Konar Sandal

For the modern-day village, see Konar Sandal, Iran.
Konar Sandal
Konar Sandal is located in Iran
Konar Sandal
Shown within Iran
LocationKermān Province, Iran
Coordinates28°26′57.74″N 57°46′42.32″E / 28.4493722°N 57.7784222°E / 28.4493722; 57.7784222
TypeSettlement
History
CulturesJiroft
Site notes
Excavation dates2002-2008
ArchaeologistsYousof Madjidzadeh
ConditionIn ruins

Konar Sandal is a Bronze Age archaeological site, situated in the valley of the Halil River just south of Jiroft, Kermān Province, Iran.

Archaeology

Konar Sandal South

The site consists of two mounds a few kilometers apart, called Konar Sandal North and Konal Sandal South with a height of 13 and 21 meters, respectively. Konar Sandal North, the larger of the two, has an area of about 300 meters by 300 meters. The site was first visited by Aurel Stein in 1936.[1] The site was examined in the 1980s as part of an areal survey. Modern palm agriculture has destroyed the many small mounds in and around the main mounds that the survey identified and there is notable damage from looting.[2]

Konar Sandal

After objects from the site began appearing on the antiquities market in 2001, professional excavation were conducted from 2002 until 2008 by a team led by Yousef Majidzadeh.[3] Among the finds were a decorated clay statue relief found in Konar Sandal South.[4]

  • Konar Sandal South - This mound consist of an upper town, with a medium-sized mudbrick building (termed a Citadel by the excavators), and a sizable surrounding lower town. The lower town is largely covered by modern agriculture. Radiocarbon dating (calibration method is unclear) date it to between 2880 and 2200 BC. This correlates to the Early Dynastic to Akkadian Empire period in Mesopotamia. A total of sixteen excavation trenches were dug at this mound. A number of clay sealings were found, both from stamp seals and cylinder seals. In Trench XIV a "city seal", used to seal a door, was recovered which matched those found at Jemdat Nasr and Ur and which prompted the theory that there was a Kengir League of cities in the Early Dynastic I period.[5][6] The excavators identified four occupation levels on the upper mound. In the oldest level an administrative building was constructed, later demolished and infilled before the Citadel was built. The Citadel was surrounding by a 10 meter wide brick wall or platform (with niches). A small, 7 centimeter, inscribed brick fragment (later called text E') was found in a secondary context next to the gateway to the Citadel. It was thought to possibly contain 5 Linear Elamite characters though this is uncertain. The lower town was given over to residential and industrial uses.[3]
  • Konar Sandal North - Three sides of the mound have been heavily damaged by the mining of agricultural material. Twenty six excavation trenches were opened. The top of the mound holds two mudbrick platforms, the upper 150 meters by 150 meters and the lower 300 meters by 300 meters and 6.5 meters high. The upper platform is faced by niched buttresses that extend 4 meters and are 8 meters wide. The lower platform is faced by engaged semi-circular buttresses with a diameter of 4 meters spaced 1 meter apart. The dating of construction on Konar Sandal North is unclear aside from generally being from the 3rd millennium BC.[3]

In 2006 a 11.5 centimeter by 7 centimeter by 1.8 centimeter inscribed baked brick (with Texts γ / D') was submitted to the excavators, claiming to have found it in his garden (distance from Konar Sandal site is unclear). A small excavation in the garden found the remains of a kiln and three inscribed bricks baked were found. Two of the tablets (texts α / B', β / C') have what could possibly be Linear Elamite symbols on one side and symbols of an unknown nature on the other. The third has only unknown symbols. Text B' bears 5 (or perhaps 6) characters and text C' 6 (or perhaps 7) characters.[7] There has been speculation about the unknown symbols, called "Geometric script" by the excavator, ranging decorative gibberish to musical symbols. There has been controversy as well about whether the tables themselves are forgeries.[8][9][10]

Mahtoutabad

The site of Mahtoutabad is located about 1.4 kilometers southeast of the Konar Sandal North and about 1.3 kilometers northeast of the Konar Sandal South. After the graveyard area was exposed in a 2001 flood it was heavily looted by locals and objects began appearing on the antiquities market. The site was professionally excavated by a team led by Y. Madzjidzadeh from 2006 to 2009. The excavators defined four stratigraphic occupation levels:

