TEPE YAHYA (Tappe Yaháya@), archaeological site in the Sog@un valley
(56ò52' E, 28ò20' N), Kerman province, ca. 220 km south of Kerman and 130 km
north of the Straits of Hormuz. The site is a mound (tepe), 19.8 m. high,
187 m. in diameter at the base, and was discovered in 1967 by a survey team from
Harvard University under the direction of C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky (Lamberg-Karlovsky,
1970, pp. 1-5; Negahban). Tepe Yahya was occupied, with interruptions, from the
late Neolithic (ca. 5500 BCE) to the early Sasanian (300 CE) period. To date,
the 6th through 3rd millennium BCE levels have been fully published, whereas
those dating to the later periods are still under study. Thus, the sequence of
occupation that follows (after Thornton et al., pp. 1452-3; Potts, 2001, pp.
195-207; Beale, 1986, p. 11) remains tentative, particularly for periods IVA
through I:
Period VII5500-4500 BCE
Period VI-VC4500-3600 BCE
Period VA-B3600-3200 BCE
Period IVC23100-2800 BCE
Period IVB6-12400-2000 BCE
Period IVA1800-1400 BCE
Period III800-500 BCE
Period II500-275 BCE
Period I200 BCE - 300 CEFollowing an initial sounding in 1967, six full
seasons of excavations were conducted at Tepe Yahya (1968-71, 1973, 1975) and
the site continues to provide the only long stratigraphic sequence in all of
southeastern Persia.
Period VII is represented by four sub-phases (D-A). The best-preserved
architecture dates to VIIB and VIIA and consists of multi-room dwellings and
storage rooms of a cell-like nature, often covering an area less than 2 square
meters. These are built of molded, thumb-impressed mud bricks, generally
measuring 36 x 15/16 x 9/10 cm (Beale, 1986, p. 111). Generally, similar
dwellings appear in periods VI and V (particularly VC). Periods VIB and VIA are
also characterized by several noteworthy features, including areas of paving, a
retaining wall, and large quantities of stone-and-shard rubble fill. Small
quantities of exotic foreign materials, including Anatolian obsidian, turquoise,
lapis lazuli and mother-of-pearl, appear in the early levels at Tepe Yahya
(Beale, 1973), as does a single shard of Mesopotamian ¿Obayd-type pottery (Kamilli
and Lamberg-Karlovsky, pp. 53-54), suggesting long-distance contacts in the 6th
and 5th millennia BCE. The faunal assemblage during the early periods is
dominated by domesticated sheep, goat, and cattle remains (Meadow, 1986, Fig.
3.3). In the ceramic industry, unpainted, chaff-tempered coarse-ware gradually
gives way to a variety of painted types (Sog@un Bichrome, Sog@un Red-painted
Ware, Black-on-Buff Ware), some of which find both specific and generic
parallels further west at sites like Tell-e Eblis and Tell-e Ba@kun (Beale,
1986, pp. 39-89), in the nearby Rud-e Goæk drainage (Prickett, Figs., III.1-5)
and to the east at sites like Chah Husseini (ˆa@h-Háosayni) (Lamberg-Karlovsky
and Schmandt-Besserat, pp. 130-3). The early chaff-tempered ware is particularly
interesting because larger vessels were put together by employing a hitherto
undocumented technique known as "sequential slab construction" (Vandiver).
Period IV consists of three quite distinct phases. The earliest, Period IVC, is
dominated by a large building complex in which foreign objects, including Susa
III/Proto-Elamite-type economic texts (Damerow and Englund), Jamdat Nasr-like
polychrome pottery and bevel-rim bowls (Potts, 2001), and cylinder seals and
sealings with close parallels at Susa, Tell-e Malya@n and K¨afa@ja (Pittman)
were found. The layout of the IVC building employs a standard unit of
measurement found in temples VII and VI at Eridu (Tell Abu ˆahrayn) in Iraq and
at Háabuba Kabira in Syria during the late 4th millennium BCE (Beale and
Carter).
The Period IVB levels consist of several rooms, the earliest of which (the
"Persian Gulf" room) contained pottery with parallels throughout the
Indo-Iranian borderlands and the Persian Gulf region: fine black-on-orange,
storage jars with meandering, plastic snake decoration or raised ridges,
black-on-greyware (Potts, 2003, pp. 3-6), along with a stone stamp seal of
Persian-Gulf type (Potts, 2001, Fig. 4.6). Soft-stone (chlorite) bowls, many
with figurative decoration (snakes, zebu bull, date-palms, "hut-pot") or
patterns which replicate basketry (e.g. mat-weave, imbricate) were manufactured
at the site, as demonstrated by the discovery of large amounts of de‚bitage,
semi-finished pieces, and finished (if often fragmentary) vessels (Kohl, 1974;
2001; Lamberg-Karlovsky, 1988). A later style of carved chlorite bowl,
characterized by zigzag decoration beneath the rim and occasional saw-tooth
decoration on the surface of the rim, found at Tepe Yahya in late 3rd and early
2nd millennium contexts, may also have been manufactured at the site (Potts,
2003). Cylinder seals from period IVB (and IVA) display iconography with close
parallels at ˆa@hda@d (Pittman, 2001). Finally, period IVA consists of
several levels of well-preserved architecture but relatively few ceramic
parallels that link it with other parts of Persia.
