Oct 00 - What's claimed to be a Ziggurat at Tappe Sialk (proto-Elamite, most likely 3000-2500 BC) Kashan

I walked most of the way back to the city NE up the Amir Kabir st. from Fin and stopped to tour this just NW of the street. This site of adobe and mud-brick ruins consists of two tell sites @ 600 m.s apart, 'Sialk South' on which stands this structure, which in 2000 was claimed to be not only a ziggurat, but the oldest known to archaeology anywhere (Wikipedia still claims that it is but it's not, see below), and the much older 'Sialk North'. Tappe Sialk is said to be so ancient that it's something of a cradle of Iranian civilization, older than or at least contemporary with Susa although much smaller in area, which was nurtured and supported by "the pristine large water source [from the Karkas mtn.s], the Cheshmeh ye Soleiman (Solomon's Spring)". I took my time to walk all around it and take in all the details, as is my wont, in the deeply eroded adobe (although you can see some brick in this photo) and amongst the ubiquitous pottery sherds, etc. I was here at a good time of day, late in the afternoon with 'golden hour' light as you can see. As at Hasanlu (and Susa too), a friendly group of boys appeared soon after I arrived who wanted candy and attention. One had some pottery sherds for sale, I bought two, and at one point as we walked around they pointed out a needle or 2 left behind by a junkie in an adobe alcove. Later they threw rocks at me from behind and from a distance, as some had done at Hasanlu a month or so earlier (and once at Susa too), while I continued my tour. They threw them one at a time and never hit me, as they were just looking for attention, but it was less surprising and distracting than at Hasanlu. It was fascinating and cerebral to tour the site of one of the oldest cities I've toured to date (if not the oldest. Was the much older Jericho a city? Was Sialk really a city?)

 

- Again, in 2000 the structure in this photo was claimed to be the oldest ziggurat known to archaeology anywhere, a reputation based on the findings of French archaeologist Roman Ghirshman and co. who excavated the site /b/ 1933 and '36. (The competition includes the massive, Sumerian 'Anu' ziggurat [on which the 'White Temple' was built] at Uruk in the 'Late Uruk Period' aka 'Uruk III', @ 3,200-3,000 BC [learner.org]. smarthistory.org/white-temple-and-ziggurat-uruk/ ) Artifacts from that first dig wound up primarily at the Louvre, with some at the British Museum, the Met in NYC, the Bastam in Tehran and in the hands of private collectors, and include some finely painted pottery similar to that found at Susa.

- But in 2001, a year after this was taken, archaeologist S. Malek Shahmirzadi initiated a 5 yr. interdisciplinary research project which involved excavation and carbon-dating, the ‘Sialk Reconsideration Project’, "intended to [determine and] redefine cultural sequences at Sialk from the Neolithic to the end of the Iron Age. The data [obtained] from 'Sialk South' consist of 12 radiocarbon dates, incl. 10 from the stratified sequence of Trench E1. ... A Bayesian model was constructed using the stratigraphic sequence in Trench E1. ... Chronologically, the South mound covers the main periods of the Early Chalcolithic, Middle Chalcolithic, Late Chalcolithic, proto-Elamite and the Iron Age." www.academia.edu/19743014/_2013_publ_2015_A_new_radiocarb...

- (I'll revise the following some time if I find another article re the results and get a better clue.) The article I quote from in the link above is the only source I've found online (to date) re the test results, but it confuses me. Radio-carbon results in a chart at p. 30 include 10 from Tappe Sialk, with 5 from Sialk III (2 from the 'Early Chalcolithic' [EC], 3 from the 'Mid-Chalcolithic' [MC]) that (ostensibly) date /b/ @ 3,230 and 3,010 BC and at least 3 ('Early Bronze Age 1' [EB1]) from charcoal samples at Sialk IV (which I've read, in less reliable sources such as livius.org [see below], and which is unconfirmed in this article, is the site or 'horizon' of the ziggurat) that date /b/ @ 2600 and 2520 BC (although I don't know where those samples were found on site). At p. 36, the authors write that "[t]he modeled dates show continuity /b/ EC, MC, LC and the start of the EB1 ...", BUT that "[t]he modeled values of the boundaries are: ...

2. transition from EC and MC (T1) /b/ 4002 - 3853 cal BC (3976 - 3911 cal BC at 68% ...);

3. transition /b/ MC and LC (EMC) /b/ 3916 - 3582 cal BC (3858 - 3711 cal BC at 68% ...);

4. transition /b/ LC and EBI /b/ 3682 - 3324 cal BC (3632 - 3385 cal BC at 68% ...); ..."

