronach, reveals a lost period in international archaeology within Iran, when BIPS was founded and acted as a unique intellectual hub for archaeologists, expats, scholars and foreigners

    It describes the challenges he faced establishing the Institute and his experiences working with some of the 20th century’s most fascinating personalities in archaeology, such as James Mellaart, Max Mallowan, Seton Lloyd and Agatha Christie. It also provides a new account of the effects of the Iranian revolution of 1979 on Stronach’s own life’s work, on the Institute he built, and on the international world of Iranian archaeology.

  • Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan (AMIT): Vol. 50

    Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan (AMIT): Vol. 50

    Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan (AMIT): Vol. 50, 2018 [2026], ed. by German Archaeological Institute (DAI), Tehran Branch of the Eurasia Department, is now pubished.

    Table of Contents:

    • Articles:
    • Morteza Zamani Dadaneh, Sirvan Mohammadi Ghasrian and Steve Renette: Late Neolithic to Early Chalcolithic Settlements on the Marivan Plain of western Iran
    • Elena Rova, Davit Kvavadze, Flavia Amato, Elisabetta Boaretto, Giovanni Boschian, Giovanni Siracusano and Laura Tonetto: Tsiteli Gorebi 5, a New Early Chalcolithic Site in Eastern Georgia, Results of the 2018-2019 Excavations by the “Georgian-Italian Lagodekhi Archaeological Project”
    • Behzad Hoseyni Sarbisheh: A brief report of the rescue excavation at Kuy-e Keyvan Tepe in the Azna Plain, Lorestan, Iran
    • Rouhollah Shirazi, Zahra Jalali and Siamak Sarlak : Roudān’s Cultural interactions with neighboring regions in the Bronze Age based on excavations at Tom-e Māroun
    • Enrico Ascalone: The Bronze Age Oxus-Jiroft-Elam Integrated Cultural System
    • Steffen Kraus, Ahmadzhon Sh. Ahmedshaev, Hamza A. Saipov and Nikolaus Boroffka: On the Use of Uzbek Copper Ores in the Prehistory of Central Asia
    • Mehrdad Ghodrat-Dizaji: The Collapse of Sasanian Central and Provincial Authority (AD 623-633): Literary and Numismatic Evidence
    • Ara Avagyan, Tim Kinnaird, Achim Lichtenberger, Lilit Sahakyan, Torben Schreiber and Mkrtich H. Zardaryan: Evidence of a historical earthquake in Artaxata-Artashat in the Ararat Basin of Armenia
    • Hans-Ulrich Seidt und Paul Bucherer-Dietschi: Die Buddhas von Bamiyan: Erkenntnisse und Erfahrungen. Der Nachlass von Edmund Melzl (1937-2015) in der Stiftung BIBLIOTHECA AFGHANICA.
    • Nachruf / Obituary
    • In Memoriam Wolfram Kleiss (Stephan Kroll)
    • In Erinnerung an Michaeil N. Fedorov (Alexander M. Kamishev)
    • Buchbesprechungen / Reviews
    • Arzhantseva Khorezm (Nikolaus Boroffka)
    • Zwei neue Grundlagen-Publikationen zur Archaologie Afghanistans (Nikolaus Boroffka)

  • Mobility and Archaeogenetics in Central Asia

    Mobility and Archaeogenetics in Central Asia

    Baumer, Christoph, Mirko Novák & Susanne Rutishauser (eds.). 2026. Mobility and archaeogenetics in Central Asia. People – goods – ideas. 3rd International conference on Central Asian archaeology in Bern, 11th–13th January 2024 (Schriften zur vorderasiatischen Archäologie 24). Wiesbaden: Harrossowitz.

    Central Asia is a huge region characterized by a rich variety of ecologies, climates, geographical environments, social systems, languages and cultures. Within this region multiple cultural exchanges took place. At the same time, it engaged in bi-directional exchange with neighboring regions such as the Pontic Steppe, the Near East, the Indian subcontinent and East Asia. Mobility was a key precondition for these multifaceted contacts and exchanges, and it concerned people, goods and products as well as ideas, concepts and innovations. The papers presented at the 3rd International Conference on Central Asian Archaeology focus on how cultural transmission processes developed and what role mobility played in these processes. The time frame is from the Early Bronze Age to the end of the 14th century CE. Special attention will be paid to the added value that archaeogenetics brings to research. Archaeogenetics is an outstanding tool to detect and verify migrations and is rapidly growing in importance. Several papers demonstrate how archaeogenetic and isotopic studies contribute to the detection and understanding of mobility-induced cultural exchange.

  • Sasanian Silver Coins from Atbatan Necropolis Near Demirchi (Shamakhi District, Azerbaijan)

    Huseynov, Rustam N. & Akif A. Guliyev. 2026. Sasanian silver coins from Atbatan necropolis Near Demirchi (Shamakhi district, Azerbaijan). Azerbaijan Journal of Archaeology and Anthropology 2 (1): 99-105.