Period III, the main Iron Age occupation at the site, is dominated by two
large, mud-brick platforms (Lamberg-Karlovsky and Magee, 1999). Ceramics from
the later levels show some Achaemenid characteristics, while stone vessels find
parallels in the Oman peninsula. Period II ceramics include carinated vessels
with Hellenistic overtones and period I yielded an incised shard (Lamberg-Karlovsky,
1970, Fig. 3m) with a fragmentary Middle Persian inscription that reads -]tkn
'P (Frye, 1970) and is likely to date to ca. 300 CE There is no Islamic
occupation on the mound.
Bibliography: T. W. Beale, "Early Trade in Highland Iran: A View from
a Source Area," World Archaeology 5, 1973, pp. 133-48. Idem,
Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran, 1967-1975: The Early Periods, Cambridge,
1986. Idem and S. M. Carter, "On the Track of the Yahya Large Kus: Evidence for
Architectural Planning in the Period IVC Complex at Tepe Yahya," Pale‚orient
9, 1983, pp. 81-8. P. Damerow and R. K. Englund, The Proto-Elamite Texts from
Tepe Yahya, Cambridge, 1989. R. N. Frye, "A Middle Persian Inscribed Shard
from Tepe Yahya," in C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, Excavations at Tepe Yahya,
Iran, 1967-1969, Cambridge, 1970, p. 131. D. C. Kamilli and C. C.
Lamberg-Karlovsky, "Petrographic and Electron Microprobe Analysis of Ceramics
from Tepe Yahya, Iran," Archaeometry 21, 1979, pp. 47-59. P. L. Kohl,
Seeds of Upheaval: The Production of Chlorite at Tepe Yahya and
an Analysis of Commodity Production and Trade in Southwest Asia in the Mid-Third
Millennium, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1974. Idem, "Reflections on the Production of
Chlorite at Tepe Yahya: 25 Years Later," in D. T. Potts, Excavations at Tepe
Yahya, Iran, 1967-1975: The Third Millennium, Cambridge, 2001, pp. 209-30.
C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran, 1967-1969,
Cambridge, 1970. Idem, "The 'Intercultural Style' Carved Vessels," Iranica
Antiqua 23, 1988, pp. 45-95. Idem and P. Magee, "The Iron Age Platforms at
Tepe Yahya," Iranica Antiqua 34, 1999, pp. 41-52. C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky
and D. Schmandt-Besserat, "An Evaluation of the Bampur, Khurab and Chah Husseini
Collections in the Peabody Museum and Relations with Tepe Yahya," in
Mountains and Lowlands: Essays in the Archaeology of Greater Mesopotamia,
ed. L. D. Levine and T. C. Young, Jr., Malibu, Calif., 1977, pp. 113-34. R. H.
Meadow, "The Geographical and Paleoenvironmental Setting of Tepe Yahya," in T.
W. Beale, Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran, 1967-1975: The Early Periods,
Cambridge, 1986, pp. 21-38. E. O. Negahban, "The Tepe Yahya Excavation Permit,"
Iranica Antiqua 37, 2002, pp. 229-32. H. Pittman, "Glyptic Art of Period
IV," in D. T. Potts, Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran, 1967-1975: The Third
Millennium, Cambridge, 2001, pp. 231-68. Idem, ed., Excavations at Tepe
Yahya, Iran, 1967-1975: The Third Millennium, Cambridge, 2001. Idem, "A
Soft-Stone Genre from Southeastern Iran: Zig-zag bowls from Magan to Margiana,"
in T. F. Potts, M. Roaf, and D. Stein, eds., Culture Through Objects: Ancient
Near Eastern Studies in Honour of P. R. S. Moorey, Oxford, 2003, pp. 77-91.
Idem, "Tepe Yahya, Tell Abraq and the Chronology of the Bampur Sequence,"
Iranica Antiqua 38, 2003, pp. 1-24. M. E. Prickett, Man, Land and Water:
Settlement Distribution and the Development of Irrigation Agriculture in the
Upper Rud-i Gushk Drainage, Southeastern Iran, vols. 1-3, Ann Arbor, Mich.,
1986. C. P. Thornton, C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, M. Liezers, and S. M. M. Young,
"On Pins and Needles: Tracing the Evolution of Copper-Base Alloying at Tepe
Yahya, Iran, via ICP-MS Analysis of Common-Place Items," Journal of
Archaeological Science 29, 2002, pp. 1451-60. P. Vandiver, "Sequential Slab
Construction: A Conservative Southwest Asiatic Ceramic Tradition ca. 7000-3000
B.C.," Pale‚orient 13, 1987, pp. 9-35.
(D. T. POTTS)
September 1, 2004
source:
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