Preliminary Report on the Survey of Hajjiabad-Varamin, a Site of the Konar Sandal Settlement Network (Jiroft, Kerman, Iran)

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to introduce the large prehistoric site of Hajjiabad-Varamin, its changes in time and the first discoveries made there, in the specific literature on the early Bronze Age of the south-eastern Iranian Plateau. The first part of the article describes the site, its present damaged conditions, the periodisation we adopted and the complex topographic shifts and changes of functions through time. The second part focuses on the settlement of the 3rd millennium BC and discusses a major craft activity area found east of the main elevation of the site, in which were manufactured vessels in various stones (white alabaster, grey limestones with white fossil inclusions, and probably chlorite). Collections include large drill-heads in volcanic rocks used on the interior of the stone pots, and standardised beads of a green and red-banded calcite broken while being drilled. While the stone vessels find abundant comparisons and were certainly in demand for long-distance trade, the beads type is not known in other contexts and were presumably made for a local demand. We also present the unusual find of a hoard of copper objects which helps framing the 3rd millennium BC centre in terms of cultural links and chronology.

KEYWORDS:

• Hajjiabad-Varamin
• Konar Sandal sites network
• Halil Rud civilisation
• surface survey
• craft activity areas

Acknowledgements

The referees’ comments greatly improved a first version of this article. We are thankful to ICAR; this work has been supported by the Center for International Scientific Studies and Collaboration (CISSC), Ministry of Science Research and Technology, Islamic Republic of Iran, University of Jiroft, by ISMEO (Rome) and the Dept. of Cultural Heritage, University of Padova (Italy). Giancarlo Sidoti, ISCR, Rome, generously helped us for the analysis of tiny fragments of the calcite beads. We are also deeply indebted with Sergio Gnutti and Antonella Zanini (EURAL SPA) for their continuous support. We would like to thank the excellent students of the University of Jiroft, Shahrzad Hashemipour, Mahdi Assad, Amin Mahani, Soudeh Lovari, Matin Karimi and Nasim Mashayekhi for their help in the field.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Stein, Archaeological Reconnaissances in North-Western India and South-Eastern Iran.

2 Madjidzadeh, Jiroft: The Earliest Oriental Civilization; Piran and Hesari, Cultural Around Halil Roud and Jiroft; Piran and Madjidzadeh, Objects from the Jiroft Treasury; Perrot and Madjidzadeh, “L’Iconographie des Vases et Objects en Chlorite de Jiroft”; and “A travers l’ornementation des vases et objets en chlorite de Jiroft.”

3 Perrot and Madjidzadeh, “Jiroft, Fabuleuse Découverte en Iran.”

4 Fouache et al., “Dynamiques géomorphologique dans la vallée de l’Halil Roud”; Fouache, “Jiroft II. Human Geography and Environment”; Madjidzadeh and Pittman, “Excavations at Konar Sandal.”

5 For the Neolithic foundations, Soleimani, “First Season of Excavation in Tape Gavkoshi,” and “Tappeh Gāvkoshi Esfandagheh Jiroft”; Soleimani and Fazeli-Nashli, “The Reevaluation of Kerman Neolithic Chronology.” For the Chalcolithic, see the recent chronological re-assessment of Shafiee et al., “Gahnegari nesbi va motlaq Tappeh Vakilabad Ourzouyeh”; Vidale and Desset, “Mahtoutabad I (Konar Sandal South, Jiroft)”; Solaimani et al., “Khaje Askar”; Mutin, “Cultural Dynamics in Southern Middle-Asia” and “Ceramic Traditions and Interactions”; Mutin et al., “New Discoveries in the Bampur Valley” and “Regional and Long-Distance Exchanges of an Emblematic ‘Prestige’ Ceramic”; Eskandari, “Excavations at the Prehistoric Sites of Tepe Dehno and Tepe East Dehno, Shahdad” and “A Reappraisal of the Chronology of the Chalcolithic Period in SE Iran.” We fully agree with Pfälzner and Soleimani, “The ICAR – University of Tübingen South-of-Jiroft Archaeological Survey,” 136, that “ … The Late Chalcolithic, especially the ‘Aliabad period’, can be regarded as the formative phase of the urban culture of the Bronze Age in the Jiroft region.”