Dates for the transition /b/ the Mid and Late-Chalcolithic on p. 36 (3,916 and 3,582 BC) predate those for charcoal dated to the MC in the chart on p. 30 (/b/ @ 3,165 and 3,010 BC), by up to 750 years. ?? I must've misconstrued the results in that chart somehow. (The MC and EC dates look to be much too close in that chart too.) If you get it better than I do too, please weigh in with a comment.

- This project had a dramatic moment or two. A footnote (no. 172) to an article written in 2005 by Azarnoush and Helwing reads: "Shahmirzadi’s proposal to reconstruct this building as a ziqqurat with two ramparts, and to date it to the early 3rd mill. BC, is not only not shared by some of his team members, but has also led to a very polemic and personal debate that will not be repeated here. Investigations of the construction continue."

 

- According to Livius.org (a page "created in 2010; last modified [in] 2020"), the Sialk IV period, to which this structure belongs, "was more or less contemporary with the 'Early Dynastic Period' in southern Iraq, @ 3,000 - 2,500 BCE. ... Cylinder seals are proof of flourishing interregional trade, there's evidence [of literacy] in a proto-Elamite cuneiform script [5 tablets in that script, which competes for the title of the world's earliest, were found here in the first dig in the 30s], and the inhabitants were capable of producing bronze. The prosperity of this age can also be deduced from the construction of a ziggurat, ... the oldest monument of this type in Iran. [This claim has been challenged too as the remains of a ziggurat at Susa could predate it.] It had three platforms [which should qualify it as a ziggurat] and was ascended from the south." www.livius.org/articles/place/tepe-sialk/

 

- Sialk appears to have been one of the world's cradles of early metallurgy, and evidence has been published that it's the site of "the earliest silver production" yet found anywhere (together with Arisman and Tappeh Hissar, two contemporary sites in Iran). !! "The south Tell includes the Sialk III and IV levels. The 1st, divided into 7 sub-periods, corresponds to the 5th mill. BC and the beginning of the 4th (c. 4000 BC). This period is in continuity with the previous one, and sees significant complexity in architecture (molded bricks, use of stone) and crafts, metallurgy in particular. ... Tepe Sialk was an important centre for metallurgy in central Iran during Sialk III and IV." Finds include much slag, litharge cakes, crucibles and moulds. "Charcoal found in one of the furnaces together with litharge fragments were radiocarbon dated to 3660-3520 BC., the oldest known fragments of such processes in the ancient world." (Wikipedia and N. Nezafati and E. Pernicka of the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum and the University of Heidelberg). So Iran, specifically this region, appears to be the cradle of silver production.

- "Besides pottery production on a larger scale, systematic experiments with new materials, copper and silver in particular, seem to have taken place during the Chalcolithic. Copper smelting and the casting of artifacts is documented in individual bldg.s of the settlements in the first half of the 4th mill. B.C., but also at small independent sites. Individual smelting sites scattered at the edge of the desert [the Dasht-e Kavir] were recorded during the Arisma¯n survey that don't seem to be associated with any permanent settlement. The extraction of silver from lead is regularly practised in the larger sites and is attested at Arisma¯n and at Tappe Sialk. This developing metal industry must be understood within the framework of a growing supra-regional network: artifacts produced in the highland sites were distributed to Susa and to other lowland sites. ... Arisma ¯n now provides an instructive example of an industrial scale metalsmiths’ settlement." (Azarnoush and Helwing, 2005)

- www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9nVfiYnCow

 

 

- So no, the proto-Elamites didn't invent the ziggurat, BUT they invented or were the first to smelt and produce silver. That said, Iran has so much in its architectural heritage which truly is original and primary, although largely unrecognized in the west. Some examples:

1. The first high dome on a square base with pioneering use of the squinch at the 3rd cent. palace of Ardeshir Babakan in Fars.: flickr.com/photos/97924400@N00/2993566556/in/dateposted-p...

2. The double dome and the 2nd highest dome anywhere (after the Hagia Sofia) until Brunelleschi's achievement in Florence: flickr.com/photos/97924400@N00/3509364810/in/dateposted-p...

