Author: Abbas Alizadeh Publisher: Oriental Inst Publications Sales ISBN: 9781885923974 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 324
Book Description
After a decade-long hiatus in the years of World War II, archaeological fieldwork was resumed in Iran in 1948. In that year, the Oriental Institute returned to its long tradition of archaeological research by sending Donald McCown to the lowlands of southwestern Iran to conduct a series of surface surveys to find a multi-period site for excavation. For his survey, McCown chose the Ram Hormuz region, southeast of lowland Susiana and the region south and east of the provincial town of Ahvaz down to the Persian Gulf. McCown recorded 118 sites in the Ram Hormuz and Ahvaz areas and eventually chose for excavation the large prehistoric mound complex Tall-e Geser. Three months of excavation in 1948 and 1949 yielded materials that were kept in Chicago for many years. Apart from short articles, the site was never fully published. In Part 1 of this two-part volume, Abbas Alizadeh and colleagues have undertaken a final publication of the site. This task was undertaken because of a number of important considerations. First, the excavations at Geser have been cited as justifying the division of the Uruk period in southwestern Iran into Early, Middle, and Late phases. Second, Geser remains the only systematically excavated site in the Ram Hormuz region - a strategic location between the Susiana and Mesopotamian alluvium and the Zagros highlands of southwestern Iran. Third, Geser has produced a very extensive body of archaeological materials dating to the comparatively less understood proto-Elamite period, roughly the first few centuries of the third millennium bc. And finally, with the exception of a 700-800-year gap following the proto-Elamite phase, Geser remains one of the only sites in the Near East to have a very long and generally uninterrupted depositional sequence, in this case spanning from the fifth millennium BC to the Safavid period. The site's crucial location, its importance in the archaeological literature, and its long stratigraphic sequence made it imperative that the original excavation results from Geser be published in anticipation of a time when the site can be re-excavated. Part 2 of this volume presents the results of regional surveys conducted in the Ram Hormuz plain from 2005 to 2008, which were undertaken by Alizadeh and colleagues with the goal of understanding the semi-nomadic, mobile component of lowland Susiana and its hinterlands through time.
Author: Javier Álvarez-Mon Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 131732983X Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 973
Book Description
Amongst the civilizations to participate in the dynamic processes of contact and interchange that gave rise to complex societies in the ancient Near East, Elam has remained one of the most obscure, at times languishing in the background of scholarly inquiry. In recent years, however, an increasing body of academic publications have acknowledged its relevance and suggested that its legacy was more considerable and long-lasting than previously estimated. The Elamite World assembles a group of 40 international scholars to contribute their expertise to the production of a solid, lavishly illustrated, English language treatment of Elamite civilization. It covers topics such as its physical setting, historical development, languages and people, material culture, art, science, religion and society, as well as the legacy of Elam in the Persian empire and its presence in the modern world. This comprehensive and ambitious survey seeks for Elam, hardly a household name, a noteworthy place in our shared cultural heritage. It will be both a valuable introductory text for a general audience and a definitive reference source for students and academics.
Author: Roger Matthews Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1000570916 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 1239
Book Description
The Archaeology of Iran from the Palaeolithic to the Archaemenid Empire is the first modern academic study to provide a synthetic, diachronic analysis of the archaeology and early history of all of Iran from the Palaeolithic period to the end of the Achaemenid Empire at 330 BC. Drawing on the authors’ deep experience and engagement in the world of Iranian archaeology, and in particular on Iran-based academic networks and collaborations, this book situates the archaeological evidence from Iran within a framework of issues and debates of relevance today. Such topics include human–environment interactions, climate change and societal fragility, the challenges of urban living, individual and social identity, gender roles and status, the development of technology and craft specialisation and the significance of early bureaucratic practices such as counting, writing and sealing within the context of evolving societal formations. Richly adorned with more than 500 illustrations, many of them in colour, and accompanied by a bibliography with more than 3000 entries, this book will be appreciated as a major research resource for anyone concerned to learn more about the role of ancient Iran in shaping the modern world.
