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Gorgan Plain
The Gorgan Plain, or Dasht-e Gorgan ( fa, دشت گرگان), is situated in northeastern Iran in Golestan Province. It extends from the lower slopes of the Alborz and Kopet Dag mountain ranges to the steppes of Turkmenistan. The River Gorgan flows through the plain from east to west, emptying into the Caspian Sea. The provincial capital Gorgan lies to the south of the plain, which covers an area of about and is situated between 37°00' and 37°30' north latitude, and between 54°00' and 54°30' east longitude. The annual precipitation in the south of the plain is about which is much higher than the just to the north. The southern part is very fertile, being watered by the many streams that flow from the Alborz Mountains. History More than fifty Neolithic sites have been identified on the Gorgan Plain. Most are raised on mounds and many have seen more than one period of occupation. The sites are thought to relate to the Jeitun culture of southern Turkmenistan and may date to th ...
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Yarim Tepe (Iran)
Yarim Tepe is a Neolithic settlement in the eastern Gorgan plain, Golestan Province. It is located near Gonbad-e Kavus. This ancient settlement played a big role in establishing the cultural chronology of the neolithic period in Central Asia. History of research It was first explored by V. E. Crawford in 1963, when very little was still known about the neolithic age settlements in this area. There are many cultural similarities between Yarim and the nearby site of Tureng Tepe of the same age. Just like at Tureng Tepe, in the earliest horizon, there occur Jeitun-like ceramics, that are found mostly in the Koppet Dag mountains area, but also at several other contemporary sites in the Gorgan plain, for example in the Hotu cave, and even further west near Behshahr. In Period I at Yarim Tepe, the Jeitun ware was identified as “Yarim Neolithic”. Chronology The early stage of Yarim I is generally dated c. 5200 BC. In Southern Turkmenistan, this is also known as ‘Pessejik pe ...
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Qaleh Kharabeh, Gorgan
Qaleh Kharabeh ( fa, قلعه خرابه, also Romanized as Qal‘eh Kharābeh) is the archaeological site of a 5th-century fort in the Gorgan Plain, in Golestan Province in northeastern Iran. It lies one mile to the south of the Great Wall of Gorgan, which was a fortification built between the Caspian Sea and the Kopet Dag Mountains between 420 AD and 530s AD by the Sasanian Empire, on the northern edge of their empire. The fort may have served as a barracks for soldiers defending the wall or may have been used by civilians, but its neat layout suggest it had a military origin. A magnetometer A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, o ... survey of Qaleh Kharabeh was made in 2007 and 2008. The fort had a formal and precise, military-style layout. A central crossroads was found ...
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Qanat
A qanat or kārīz is a system for transporting water from an aquifer or water well to the surface, through an underground aqueduct; the system originated approximately 3,000 BC in what is now Iran. The function is essentially the same across North Africa and the Middle East but the system operates under a variety of regional names: ''qanat'' or kārīz in Iran, ''foggara'' in Algeria, ''khettara'' in Morocco, ''falaj'' in Oman, ''karez'' in Afghanistan, ''auyoun'' in Saudi Arabia, et al. The largest extant and functional qanat systems are located in Iran, Afghanistan, Oman, the oases of Turfan region of China, Algeria, and Pakistan. This is a system of water supply that allows water to be transported over long distances in hot dry climates without loss of much of the water to evaporation. The system has the advantage of being resistant to natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods, and to deliberate destruction in war. Furthermore, it is almost insensitive to the level ...
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Mudbrick
A mudbrick or mud-brick is an air-dried brick, made of a mixture of loam, mud, sand and water mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. Mudbricks are known from 9000 BCE, though since 4000 BCE, bricks have also been fired, to increase their strength and durability. In warm regions with very little timber available to fuel a kiln, bricks were generally sun-dried. In some cases, brickmakers extended the life of mud bricks by putting fired bricks on top or covering them with stucco. Ancient world The history of mudbrick production and construction in the southern Levant may be dated as far back to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (e.g., PPNA Jericho). These sun dried mudbricks, also known as adobe or just mudbrick, were made from a mixture of sand, clay, water and frequently temper (e.g. chopped straw and chaff branches), and were the most common method/material for constructing earthen buildings throughout the ancient Near East for millennia. Unfired ...
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Hephthalites
The Hephthalites ( xbc, ηβοδαλο, translit= Ebodalo), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian as the ''Spet Xyon'' and in Sanskrit as the ''Sveta-huna''), were a people who lived in Central Asia during the 5th to 8th centuries CE. They formed an empire, the Imperial Hephthalites, and were militarily important from 450 CE, when they defeated the Kidarites, to 560 CE, when combined forces from the First Turkic Khaganate and the Sasanian Empire defeated them. After 560 CE, they established "principalities" in the area of Tokharistan, under the suzerainty of the Western Turks (in the areas north of the Oxus) and of the Sasanian Empire (in the areas south of the Oxus), before the Tokhara Yabghus took over in 625. The Imperial Hephthalites, based in Bactria, expanded eastwards to the Tarim Basin, westwards to Sogdia and southwards through Afghanistan, but they never went beyond the Hindu-Kush, which was occupied by the Alchon Huns, previously m ...