6 Desset et al., “Mahtoutabad III (Province of Kerman, Iran).”

7 Eskandari et al., “Excavations at the Bronze Age Pastoral Site of Hanzaf”; Eskandari et al., “A Late 4th to Early 3rd Millennium BC Grave in Hajjiabad-Varamin” and “The Formation of the Early Bronze Age Jiroft Culture.” For the graves of Mahtoutabad, Vidale, “Searching for Mythological Themes”; Desset et al., “A Grave of the Halil Rud Valley”; and Vidale, “Jiroft La civiltà che non c’era.”

8 Pfälzner and Soleimani, “The ICAR – University of Tübingen South-of-Jiroft Archaeological Survey.” This reports may be consulted also for additional references to previous research.

9 Late Chalcolithic 2 in Ibid.

10 Ibid., 130–1.

11 Ibid., fig. 24; see our Figure 2.

12 Ibid., 116, footnotes 71–3.

13 The preliminary excavations at Hajjiabad-Varamin were made in the frame of a wide collaboration which has variously involved the Universities of Tehran and Jiroft, ICCHTO; and on the Italian side the University of Padua and ISMEO. In February 2017, N. Eskandari, then at the University of Jiroft, dug two Trenches on the Main Mound with the collaboration of Tübingen University (Germany).

14 Tepe Varamin was actually found and registered as a national site in 1380/2002, with the number 4598.

15 See Eskandari et al., “The Formation of the Early Bronze Age Jiroft Culture.”

16 At Mahtoutabad, layers with Uruk-related pottery covered others with Aliabad ware, in turn found above 1 m thick deposits of a different, earlier early Aliabad or Mahtoutabad I ware: see Desset et al., “Mahtoutabad III (Province of Kerman, Iran)” and Vidale and Desset, “Mahtoutabad I (Konar Sandal South, Jiroft).”

17 Eskandari et al., “A Late 4th to Early 3rd Millennium BC Grave in Hajjiabad-Varamin.”

18 Respectively Caldwell, Excavations at Tal-i Iblis; Prickett, Man, Land and Water; Sajjadi, “Prehistoric Settlements in the Bardsir Plain”; for Shahdad, Eskandari, “Excavations at the Prehistoric Sites of Tepe Dehno and Tepe East Dehno” and “A Reappraisal of the Chronology of the Chalcolithic Period in SE Iran”; wider discussion by Petrie, “‘Culture’, Innovation and Interaction” and “The Chalcolithic in southern Iran.” See also Mutin, “Ceramic Traditions and Interactions” and Mutin et al., “New Discoveries in the Bampur Valley,” who at any rate do not clearly distinguish between Mahtoutabad I/Early Aliabad ware and its later evolution of the 4th millennium BC.

19 On Grave 1, see Eskandari et al., “A Late 4th to Early 3rd Millennium BC Grave in Hajjiabad-Varamin.”

20 For the chronological sequence of Tepe Yahya, in part diverging from the traditional ones (re-calibrated dates for Yahya VA at Tepe Yahya and Muradabad, in Voigt et al., “The Chronology of Iran”) we refer here to new evidence already published in Shafiee et al., “Gahnegari nesbi va motlaq Tappeh Vakilabad Ourzouyeh.”

21 Pfälzner and Soleimani, “The ICAR – University of Tübingen South-of-Jiroft Archaeological Survey”; Pfälzner et al., “SOJAS 2015–2018: A Résumé of Four Seasons,” 111.