    This article presents a small group of Sasanian silver drachms discovered during archaeological excavations at Atbatan necropolis near the village of Demirchi in the Shamakhi region of Azerbaijan. The coins were recovered from burial contexts in association with human skeletal remains and accompanying grave goods, providing important archaeological evidence for the circulation of late Sasanian silver coinage in the Shirvan area. The study focuses on the typological and chronological attribution of the coins based on iconography, mint signatures, regnal dates, and Pahlavi legends preserved on the specimens. The Demirchi finds contribute to the growing corpus of Sasanian numismatic material discovered in Azerbaijan and provide new data on Sasanian influence, trade networks, and population contacts in the Shirvan region during Late Antiquity – Early Middle Ages.

  • Lowland Susiana in the Fourth Millennium BCE

    Lowland Susiana in the Fourth Millennium BCE

    Abbas Alizadeh, with contributions by Hossein Davoudi, Kevin Lidour, Marjan Mashkour, Valentin Radu, Mohammad Reza Rokni, Noshad Rokni, and Shiva Sheikhi. 2026. Lowland Susiana in the Fourth Millennium BCE: Excavations at KS-04, KS-59, and KS-108 (ISACP 2). Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    During two seasons in 2004–2006, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures excavated three major prehistoric population centers in northern Susiana, in the modern-day province of Khuzestan, Iran: KS-04 (Chogha Do Sar), KS-59 (Abu Fanduweh), and KS-108 (Beladieh). The three sites were chosen because of their large size and the prominent role they have played in analyses of the pottery typology, chronology, and politics of fourth-millennium BCE Susiana.

    Most researchers consider the fourth millennium to be a pivotal period in the development of state-level organization in southwestern Iran. During this time, KS-04, KS-59, and KS-108, along with Chogha Mish and Susa, constituted the region’s major polities. Whereas much of the theoretical framework concerning the local origins of sociopolitical complexity has been based on excavated materials from Susa and Chogha Mish, interpretations of KS-04, KS-59, and KS-108 have largely been derived from surface surveys. ISAC’s stratified excavations at these three population centers have now provided important contextual evidence for the processes underlying sociopolitical and economic complexity in prehistoric lowland Susiana.

  • East and West (vol. 65)

    East and West (vol. 65)

    The latest volume of East and West contains several interesting articles, some of which deal with aspects of (ancient) Iran.

    • F. Grenet, F. Ory, A Preliminary Note on a Painting from Kuh-e Khwāja in the New Delhi National Museum
    • E. Matin, Reaching the Persian Gulf from the Kur River Basin: Patterns of an Intermittent Connectivity
    • S. Belelli, Contact Change and Dialect Convergence in the Kurdish of Khanaqin
    • E. Morano, E. Shavarebi, Irano-Semitica minora: 1. Gaza, 2. wādī
    • M. Labbaf-Khaniki, The Last Image of the Last King: A Sasanian Scene from the Bāzeh Hūr Fire Temple

  • On Achaemenid-era metalworkers based on the Persepolis tablets

    Zehbari, Zohreh. 2025. The men who wrought the metals: On Achaemenid-era metalworkers based on the Persepolis tablets. Iran, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/05786967.2025.2551493

    While varied attempts have been made to study Achaemenid metal artefacts, we still know little about the craftsmen who wrought the metals. Metalworkers manufactured various products for different social classes and for different contexts, and must have played a notable role in the society of the Achaemenid period. The present paper aims to address the various textual and archaeological evidence attesting metallurgical specialisations, and to collect information regarding goldsmiths, silversmiths, blacksmiths, and bronze/coppersmiths who worked and travelled within the Persian empire, tracing different aspects of their activities and lives such as their status, wage, gender, and ethnicity. In addition, some previously unknown facts about the smiths’ condition will be presented according to the available documents and relevant comparisons with the neighbouring regions.

  • Another clay tag with Achaemenid Seal Impressions

    Treuk, Matheus. Another clay tag with Achaemenid seal impressions in the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of the University of São Paulo, Brazil (MAE/USP). Arta 2026.001.

    Presented here is a clay tag bearing Achaemenid seal impressions, preserved at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and identified by registration number 0816 4-00235. The tag originally formed part of the so-called ‘Banco Santos’ or ‘CidCollection’. It clearly belongs to the dossier of 42 items previously published by Henkelman, Jones, and Stolper (ARTA 2004.001), as well as two additional items more recently published by Ignacio Márquez Rowe (ARTA 2025.001). The MAE clay tag was first published by the Brazilian Assyriologist Katia Maria Paim Pozzer in a 2004 catalogue accompanying a Brazilian exhibition of the CidCollection.