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Sasanian Empire
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named after the Sasanian dynasty, House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651 AD, making it the longest-lived List of monarchs of Persia, Persian imperial dynasty. The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthian Empire, and re-established the Persians as a major power in late antiquity alongside its neighbouring arch-rival, the Roman Empire (after 395 the Byzantine Empire).Norman A. Stillman ''The Jews of Arab Lands'' pp 22 Jewish Publication Society, 1979 International Congress of Byzantine Studies ''Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London, 21–26 August 2006, Volumes 1–3'' pp 29. Ashgate Pub Co, 2006 The empire was founded by Ardashir I, an Iranian ruler who rose to po ...
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Great Wall Of Gorgan
The Great Wall of Gorgan is a Sasanian-era defense system located near modern Gorgan in the Golestān Province of northeastern Iran, at the southeastern corner of the Caspian Sea. The western, Caspian Sea, end of the wall is near the remains of the fort at: ; the eastern end of the wall, near the town of Pishkamar, is near the remains of the fort at: . The title coordinate is for the location of the remains of a fort midway along the wall. The wall is located at a geographic narrowing between the Caspian Sea and the mountains of northeastern Iran. It is one of several Caspian Gates at the eastern part of a region known in antiquity as Hyrcania, on the nomadic route from the northern steppes to the Iranian heartland. The wall is believed to have protected the Sassanian Empire to the south from the peoples to the north,Omrani Rekavandi, H., Sauer, E., Wilkinson, T. & Nokandeh, J. (2008)The enigma of the red snake: revealing one of the world’s greatest frontier walls ''Current ...
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Tureng Tepe
Tureng Tepe ( fa, تورنگ تپه, "Hill of the Pheasants"; alternatively spelled in English as Turang Tappe/Tape/Tappa/Tappeh) is a Neolithic and Chalcolithic archaeological site in northeastern Iran, in the Gorgan plain, approximately 17 km northeast of the town of Gorgan. Nearby is a village of Turang Tappeh. Description Tureng Tepe consists of a group of mounds interspersed with ponds and water courses. The whole archaeological pattern is about 800 – 900 m in diameter. Most of the mounds rise between 11 and 15 m above the level of the surrounding plan, but the steep central mound, marked A on the Wulsin's plan, is over 30 m high and dominated the entire site. The oldest remains on the site date to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. The Bronze Age settlement portion of the site dates from approximately 3100-2900 BC through 1900 BC.Moreau, KathyTureng Tepe, Iran expedition records (finding aid)(University of Pennsylvania, Penn Museum Archives, 2010), Retrieved J ...
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Sang-i Chakmak
Sang-i Chakmak (''Tappeh Sang-e Chakhmaq, Sange Chaxmaq, Chakhmagh'') is a Neolithic archaeological site located about north of the village of Bastam in the northern Semnan Province of Iran, on the southeastern flank of the Elburs Mountains. The site represents quite well the transition from the aceramic Neolithic phase in the general area; this was taking place during the 7th millennium BC. Excavations The site was discovered in 1969 by Seiichi Masuda. It includes several settlement mounds, of which two were excavated in 1971-1977 by a team from the Tokyo University of Education (now Tsukuba University) Another related site is Deh Kheyr, Semnan, located only from Sang-i Chakmak. Western settlement The western settlement is an approximately 3 m high mound with a diameter of about 80 m, and contains five cultural layers. Levels 2-5 represent the aceramic Neolithic phase. There's also some imported obsidian. There are many zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figurines. Large mud ...
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Alborz
The Alborz ( fa, البرز) range, also spelled as Alburz, Elburz or Elborz, is a mountain range in northern Iran that stretches from the border of Azerbaijan along the western and entire southern coast of the Caspian Sea and finally runs northeast and merges into the smaller Aladagh Mountains and borders in the northeast on the parallel mountain ridge Kopet Dag in the northern parts of Khorasan. All these mountains are part of the much larger Alpide belt. This mountain range is divided into the Western, Central, and Eastern Alborz Mountains. The Western Alborz Range (usually called the Talysh) runs south-southeastward almost along the western coast of the Caspian Sea. The Central Alborz (the Alborz Mountains in the strictest sense) runs from west to east along the entire southern coast of the Caspian Sea, while the Eastern Alborz Range runs in a northeasterly direction, toward the northern parts of the Khorasan region, southeast of the Caspian Sea. Mount Damavand, the highest m ...
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Jeitun
Jeitun (Djeitun) is an archaeological site of the Neolithic period in southern Turkmenistan, about 30 kilometers north of Ashgabat in the Kopet-Dag mountain range. The settlement was occupied from about 7200 to 4500 BC possibly with short interruptions. Jeitun has given its name to the whole Neolithic period in the foothills of the Kopet Dag. Excavations Jeitun was discovered by Alexander Marushchenko and has been excavated since the 1950s by Boris Kuftin and Mikhail Masson. The site covers an area of about 5,000 square meters. It consists of free-standing houses of a uniform ground plan. The houses were rectangular and had a large fireplace on one side and a niche facing it as well as adjacent yard areas. The floors were covered with lime plaster. The buildings were made of sun-dried cylindrical clay blocks about 70 cm long and 20 cm thick. The clay was mixed with finely chopped straw. There were about 30 houses that could have accommodated about 150–200 persons.Harris, 199 ...
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