22 Soleimani and Fazeli Nashli, “Gahnegariye dorehye no-sangiye Kerman.”

23 As described in Vidale and Desset, “Mahtoutabad I (Konar Sandal South, Jiroft).”

24 Ibid.

25 Pfälzner and Soleimani, “The ICAR – University of Tübingen South-of-Jiroft Archaeological Survey,” 127.

26 Vidale and Desset, “Mahtoutabad I (Konar Sandal South, Jiroft),” 247 (four calibrated dates).

27 Ibid., 128, the authors report to have found Uruk-related materials on the surface of the site, but give no supporting evidence of this. Our survey did not reveal a single sherd of such description. As stated above, the Mahtoutabad III assemblage, as published by Desset et al., “Mahtoutabad III (Province of Kerman, Iran),” also includes some sherds of vessels painted in the same simplified graphic tradition, and the Varamin Period pottery we present here has obvious connections with part of the Yahya IVC Black-on-Buff wares, as described, for example, in Lamberg-Karlovsky and Potts, Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Figures 1.12,1.18.A, 2.12.B and E., 2.15.A and some other specimens in Figures 2.22–25.

28 See Eskandari et al., “The Formation of the Early Bronze Age Jiroft Culture.”

29 Madjidzadeh and Pittman, “Excavations at Konar Sandal.”

30 See, for examples, ibid., figs. 22–4.

31 See Heidary et al., “A Surface Collection at Chegerdak” (fig. 12, 34, and 15, 42, both painted), comparable with jars from Bampur III, in De Cardi, Excavations at Bampur, figs. 22 and 23. The mentioned unpainted jars with wavy ridges appear in Lamberg-Karlovsky and Potts, Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran 1967–1975, fig. 4.31. For Konar Sandal South, Madjidzadeh and Pittman, “Excavations at Konar Sandal,” fig. 22.

32 Pfälzner and Soleimani, “The ICAR – University of Tübingen South-of-Jiroft Archaeological Survey,” 124.

33 Materials already noted and collected by the SOJAS project, see ibid., fig. 27.

34 Ibid., 133. We are very grateful to Dr. Amir Hajlu (University of Jiroft) for his preliminary identification of the ceramics found on surface.

35 Ciarla, “The Manufacture of Alabaster Vessels”; “A Preliminary Analysis of the Manufacture of Alabaster Vessels”; “New Material in the Study of the Manufacture of Stone Vases”; “Fragments of Stone Vases as a Base Material”; Boccuti et al., “Preliminary Surface Analyses by ESEM-EDS of Calcite Bowls.”

36 Desset et al., “A Sculpted Dish from Tello.”

37 We report the comparisons for the type in Casanova, La Vaisselle d’Albatre de Mésopotamie, d’Iran et d’Asie Centrale, at page 32, note 34. First of all, Woolley, Ur Excavations, Vol. 2, Pl. 177, U 7648, Tomb 12; Pl. 245, types 54 and 55; Pl. 246, type 59. For Susa, de Mecquenem, “Offrandes de fondation du temple de Chouchinak,” 11, figs. 399a and b; Le Breton, “The early periods at Susa,” 118, fig. 40, n° 7; for the vase a la cachette, Susa Dd, 120, fig. 42, n° 4, Susa Da-De; Steve and Gasche, L’Acropole de Suse, 91–9, pl. 15, n° 16 = pl. photo 74, 2; Acropole, couche 3, end of the Proto-Dynastic period, 83, pl. II n° 11; Acropole, couche 2, early Akkadian period. For Shahdad, Hakemi, Catalogue de l’exposition Lut-Xabis, pl. XII, D, cat. 143, first half of the 3rd millennium BC; and Shahdad, various specimens from Cemetery A, 608–9. Among the Bactrian materials from looted graveyards, Pottier, Matériel funéraire, n° 342, fig. 28 and pI. LXIII. For Khurab, finally, Stein, Archaeological reconnaissances, pl. XXXII, 17 Bi. Casanova’s datings, in this review (see Tableau 9 on chrono-typology), like that of Series IV, goes from 2600 to 1800 BC. Considering the general uncertainty on the precise dating of the pre-Akkadian graves of Ur, the wavering chronology of the Shahdad cemeteries, and, of course, the Bactrian looted finds, a date within the twenty-fourth century BC – as proposed in Benoit 2003 for the vase à la cachette of Susa – would appear more likely. Actually, the type may have survived with variations for the whole last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC.

