The Rahmatabad Mound or the Rahmatabad Tepe (5th millennium BC) is one of the most historically significant settlements on the

Marvdasht Marvdasht ( fa, مرودشت, also romanized as Marv Dasht) is a city and the capital of Marvdasht County, Fars Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 123,858, in 29,134 families. Name Some historians hold that Marvdasht was o ...

plain,

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

(

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

) measuring in length, in width, and in height. The mound sits at the edge of the fertile Kamin plain (near the town of Sadat Shahr) at the southerly end of the

Bolaghi gorge Tangeh Bolāghi, also transliterated as ''Tange-ye Bolāghi'' ( fa, تنگه بلاغی), or Bolāghi Gorge, is an archaeologically significant valley consisting of 130 ancient settlements, dating back to the period between 5000 BCE and the Sassani ...

‌Background

On 5 June 2005, a team of

ian and foreign

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

s began a new phase of excavations at the mound, which is located near

Pasargadae Pasargadae (from Old Persian ''Pāθra-gadā'', "protective club" or "strong club"; Modern Persian: ''Pāsārgād'') was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great (559–530 BC), who ordered its construction and the location of ...

in the

region. The team, made up of Iranian experts and a number of U.S. archaeologists from

Binghamton University The State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University or SUNY Binghamton) is a public university, public research university with campuses in Binghamton, New York, Binghamton, Vestal, New York, Vestal, and Johnson City, New Yor ...

, has been tasked with saving the artifacts and gathering information from the ancient site, which is threatened by road construction and the canals that will transport water from the

Sivand Dam Sivand Dam is a dam built in 2007 in Fars Province, Iran.Pasargadae Pasargadae (from Old Persian ''Pāθra-gadā'', "protective club" or "strong club"; Modern Persian: ''Pāsārgād'') was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great (559–530 BC), who ordered its construction and the location of ...

and

Parse Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is the process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar. The term ''parsing'' comes from Lati ...

project.

Geography

Marvdasht is located in the north of Shiraz & it has a cold weather in the hilly areas and moderate climate in other regions. Archeological excavations have shown that millenniums before Darius decided to choose the plains of Rahmat Mount for the construction of the majestic Persepolis Palaces, civilized populations had been living in the Marvdasht Plains. The ruins of Estakhr and Persepolis demonstrate a part of history of this city. Located 140 kilometers north of Shiraz, the provincial capital of Fars, Rahmatabad Tepe is one of the most significant ancient sites in the Marvdasht region.

Excavations

"The latest excavations on the Rahmatabad Tepe in 2006 led to the discovery of a large number of ancient shards and kilns, and an important industrial site dating back to the 5th millennium BC." Iranian Center for Archaeological Research Director Mohammad-Hassan Fazeli Nashli told the Persian service of CHN on Tuesday. "The archaeologists have unearthed 12 square-shaped coupons (tokens), indicating that the people of the region had economic and commercial ties with neighboring regions in the fourth and fifth millenniums BCE," the director of the team added. Iranian archeologists have discovered priceless artifacts during their geophysics surveys and now they want to unearth them.

Date

The tepe dates to the

Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...

era like the Tall-e Bakun site on the plain of

Persepolis , native_name_lang = , alternate_name = , image = Gate of All Nations, Persepolis.jpg , image_size = , alt = , caption = Ruins of the Gate of All Nations, Persepolis. , map = , map_type ...

. This phase of the excavation work at Rahmatabad Tepe will continue for one more month. A long cultural sequence has been found with a in depth cultural deposit. From the top, the following ancient layers have been found, #

Achaemenian The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...

(fifth century BC) # Early-Middle Bakun culture (early to mid-fifth millennium BC) #

Pottery Neolithic In the Near Eastern archaeology, archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding the ...

(late seventh millennium BC) #

Pre-Pottery Neolithic The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent, dating to years ago, (10000 – 6500 BCE).Richard, Suzanne ''Near Eastern archaeology'' Eisenbrauns; il ...

(late eighth to early seventh millennium BC) "The latest excavations on the Rahmatabad Tepe in 2006 led to the discovery of a large number of ancient shards and kilns, and an important industrial site dating back to the 5th millennium BC." Iranian Center for Archaeological Research Director Mohammad-Hassan Fazeli Nashli told the Persian service of CHN on Tuesday. The archaeologists have discovered 6000-year-old clay coupons during excavations at Rahmatabad Tepe, the director of the team said.6000-year-old clay coupons discovered in southern Iran
, Retrieved on: 20 January 2009.

Sources

{{coord, 30.2033, N, 53.1790, E, source:wikidata-and-enwiki-cat-tree_region:IR, display=title 2005 archaeological discoveries Tells (archaeology) Archaeological sites in Iran Populated places established in the 5th millennium BC Former populated places in Iran Buildings and structures in Fars Province Chalcolithic sites of Asia