Tehran, 27 January 2007 (CHN Foreign Desk) -- The Archeology Research Center of Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) has started talks with the Archeology Department of the British Oxford University to study the chronology of Iran’s prehistoric sites, especially focusing on the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age. The Center is planning to send samples of some prehistoric evidence found in these areas to the University for exact dating.

 

The new initiative is part of a preliminary plan that was recently approved by ICHTO’s Archeology Research Center titled: “Organizing Dating and Chronological Studies of Iran’s Pre-historic Sites with a Focus on Bronze and Iron Age Sites.” Director of the Center, Hasan Fazeli-Nashli and archeologist Mehrdad Malekzadeh have been appointed to implement the plan.

 

Fazeli Nashli had earlier announced that a budget request of 150,000 USD has been approved for this plan; however, the money has not yet been granted to the Center.

 

In an interview with CHN, Mehrdad Malekzadeh said that the main objective foreseen in this plan is to fill the historic gap that occurred toward the end of the Bronze Age and the years that fall between this prehistoric period to the advent of the Iron Age. “The Archeology Research Center is intending to send datable organic materials found in Iran’s prehistoric sites to Oxford University in order to perform radiometric analysis using dating techniques such as radiocarbon and potassium-argon for a more specific dating of Iran’s prehistoric site with an emphasis on transition from Bronze to Iron Age,” explained Malekzadeh.

 

Malekzadeh further said that the new project will also focus on subdivisions of the Iron Age in Iran with Iron Age I having been dated between 1500 and 1250 BC, followed by the second phase which lasts to 850 BC and finally the last stage or Iron Age III that is believed to have taken place between 580-550 BC. Such division is based on archeological studies by Robert H. Dyson Jr. from University of Pennsylvania at Hasanlu Tepe, south of Uromia Lake, northwest Iran. Studies by Thomas Cuyler Young from Royal Ontario Museum’s Department of Near Eastern and Asian Civilizations at Godin Tepe, western Iran, also confirmed Dyson’s divisions.

 

Nonetheless, Malekzadeh believes that the chronological map of the Iron Age as provided by archeologists based on their excavations at Iran’s prehistoric sites is not accurate enough: “Such conclusions are not based on physicochemical studies and laboratory analysis and are approximations based on archeological findings and thus cannot be accurate.”

 

“Archeologists often believe that Iron Age III overlapped with the time of the Median Empire (728 BC-550 BC) followed by the Achaemenids (550 BC–330 BC). Some even argue that there was an Iron Age IV that occurred between 550 and 150 BC. However, we prefer not to use that term and instead call the period that followed Iron Age III the Achaemenid era, followed by the Parthian dynastic period (248 BC–AD 224),” added Malekzadeh.

 

 

Maryam Tabeshian

foreigndesk@chn.ir

 

 

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