38 Benoit, “Vase à la cachette.”

39 Piperno and Salvatori, The Shahr-i Sokhta Graveyard.

40 See new chronological evidence in Kavosh et al., Tappeh Graziani.

41 Casanova, La Vaisselle d’Albatre de Mésopotamie, d’Iran et d’Asie Centrale, 33, Pl. 3, 41 and 46; Pl. 4, 47–9, 169.

42 Sub-cylindrical vases, with or without a slightly concave contour, are present, but not very common, in the furnishings of the Royal Cemetery at Ur (Zettler, Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur, cat. 128, p. 155, from Pu’abi’s burial chamber, B17128, U.10921, and cat. 124, p. 153, from PG 1130, 30-12-698, U.11785). But the repertory of stone vessels of the Royal Cemetery is rather dominated by bowls and ovoid forms. In contrast, this type is quite common in the funerary assemblages looted in southern Bactria (Pottier, Matériel funéraire, 161, fig. 27, no. 205, 207, 208; 204, fig. 26; 207, Pl. XXVI; Amiet, “Bactriane Protohistorique,” fig. 7). The type is also well attested in Margiana at the necropolis of Gonur (Sarianidi, Necropolis of Gonur, 111, fig. 93, # 717; see also Salvatori, Gonur-Depe 1, 6–7, who speaks of a “sub-cylindrical vessel with concave profile and everted rim … in variegated alabaster”). The Gonur graves, and the Period Namazga V, are now datable with confidence between 2350 and 2000 BC or later (ibid., and “Thinking around Grave 3245,” this latter a general reassessment of all available absolute datings). Good matches are also identified at Altyn Depe (Masson, Altyn-Depe, burial 813, Pl. XXV, 9a). These objects were common in the Halil Rud valley graveyards (examples in the Jiroft Museum, in Madjidzadeh, Jiroft: The Earliest Oriental Civilization) and in the Barbar temples of Bahrein (Glob, “Alabaster vases from the Barbar Temples,” Fig. 2). For Shahr-i Sokhta, see the above mentioned Ciarla’s papers and several examples in the graves (Piperno and Salvatori, The Shahr-i Sokhta Graveyard; Sajjadi, Excavations at Shahr-e Sukhteh, graveyard). Although a scientific chronological seriation of the graves is still wanted, the association of this type with diagnostic pottery dates it to Period III, now bracketed by 14C between 2600/2550 and 2450 BC. The inventories of Period III, phases 4–3, include some variants, tall or squat (Piperno and Salvatori, The Shahr-i Sokhta Graveyard, shows a squat version from Grave 712, Inv. No. 736, 253, Fig. 579; a better match in Grave 725 Inf., Inv. No. 8229, 278, Fig. 641; see also Sajjadi, Excavations at Shahr-e Sukhteh, graveyard, 414, 275, bottom). Grave 725 Inf. also contains typical ceramic forms of the Konar Sandal South period, thus linking both culturally and chronologically part of the plundered graveyards of the Halil Rud with the maximum early urban expansion of Shahr-i Sokhta. The type, in contrast, is completely absent in the Indus basin, in Shahdad’s cemetery A (Hakemi, Shahdad, various specimens at pages 610–11) but was found in Shahdad cemetery B – a small group of 6 graves – probably datable to the second half of the 3rd millennium BC (ibid., 694, Ra 3, obj. no. 0370, from Grave 042, inv. 1/48).

43 Kavosh et al., Tappeh Graziani, Fig. 13, 3.

44 Casanova, La Vaisselle d’Albatre de Mésopotamie, d’Iran et d’Asie Centrale 33, Pl. 2, 25, 27, 31, 33.

45 14C datings in Kavosh et al., Tappeh Graziani, figs. 10 and 13, 1, 2, 4, 5.

