Susa was an ancient city in the lower Zagros Mountains about 250 km (160 mi) east of the Tigris, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers in Iran. One of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East, Susa served as the capital of Elam and the winter capital of the Achaemenid Empire, and remained a strategic centre during the Parthian and Sasanian periods.
The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) is the modern archaeological designation for a particular Middle Bronze Age civilisation of southern Central Asia, also known as the Oxus Civilization. The civilisation's urban phase or Integration Era, was dated in 2010 by Sandro Salvatori to c. 2400–1950 BC, but a different view is held by Nadezhda A. Dubova and Bertille Lyonnet, c. 2250–1700 BC.
Chogha Zanbil is an ancient Elamite complex in the Khuzestan province of Iran. It is one of the few existing ziggurats outside Mesopotamia. It lies approximately 30 km (19 mi) southeast of Susa and 80 km (50 mi) north of Ahvaz. The construction date of the city is unclear due to uncertainty in the chronology of the reign of Untash-Napirisha but is clearly sometime in the 14th or 13th century BC. The conventionally assumed date is 1250 BC. The city is currently believed to have been destroyed by the Neo-Assyrian ruler Assurbanipal in about 645 BC, along with the Elamite capital of Susa though some researchers place the end of occupation in the late 12th century BC. The ziggurat is considered to be the best preserved example of the stepped pyramidal monument by UNESCO. In 1979, Chogha Zanbil became the first Iranian site to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The Proto-Elamite period, also known as Susa III, is a chronological era in the ancient history of the area of Elam, dating from c. 3100 BC to 2700 BC. In archaeological terms this corresponds to the late Banesh period. Proto-Elamite sites are recognized as the oldest civilization in Iran. The Proto-Elamite script is an Early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use before the introduction of Elamite cuneiform.
The Proto-Elamite script is an early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use before the introduction of Elamite cuneiform.
Roman Ghirshman was a Ukrainian-born French archeologist who specialized in ancient Persia. Ghirshman spent nearly thirty years excavating ancient Persian archeological sites throughout Iran and Afghanistan.
The Gandhara grave culture of present-day Pakistan is known by its "protohistoric graves", which were spread mainly in the middle Swat River valley and named the Swat Protohistoric Graveyards Complex, dated in that region to c. 1200–800 BCE. The Italian Archaeological Mission to Pakistan (MAIP) holds that there are no burials with these features after 800 BCE. More recent studies by Pakistani scholars, such as Muhammad Zahir, consider that these protohistoric graves extended over a much wider geography and continued in existence from the 8th century BCE until the historic period. The core region was in the middle of the Swat River course and expanded to the valleys of Dir, Kunar, Chitral, and Peshawar. Protohistoric graves were present in north, central, and southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as well as in north-western tribal areas, including Gilgit-Baltistan province, Taxila, and Salt Range in Punjab, Pakistan, along with their presence in Indian Kashmir, Ladakh, and Uttarakhand.
Shahr-e Sukhteh, c. 3550–2300 BC, also spelled as Shahr-e Sūkhté and Shahr-i Sōkhta, is an archaeological site of a sizable Bronze Age urban settlement, associated with the Helmand 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. It was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in June 2014.
Tepe Sialk is a large ancient archeological site in a suburb of the city of Kashan, Isfahan Province, in central Iran, close to Fin Garden. The culture that inhabited this area has been linked to the Zayandeh River Culture.
Persian wine, also called May, Mul, and Bâdah, is a cultural symbol and tradition in Iran, and has a significant presence in Iranian mythology, Persian poetry and Persian miniatures.
Sadegh Malek Shahmirzadi was an Iranian archaeologist and anthropologist.
Gonur Depe is an archaeological site, dated from 2400 to 1600 BCE, and located about 60 km north of Mary, Turkmenistan consisting of a large early Bronze Age settlement. It is the "capital" or major settlement of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC).
Tepe Hissar is a prehistoric site located in the village Heydarabad just south of Damghan in Semnan Province in northeastern Iran.
Shir Ashian Tepe is a prehistoric archaeological site in the Semnan Province of Iran, situated in Shir Ashian, about 15 kilometres southwest of Damghan.
The Leyla-Tepe culture of the South Caucasus belongs to the Chalcolithic era. It got its name from the site in the Agdam District of modern-day Azerbaijan. Its settlements were distributed on the southern slopes of Central Caucasus, from 4350 until 4000 B.C.
Luri dances include a range of folk dances popular among different groups of Iran's Lur people. They usually include common Iranian dances; Collective dances and quadrille, the circular arrangement, and the colorful clothing.
Bronze Age in Azerbaijan began in the second half of the 4th millennium BC and ended in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, while the Iron Age commenced in approximately 7-6th centuries BC. The Bronze Age in the territory of today's Azerbaijan is divided into the early Bronze Age, the middle Bronze Age and the late Bronze Age. Bronze Age was studied in Nakhchivan, Ganja, Dashkasan, Mingachevir, Gobustan, Qazakh and Karabakh.
The Nakhchivan culture, also known as the Kizilveng culture or Painted Pottery culture, was formed during the Middle Bronze Age in the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC. The main center of painted pottery were Nakhchivan and the Arpachay Valley, in Anatolia, Urmia lake basin and the South Caucasus. In Azerbaijan, this culture was studied on the basis of archeological materials from the I Kultepe, II Kultepe, Shahtakhti, Gizilburun, Nahjir, Shortepe, Garachuk, II Gazanchi qala and other monuments. The painted pottery culture was studied by Azerbaijani archaeologists such as O. Habibullayev, V. Bakhshaliyev, V. Aliyev and A. Akbarov. According to V. Bakhshaliyev, the formation of this culture dishes in Nakhchivan was connected with the formation of the city states.
The Anau culture was an ancient agricultural civilization of Central Asia centred in southern Turkmenistan. It started during the Chalcolithic period around 4000 BC, following the Neolithic Jeitun culture. It is named after its main site of Anau, Turkmenistan.
Tepe Sofalin is an ancient Near Eastern archeological site on the Tehran Plain south of the Alborz Mountains on the north-central plateau of Iran about 10 kilometers east of the modern city of Varamin and 35 kilometers southeast of the modern city of Tehran. It lies in the Tehran Province of Iran. Sofalin means pottery shards in Persian. It was occupied from the Late Chalcolithic period until the Early Bronze period, during the Proto-Elamite Period, and again in the Iron III period. The site of Tape Shoghali is adjacent and the site of Tepe Hissar is only a few kilometers away.