3. The rib or ribbed vault, which became such an important and basic element of medieval Gothic architecture, invented or at least developed in ancient Iran (by the Medes?), where it "appears to have been confined, primarily." It was "employed extensively" at Nush-i-Jan (750-600 BC) in the construction of huge vault bricks, 1.2 m.s long. "One would expect such long bricks to be fragile, but they were strong enough to support the floor of an upper room in the central temple." (Van Beek) case.edu/lifelonglearning/sites/default/files/2020-02/Van... flickr.com/photos/97924400@N00/3623624478/in/photostream/ Van Beek writes that "a rib vault couldn't have been as strong as a pitched-brick or radial vault, and apart from a certain simplicity of construction it probably had few advantages." ? But it was essential to gothic architecture for good reason. "The ribs transmit the load downward and outward to specific points, usually rows of columns or piers, greatly reduc[ing] the weight and thus the outward thrust of the vault", permitting medieval Western European architects to build "higher and thinner walls with much larger windows." (Wikipedia) I hadn't read nor heard about the pioneering use of rib vaulting at Nush-i Jan until I found the article from Scientific American in the link above, and now, in light of the great length of Iran's 'Tentative list' of sites and sights proposed for designation as 'World Heritage' by Unesco, I'm all the more surprised that it's not on it. It's a gimme, arguably the finest surviving Median bldg. (!), at least one of the oldest surviving Zoroastrian fire-temples (but which seems to predate Zoroaster himself), and the best early example of the extensive employment of rib vaulting in the region where it seems to have been developed and where it might have been invented (as opposed to the arch itself or the pointed arch), a very big deal.

4. The Taq-i Kisra, the world's largest ancient arch, dating from sometime /b/ the 3rd and 6th cent.s and a world wonder, remains standing at ancient Ctesiphon, capital of the Persian Sassanian empire in modern Iraq. At 28.4 m.s in height x 25.5 m.s, it's the largest, unreinforced brick vault in the world, a landmark in the history of architecture.

5. The Sassanian 'Great Wall of Gorgan' aka 'Sadd-i-Iskandar', 'Alexander's Wall', is the 2nd longest defensive wall built in antiquity or before the 20th cent. (the 3rd behind the modern wall dividing North and South Korea) at 195 km.s in length and 5-10 m.s in width, built of mud- and fired-brick, gypsum, and mortar, with > 30 fortresses along its length. It stretches from the town of Pishkamar at the foothills of the Pishkamar mtn.s of NE Iran west to the shores of the Caspian, and is one of several 'Caspian gates' in the region of Hyrcania, believed to have provided protection from the marauding 'White Huns'. It's longer than 'Hadrian's wall' in England and the 'Antonine wall' in Scotland combined. The 'Great Wall of China' is, of course, much longer. (Honourable mention should be made of a close 3rd in the running, an engineering feat even less well known than the Gorgan Wall, 'Sungbo's Eredo' near Lagos in Nigeria, longer than the Ming dynasty portion of the Great Wall at > 160 km.s in length, a continuous system of defensive walls and ditches or moats with internal banks dug to encircle and protect the area of the ancient Ijebu-ode Kingdom [a Yoruba kingdom], the largest single monument in Africa. The difference in height /b/ the depth of the ditch and the upper rim of the bank on the inner side can reach 20 m.s. "A 6,500-km. long series of connected but separate earthworks [surround Ifẹ̀, Ilesa, and the Benin Iya] in the neighboring Edo-speaking region." [Wikipedia])

6. Again, ancient pioneering Iranian metallurgists in this region and further north towards the Caspian seem to have been the first in the world to produce silver.

- I read years ago in a text (that I've misplaced) that the earliest examples or example of proto-Elamite writing or hieroglyphics predate the earliest Sumerian cuneiform, and so proto-Elamite would be the world's earliest form of writing, but internet search results are contradictory on this point. "Proper Proto-Elamite was used ... for a brief period /b/ 3300 and 3000 BCE (circa the Jemdet Nasr period of Mesopotamia)" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Elamite while writing was "first developed around 3200 B.C. by Sumerian scribes in the ancient [Sumerian] city-state of Uruk." www.archaeology.org/issues/213-1605/features/4326-cuneifo... It seems that the development of the earliest proto-Elamite and Sumerian scripts was neck and neck. According to J. Wright at the University of Texas, "the transition from counters to script took place simultaneously in Sumer and Elam ... when, @ 3500 BC, Elam was under Sumerian domination." sites.utexas.edu/dsb/tokens/the-evolution-of-writing/ Even if Sumerian pre-dates proto-Elamite, the development of the world's 2nd oldest writing system is a big feather in any cap.

- So Iran has enough superlatives. Let Iraq have its oldest and earliest ziggurats.

 

 

From Kashan I headed (by bus I think?) to the popular museum town of Abiyaneh or Abyaneh. (It's become so popular since that tourists are charged a fee today to enter the town.) It wasn't mentioned in my LP guide, so someone I spoke with in Kashan must have extolled its virtues. See my next photo taken in that town.