46 Casanova, La Vaisselle d’Albatre de Mésopotamie, d’Iran et d’Asie Centrale, Fig. 5.

47 Hakemi, Shahdad, 616, for example Fl. 5.

48 But they have not yet been tested.

49 Apparently, this possible tool is very similar to that published by Pfälzner and Soleimani, “The ICAR-University of Tübingen South-of-Jiroft Archaeological Survey,” fig. 27, upper right.

50 Ongoing research by the authors and Gianni Marchesi.

51 Pfälzner and Soleimani, “The ICAR – University of Tübingen South-of-Jiroft Archaeological Survey,” fig. 27, second row, to the right.

52 Hakemi, Shahdad, 612.

53 Kohl, “Chlorite and Other Stone Vessels,” 285–6. The type is present at Ur in Grave 800 (queen Pu’abi), where seven plain bowls were offered together with other two carved in the Halil Rud elaborated styles (Wooley, Ur Excavations, Vol. 2, 49–51, Pl. 245; Kohl and Lyonnet, by “Land and By Sea,” 37; Kohl, “Chlorite and Other Stone Vessels and their Exchange”). Hilton, The Stone Vessels, 61, Figs. 69–78, publishes several specimens of this type from Failaka at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, noting “ … morphological similarities with bowls excavated at cemetery sites such as Shahdad, Jiroft, Rufay’a, Ur and Hili North Tomb A … at Tepe Yahya and the Barbar Temple on Bahrain.” Other specimens were found at Tarut (Zarins, Typological Study in Saudi Arabian Archaeology, Pls. 64, 33 and 65, 87). At Shahdad, they were recovered from graves of Cemetery A (Hakemi, Shahdad, 605–7). Others came from the workshop area of at Tepe Yahya, as published in Kohl, “Reflections on the Production of Chlorite.” The base fragment in our Figure 22l seems very similar to others from Tarut (Zarins’ specimens at Pl. 64, 72 or Pl. 65, 325) and to specimens from Shahdad Cemetery A (Hakemi, Shahdad, 607, Fd. 2 and 4). The attention for the exploitation of the chloritic rocks in the Kerman region, in the meantime, is growing (Emami et al., “New insights into the characterization and provenance of chlorite objects”).

54 Bead repertories in Hakemi, Shahdad; Piperno and Salvatori, The Shahr-i Sokhta Graveyard; Schmidt, Excavations at Tepe Hissar.

55 Cf., for example, Rafifar et al., “Janbe hayy as fannavary mathekhary dar Konar Sandal Junuby.”

56 Among many others, Piperno, “Micro-Drilling at Shahr-i Sokhta”; Kenoyer and Vidale, “A New Look into the Stone Drills of the Indus Valley Tradition”; Vidale et al., “Early Evidence of Bead-Making at Mehrgarh.”

57 All the fragments were first cleaned with an ethanol-water mixture (70:30) using brushes. Then a limited soft cleaning was performed with a micro-drill. Once removed the thickest soil deposits, all fragments were dehydrated with acetone. The cleaning was partial, and the objects not coated, so that in future it will be possible to extend the conservation treatment. The fragments were protected with an acrylic resin; after which, we temporarily reconstructed the forms with adhesive tape, for finding the position of the small fragments and the best order to follow to glue them with an epoxy resin. The axe and the adze were softly cleaned, removing most of the soil deposits, with solvents applied by brush, and were not coated. Since the corroded surface of the adze was extremely fragile and detached from the metal below, it was consolidated with an acrylic resin applied in growing percentages. The entire hoard is currently on display in a showcase of the Archaeological Museum of Jiroft.