Author: Javier Álvarez-Mon Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000034852 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 711
Book Description
The Art of Elam ca. 4200-525 BC offers a view of, and a critical reflection on, the art history of one of the world’s first and least-known civilizations, illuminating a significant chapter of our human past. Not unlike a gallery of historical paintings, this comprehensive treatment of the rich heritage of ancient Iran showcases a visual trail of the evolution of human society, with all its leaps and turns, from its origins in the earliest villages of southwest Iran at around 4200 BC to the rise of the Achaemenid Persian empire in ca. 525 BC. Richly illustrated in full colour with 1450 photographs, 190 line drawings, and digital reconstructions of hundreds of artefacts—some of which have never before been published—The Art of Elam goes beyond formal and thematic boundaries to emphasize the religious, political, and social contexts in which art was created and functioned. Such a magisterial study of Elamite art has never been written making The Art of Elam ca. 4200-525 BC a ground-breaking publication essential to all students of ancient art and to our current understanding of the civilizations of the ancient Near East.
Author: Jan Tavernier Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 9004541438 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 568
Book Description
Susa and Elam II contains 16 contributions presented at an international conference on Susa and Elam (SW Iran) in 2015 in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). They cover various themes on Susian and Elamite history, language, religion, and culture.
Author: Cameron A. Petrie Publisher: Oxbow Books ISBN: 1782972285 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 833
Book Description
The fourth millennium BC was a critical period of socio-economic and political transformation in the Iranian Plateau and its surrounding zones. This period witnessed the appearance of the world’s earliest urban centres, hierarchical administrative structures, and writing systems. These developments are indicative of significant changes in socio-political structures that have been interpreted as evidence for the rise of early states and the development of inter-regional trade, embedded in longer-term processes that began in the later fifth millennium BC. Iran was an important player in western Asia especially in the medium- to long-range trade in raw materials and finished items throughout this period. The 20 papers presented here illustrate forcefully how the re-evaluation of old excavation results, combined with much new research, has dramatically expanded our knowledge and understanding of local developments on the Iranian Plateau and of long-range interactions during the critical period of the fourth millennium BC.
Author: Yasmina Wicks Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd ISBN: 1784911755 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 200
Book Description
This volume is dedicated to the examination of a small corpus of bronze U-shaped burial receptacles from ancient Mesopotamia and Elam, dubbed 'bathtub' coffins for their characteristic apsidal shape, reminiscent of a style of 19th and early 20th century bathtub.
Author: Ralph Haussler Publisher: Oxbow Books ISBN: 1789253284 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 816
Book Description
From generation to generation, people experience their landscapes differently. Humans depend on their natural environment: it shapes their behavior while it is often felt that deities responsible for both natural benefits and natural calamities (such as droughts, famines, floods and landslides) need to be appeased. We presume that, in many societies, lakes, rivers, rocks, mountains, caves and groves were considered sacred. Individual sites and entire landscapes are often associated with divine actions, mythical heroes and etiological myths. Throughout human history, people have also felt the need to monumentalize their sacred landscape. But this is where the similarities end as different societies had very different understandings, believes and practices. The aim of this new thematic appraisal is to scrutinize carefully our evidence and rethink our methodologies in a multi-disciplinary approach. More than 30 papers investigate diverse sacred landscapes from the Iberian peninsula and Britain in the west to China in the east. They discuss how to interpret the intricate web of ciphers and symbols in the landscape and how people might have experienced it. We see the role of performance, ritual, orality, textuality and memory in people’s sacred landscapes. A diachronic view allows us to study how landscapes were ‘rewritten’, adapted and redefined in the course of time to suit new cultural, political and religious understandings, not to mention the impact of urbanism on people’s understandings. A key question is how was the landscape manipulated, transformed and monumentalized – especially the colossal investments in monumental architecture we see in certain socio-historic contexts or the creation of an alternative humanmade, seemingly ‘non-natural’ landscape, with perfectly astronomically aligned buildings that define a cosmological order? Sacred Landscapes therefore aims to analyze the complex links between landscape, ‘religiosity’ and society, developing a dialectic framework that explores sacred landscapes across the ancient world in a dynamic, holistic, contextual and historical perspective.
Author: Takehiro Miki Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd ISBN: 1803270594 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 462
Book Description
This book explores pottery making and communities during the Bakun period (c. 5000 – 4000 BCE) in the Kur River Basin, Fars province, southwestern Iran, through the analysis of ceramic materials collected at Tall-e Jari A, Tall-e Gap, and Tall-e Bakun A & B.
Author: Abbas Alizadeh
Author: Abbas Alizadeh
Author: Javier Álvarez-Mon
Author: Roger Matthews
Author: Javier Álvarez-Mon
Author: Jan Tavernier
Author: Cameron A. Petrie
Author: Yasmina Wicks
Author: Ralph Haussler
Author: Takehiro Miki