  • Mahtoutabad I - c. 4100-3700 BC.[11]
  • Mahtoutabad II - c. 3700-3400 BC.
  • Mahtoutabad III - c. 3400-3000 BC. Uruk 3/4 period ceramics including beveled rim bowls were found. Beveled rim bowls made up 13% of the ceramics found.[12][13][14]
  • Mahtoutabad IV - c. 2400 BC. Graveyard level.[15][16]

Hajjiabad-Varamin

The site of Hajjiabad-Varamin lies about 5 kilometers southwest of Konar Sandal South. It was an industrial production site and occupied from the late fifth to the late third millennium BC. Several cemetery areas lie adjacent to the main mound in the east.[17][18][19]

History

Chlorite vessel from Kerman Province, Iran. 3rd millennium BC - National Museum of Iran

The site of Konar Sandal South occupation has been dated to c. 2880 BC to c. 2200 BC in the Early Bronze Age. Dating of Konar Sandal North occupation pattern is less clear aside from being in the 3rd millennium BC. Based on ceramic and artistic parallels these sites are proposed to belong to an Early Bronze Age Jiroft culture along with Shahr-e Sukhteh, Shahdad, Tal-i-Iblis, and Tepe Yahya.[20] This proposal has been criticized on various grounds.[21] Majidzadeh suggests they may be the remains of the lost Aratta Kingdom.[3] Other conjectures have connected the site with the obscure city-state of Marhashi. Shimashki has also been suggested.[22][23]

See also

References

  1. ^ [1] Aurel Stein, "Archaeological Reconnaissances In North-western Indian And South-eastern Iran", Macmillan, 1937
  2. ^ Sajjadi, S.M.S., "Prehistoric Settlements in the Bardsir Plain, South-Eastern Iran 1976-1977", East and West 37, no. 1-4, pp. 11-130, 1987
  3. ^ a b c d Madjidzadeh Y. and Pittman H., "Excavations at Konar Sandal in the Region of Jiroft in the Halil Basin: First Preliminary Report (2002-2008)", Iran 46, pp. 69-103, 2008
  4. ^ [2] Hadian Dehkordi, Manijeh, and Youssef Majidjadeh, "The Archeological and Technical Studies on Unique Architectural Ornaments with Clay Reliefs in Jiroft, Iran", The International Journal of Humanities 29.1, pp. 48-68, 2002
  5. ^ [3] Matthews, Roger, and Amy Richardson, "Cultic resilience and inter-city engagement at the dawn of urban history: protohistoric Mesopotamia and the ‘city seals’, 3200–2750 BC", World Archaeology 50.5, pp. 723-747, 2018
  6. ^ [4] Pittman, Holly, "Administrative role of seal imagery in the Early Bronze Age: Mesopotamian and Iranian traders on the plateau", Seals and Sealings in the Ancient World: Case Studies from the Near East, Egypt, the Aegean, and South Asia, pp. 13-35, 2018
  7. ^ Madjidzadeh, Y., "Jiroft tablets and the origin of the linear Elamite writing system", in: T. Osada/M. Witzel (ed.), Cultural relations between the Indus and the Iranian plateau during the third millennium BCE. Indus project, Institute for humanities and nature, June 7–8, 2008. Harvard oriental series, opera minora 7, Cambridge, pp. 217–243, 2011
  8. ^ Andrew Lawler, "Ancient Writing or Modern Fakery?", Science, Vol. 317. no. 5838, pp. 588–589, 3 August 2007
  9. ^ [5] Desset, François, "A new writing system discovered in 3rd millennium bce Iran: the Konar Sandal 'geometric' tablets", Iranica Antiqua, pp. 83-109, 2014
  10. ^ Kervran, Matthieu, "The Konar Sandal' Geometric' inscriptions: a graphotactic analysis", 2017
  11. ^ [6] Vidale, Massimo, and François Desset, "Mahtoutabad I (Konar Sandal South, Jiroft): Preliminary evidence of occupation of a Halil Rud site in the early fourth millennium BC", in Ancient Iran and Its Neighbours : Local Developments and Long-range Interactions in the 4th Millennium BC, Oxbow Books, pp. 233-251, 2013
  12. ^ [7] Desset, François, Massimo Vidale, and N. Alidadi Soleimani, "Mahtoutabad III (province of Kerman, Iran): an “Uruk-related” material assemblage in eastern Iran", Iran 51.1, pp. 17-54, 2013
  13. ^ [8] Vidale, Massimo, "A Vessel for Building Another Vessel. A Technical Template of the Late 4th Millennium BCE in the Central-Eastern of the Iranian Plateau?", Iranian Journal of Archaeological Studies 1.2, pp. 9-16, 2011
  14. ^ Potts, Daniel, "Bevel-Rim Bowls and Bakeries: Evidence and Explanations from Iran and the Indo-Iranian Borderlands", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 61, pp. 1–23, 2009
  15. ^ [9] Vidale, Massimo, Francois Desset, and Irene Caldana, "The Ceramic Context of a “Jiroft” Style Chlorite Vessel. From a Damaged Grave of Mahtoutabad (Konar Sandal South, Kerman, Iran)", Paléorient. Revue pluridisciplinaire de préhistoire et de protohistoire de l’Asie du Sud-Ouest et de l’Asie centrale, pp. 47-2, 2021
  16. ^ [10] Desset, François, et al., "A grave of the Halil Rud valley (Jiroft, Iran, ca. 2400-2200 BC): stratigraphy, taphonomy, funerary practices", Iranica Antiqua 52, pp. 25-60, 2017
  17. ^ [11] Eskandari, Nasir, et al., "Preliminary report on the survey of Hajjiabad-Varamin, a site of the Konar Sandal settlement network (Jiroft, Kerman, Iran)", Iran, pp. 1-28, 2021
  18. ^ [12] Eskandari, Nasir, and Massimo Vidale, "Drilling stone vessels in third-millennium BC Iran: new evidence from Hajjiabad-Varamin, Jiroft (Kerman Province)", Antiquity 96.389, pp. 1142-1161, 2022
  19. ^ [13] Eskandari, Nasir, et al., "A Late 4 TH to Early 3 RD Millennium BC Grave in Hajjiabad-Varamin (Jiroft, South-Eastern Iran): Defining a New Period of the Halil Rud Archaeological Sequence", Iranica Antiqua, 2020
  20. ^ Yousef Madjidzadeh, Jiroft: The Earliest Oriental Civilization (Tehran 2003)
  21. ^ [14] O. W. Muscarella, "Jiroft and "Jiroft-Aratta" A Review Article of Yousef Madjidzadeh, Jiroft: The Earliest Oriental Civilization", Bulletin of the Asian Institute, 15, pp. 173-198, 2005
  22. ^ P. Steinkeller, "The Question of Marhaši: A Contribution to the Historical Geography of Iran in the Third Millennium B.C.", in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, 72, pp. 237-265, 1982
  23. ^ Vallat, Franc, "Elements de geographie elimite", Paleorient 11(2), pp. 49–54, 1985