58 In general, see Bellelli, Vasi iranici in metallo dell’Età del Bronzo, 119–21 and Tables 23 and 28. While such spouted vessels might remind more ancient example of the late 4th or early 3rd millennium BC, for example at Susa in Grave n° 576 (Carter, Excavations in Ville Royale 1 at Susa, fig. 6), in the layer 18/17 of the Ville Royale I trench in Susa, the best comparisons point to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. Several spouted copper vessels were found in Shahdad Cemetery A, see Hakemi, Shahdad, 630 and 631). In the illustrated group, Gf. 5 shows a hemispherical bulging expansion below the spout, which might recall the double festoon or circle incised as flat motifs in the same position in our Vessels 1 and 2. A fragmentary pot of the same form was found in the looted grave n° 114 in Spidej, in the Jazmurian basin (M. Heydari, personal communication). See also a vessel from Bactria (Pottier, Matériel funéraire, n° 243 and Amiet, “Bactriane Protohistorique,” 196 and fig. 161). Other examples were found in Susa (de Mecquenem, Offrandes de fondation du temple de Chouchinak, fig. 21, n° 3 in the Vase à la cachette; 216, fig. 60, n° 19 and 20; Le Breton, “The early periods at Susa,” fig. 41, n° 5, 7 and 8 and Tallon, Métallurgie susienne I, 216–17) and attributed by Le Breton to Susa D. Three vessels, similar but more cylindrical, found in stone-built graves in Gilvaran, just west of Khorammabad in Luristan (Herzfeld, Berichtüber archäologische Beobachtunge-nimsüdlichen Kurdistan und in Luristan, 70 and 71, Tables VI and VII; Parviz and Khadish, “The Elite Early Bronze Age Graves,” 109, n° 25), all with incisions. One, notably, bears a circle under the spout reminding the hemispherical bulging expansion below the spout in a copper pot from Shahdad, and the flat decoration in Vessels 1 and 2 of the hoard. Cylindrical is also a vessel found in Girsu/Tello (de Sarzec, Découverte en Chaldée, Tome I, 410).

59 Madjidzadeh, Jiroft: The Earliest Oriental Civilization, 157, upper left, and unpublished material from the Archaeological Museum of Jiroft.

60 Comparisons for axe 1 are found at Shahdad in Cemetery A (Hakemi, Shahdad, 636, Gp. 3 and Gp. 4), more precisely in Cemeteries B (ibid. 693, Qa. 3) and C (ibid. 698, Ta. 3). However, in all these specimens the blade is less expanded. A mold possibly used for producing an object of the same kind was found in the so-called Site D or “metallurgical workshops,” together with the cylindrical plugs needed for casting the hole of the shaft (ibid. 707, Wa. 1). Adze 1 is rather similar to a tool from the same Cemetery (ibid. 638, Gp. 12), but for the marginal ridges on the lower surface, absent in the Shahdad specimen. Madjidzadeh, in Jiroft: The Earliest Oriental Civilization, 158 also reported a similar adze.

61 The new evidence will also be used as a further reference for the different surveys led in Jiroft up to now. It also improves the available keys to understand the unfortunately more than abundant antiquités orphelines confiscated by Iranian authorities in the last years after the massive lootings, still waiting to be studied in the store rooms of the Archaeological Museum of Jiroft and the Jiroft Cultural Heritage base. This is one of the goals we will try to achieve in the next campaigns.

62 Pfälzner et al., “The ICAR – University of Tübingen South-of-Jiroft Archaeological Survey,” 129.

63 Ibid., at 127, Hajjiabad-Varamin is said to extend for 116 ha, and Marjan-Varamin for 106 ha. The authors here also state that the extension of the two Varamin sites increased from what they call Late Chalcolithic 2 (Aliabad period) to the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, but later, at p. 129, the size of Marjan-Varamin in this last period is reported as 75 ha.

64 The two craft activities are not necessarily contemporaneous. The calcite workshop area has on surface small potsherds (of the size generally encountered on Bronze Age dumps) of both the Varamin and Konar Sandal South periods. If the bowls of calcite and chlorite are reasonably datable after stylistic comparisons, little can be said for the rectangular beads with triangular sections.

65 See Steinkeller, “Trade Routes and Commercial Networks,” 413: note, however, that the author hypothesizes the flourishing of the trade through Marḫaši at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, for which, at Konar Sandal, still we have no factual evidence.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by the Center for International Scientific Studies and Collaboration (CISSC), Ministry of Science Research and Technology, Islamic Republic of Iran, University of Jiroft, by ISMEO (Rome) and the Dept. of Cultural Heritage, University of Padova (Italy).