- My bus would've headed SE @ 5 clicks down the 71 to the 665 and then SE down that road @ 35-40 clicks to cross the 7 and then 10-15 to the turnoff on the mtn. road to Abyaneh, @ 20 km.s west, OR the bus would've headed < 10 km.s down the 587 and turned left and east onto the 7, @ 35 km.s SE to the 665, and turned right and south, etc.

 

Misses en route from Kashan to Abyaneh:

- The first rte. passes @ 2 km.s south of the adobe ruins of the sprawling Asad Abad castle with its abundance of arches, @ 1 km. SE of the turn-off to the 665 from the 71.

- The 665 passes alongside and to the south of the 'Navab Anticline' @ 25 km.s SE of Kashan, a large oval plateau surrounded by a steep ridge. It's dramatic and fascinating from space on google maps, but I don't see any photos of it online. (?)

- The Abrouz Shah Abbasi caravanserai, Safavid, restored and in use, in the town of Abuzeydabad, @ 12 km.s NE of the 71, from a pt. @ 30 km.s SE of Kashan.

(I write much more re sites and sights further SE along and handy to the 71 in my en route list from Natanz to Ardestan in this photo comment.: www.flickr.com/photos/97924400@N00/2993316628 )

- I don't recall it and didn't recognize it for what it is (I'd remember it if I had), but my bus passed alongside the famous 'Natanz Nuclear Facility' down the 665 and just south of where it crosses the 7 (and 33 clicks N-NW of the town of Natanz, where I later toured a famous mosque en route). I just found it on google maps. All these years (after its existence was revealed in the news in @ 2002 [I thought "What? I've been there."]) I assumed it was in or @ Natanz. It's "generally recognized as Iran's central facility for uranium enrichment with > 19,000 gas centrifuges currently operational, nearly half fed with Uranium hexafluoride. ... On Oct. 28, 2020, the IAEA released satellite images [indicating] that Iran had begun construction of an underground plant near the nuclear facility at Natanz. In March 2021, Iran commenced enrichment at Natanz with a 3rd set of advanced nuclear centrifuges in a series of violations of the defunct 2015 nuclear accord." As to security incidents, Natanz "was hit by a cyber attack [with the 'Stuxnet' virus] alleged to have been carried out in an operation dubbed 'Olympic Games' by a coalition of German, French, British, American, Dutch and Israeli intelligence organizations. ... At @ 2 a.m. on July 2, 2020, a fire and explosion hit a centrifuge production plant at an enrichment facility at Natanz. A group known as the "Cheetahs of the Homeland" claimed responsibility. Some Iranian officials suggested the incident was caused by cyber sabotage. ..." (all Wikipedia)

- Re Stuxnet: youtu.be/dobTyPKccMA?si=NNPl1jGLmyASnmBG

- The incredible Hanjan castle, a semi-intact citadel with yellow, mud-brick walls on a field-stone base high above and across from the road to Abyaneh, @ 2 km.s west of the turn-off from the 665. I wonder, could this have been the structure that I saw through a bus window, and thought "Wow, I should get off", but didn't. He who hesitates is lost. I remember it was to my left as we drove past it (this is south of the road, and the bus drives West to Abyaneh), but across a stream (or was it above a green patch with trees as at Hanjan?). No other structure I've seen on google maps along any of the roads I travelled is a better candidate. (I was hoping I'd find it.) I write about driving by it or something similar in my write-up for this photo.: www.flickr.com/photos/97924400@N00/2992846350/in/datepost... (I didn't see it on my return trip en route to Natanz.) It dates to the Seljuq era and has seen some recent maintenance and renovation as it was designated National heritage in the '80s. Every family in the village of Hanjan owned at least one of > 100 rooms in the citadel (similar in use to the Saxon 'meal rooms' in the fortified churches of southern Transylvania) which has 4 stories and is 2,600 m.s2, per comments on google maps. youtu.be/W0igiIsLlrM?si=0jrm5cdh1KXr14Jz

- The village of Barz, through which my bus passed, is similar to neighboring Abyaneh with much picturesque, old adobe architecture, including a visibly ancient Imamzadeh with another tiled tent dome, alleged to be that of Ismail & Ishaq, sons of Imam Mousa ibn Ja'far (aka Al-Qazim ["the one who controls his anger"], the famous 7th Imam?) See my write-up for my photo taken on a terrace in the 12th cent. Zeyaratgah shrine in Abyaneh, said to house the remains of Yaḥyā and ʿĪsā, either the same two men or their brothers, also alleged to be sons of the 7th Imam. I haven't found any information online re this shrine in Barz.

- Many wild antelopes are seen in the foothills north of Barz in a video on google maps.

Done