Further reading

  • Ascalone, Enrico, "Pesi dall'Iran Orientale. Metrologia a Shahr-i Sokhta e Konar Sandal in un articolato e integrato sistema di relazioni", Tales of Three Worlds. Archaeology and Beyond: Asia, Italy, Africa. A Tribute to Sandro Salvatori, hrsg. v. Usai, Donatella, Tuzzato, Stefano, Vidale, Massimo, pp. 3–16, 2020
  • [15] Eskandari, Nasir, et al., "Jiroft Civilization: Based on the Cuneiform Texts and Archaeological Evidences from Varamin and Konar Sandal", History of Islam and Iran 30.47, pp. 11–29, 2020
  • [16] Eskandari, Nasir, et al., "Sequential Casting Using Multiple Materials: A Bronze Age “Royal Sceptre” from the Halil Rud Valley (Kerman, Iran)", Iran 58.2, pp. 167-179, 2020
  • Eskandari, Nasir, "A Reassessment of the Chronology of Konar Sandal North, Jiroft, SE Iran", Payām-e Bāstānshenās 9.18, pp. 69–76, 2013
  • Gurjazkaite, K., J. Routh, M. Djamali, A. Vaezi, Y. Poher, A. N. Beni, and H. Kylin, "Vegetation History and Human-Environment Interactions through the Late Holocene in Konar Sandal, SE Iran", Quaternary Science Reviews 194, pp. 143–55, 2018
  • Mashkour, M., M. Tengberg, Z. Shirazi and Y. Madjidzadeh, "Bioarchaeological Studies at Konar Sandal, Halil Rud Basin, Southeastern Iran", Environmental Archaeology 18.3, pp. 222–46, 2013
  • [17] Oudbashi, Omid, Atefeh Shekofteh, and Nasir Eskandari, "Provenance of the Bronze Age lapis lazuli pieces from the Early Urban Center of Konar Sandal, Jiroft, Southern Iran", Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 55, 2024