Malekzadeh, Mehrdad, Reza Naseri, Elena Fausti, Andrea Cesaretti & Roberto Dan. 2026. The Achaemenid cemetery of Mersin (Semnan Province, Iran): local identities and imperial connections on the northern Iranian plateau. Antiquity. Published online 2026:1-9. doi:10.15184/aqy.2026.10317.
Rescue excavations at Mersin (Semnan, Iran) reveal a tightly patterned Achaemenid-period cemetery. Thirty-four graves, excavated between 2014 and 2024, combine local mortuary traditions with imperial-era objects, demonstrating how provincial communities selectively adopted imperial markers to negotiate identity and refining narratives for the empire’s north-eastern interior.