The potters' marks of Tepe Yahya painstakingly compiled by DT Potts provide possible links to the evolution of 'signs' of Indus Script seen on thousands of seals and tablets from many sites of Sarasvati Civilization and of Persian or Arabian Gulf sites (so-called Dilmun seals). From the following table of Tepe Yahya master list of potters' marks, Signs 37b, 37c, 47, 51b,54a, 60a,68, 74b have clear parallels in the 'signs' of Indus Script (e.g. Mahadevan ASI Sign list 1997). These ASI Sign list entries are listed below:
Sign 137 variants
Tepe Yahya Potters' mark 74b is comparable to the Pictorial Motif of a kid 'young goat' of Dholavira seals
a
b
cThese Indus Script seals from Dholavira have been deciphered as metalwork catalogues. Dholavira seal a: meḍ 'body' rebus: meḍ 'iron'
eraka 'shoulder' rebus: eraka 'moltencast'
kolom 'three' rebus: kolimi 'smithy, forge' PLUS करडूं karaḍū 'kid' Rebus: karaḍā 'hard alloy'. Thus, hard alloy smithy, forge. Thus, the inscription signifies hard alloy smithy, forge, iron moltencastings.
Dholavira seal b: meḍ 'body' rebus: meḍ 'iron' PLUS kōḍu 'horn' rebus koḍ 'workplace' PLUS loa 'ficus glommerata' rebus: loh 'copper metal'
करडूं karaḍū 'kid' Rebus: karaḍā 'hard alloy'
kuṭhāru कुठारु [p= 289,1] m. a tree L.; a monkey Rebus: kuṭhāru कुठारु 'armourer'
Dholavira seal c: 117 antelope; sun motif. Dholavira seal impression. arka 'sun' Rebus: araka, eraka 'copper, moltencast' PLUS करडूं karaḍū 'kid' Rebus: karaḍā 'hard alloy'. Thus, together, the rebus message: hard alloy of copper.
Tepe Yahya Potters' Mark Sign 37c compares with the following Indus Script inscriptions:
m0352 cdef
Master sign list of the potters' marks from Tepe Yahya (After Fig. 5, DT Potts, 1981).
Source: The potter's marks of Tepe Yahya
Daniel Potts
Source:Paléorient,Vol. 7, No. 1 (1981), pp. 107-122
https://www.academia.edu/1905662/Potts_1981_-_The_potters_marks_of_Tepe_Yahya 
https://tinyurl.com/y96mx3u9
Lamberg-Karlovsky noted an Indus Script seal impression at Tepe Yahya.
Marhaši (Mar-ḫa-šiKI 𒈥𒄩𒅆𒆠, Marhashi, Marhasi, Parhasi, Barhasi; in earlier sources Waraḫše) was a 3rd millennium BCE polity situated east of Elam, on the Iranian plateau. It is known from Mesopotamian sources, but its precise location has not been identified, though some scholars link it with Jiroft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marhasi Marhasi had close contacs with Ur in 3rd millennium BCE. Water buffaloes which came from Meluhha were adored by Sargonic seal cutters. DT Potts notes an Old Babylonian copy of a royal inscription of Ibbi-Sin’s from Ur which records the dedication to Nanna of a statue of an ur gun-a Me-luh-ha ki. This statue was originally received as a gift from Marhasi. Ibbi-Sin named it ‘let him catch’ or ‘may he catch’. Steinkeller has suggested that the animal given to Ibbi-Sin was a leopard (panthera pardus).
https://www.scribd.com/document/156872759/Total-prestation-in-marhashi-ur-relations-DT-Potts-2002-Iranica-Antiqua-Vol-XXXVII
Could Marhaṣi be a metathesis of maharṣi? मह--र्षि [p= 794,2] m. a great ऋषि , any great sage or saint (accord. to Mn. i , 34 ten महर्षिs were created by मनु स्वायम्भुव , viz. मरीचि , अत्रि , अङ्गिरस्, पुलस्त्य , पुलह , क्रतु , प्रचेतस् , वसिष्ठ , भृगु , नारद , also called the 10 प्रजापतिs , q.v. ; some restrict the number to 7 , and some add दक्ष , धर्म , गौतम , कण्व , वाल्मीकि , व्यास , मनु , विभाण्डक &c )Mn. MBh. &c
( IW. 206 n. 1)(Monier-Williams)
Buffalo is an Indus Script hypertext. rango 'buffalo' rebus: rango 'pewter' (alloy of copper, zinc, tin).
Leopard (panthera pardus) is an Indus Script hypertext: खरडा kharaḍā 'A leopard' Rebus: karaḍā 'hard metal alloy'. This reading matches with the hypertext on Shahi-Tump lead weight. See:
Bronze Age Indus Script inscriptions of Mohenjo-daro on metal, are karaḍā ledger entries of metalwork wealth accounts http://tinyurl.com/yark28l7![]()
Leopard weight. Shahi Tump. H.16.7cm; dia.13.5cm; base dia 6cm; handle on top.
Leopard weight. Shahi Tump. H.16.7cm; dia.13.5cm; base dia 6cm; handle on top.
Seashells inlays on frieze. The pair of leopard and ibex is shown twice, separated by stylized flies.
miṇḍāl 'markhor' (Tōrwālī) meḍho a ram, a sheep (Gujarati)(CDIAL 10120) Rebus: mẽṛhẽt, meḍ 'iron' (Santali.Munda.Ho.)
Ornamental ball (lead weight) discovered from Shahi Tump, Makran. It is 15 cm high and 15 kg in weight made by pure lead and wrapped in copper using cire perdue technique ca. 2500 BCE. With deciphered Indus Script hieroglyphs signifying hard alloys: karaDa 'leopard' Rebus: karaDa 'hard alloy' mlekh 'goat'' rebus: milakkhu 'copper'; mleccha 'copper'. Meluhha!!
Hieroglyph: leopard: kolha Rebus: kolhe 'smelter'. kul ‘tiger’ (Santali); kōlu id. (Te.) kōlupuli = Bengal tiger (Te.)Pk. kolhuya -- , kulha — m. ʻ jackal ʼ < *kōḍhu -- ; H.kolhā, °lā m. ʻ jackal ʼ, adj. ʻ crafty ʼ; G. kohlũ, °lũ n. ʻ jackal ʼ, M. kolhā, °lā m. krōṣṭŕ̊ ʻ crying ʼ BhP., m. ʻ jackal ʼ RV. = krṓṣṭu — m. Pāṇ. [√kruś] Pa. koṭṭhu -- , °uka — and kotthu -- , °uka — m. ʻ jackal ʼ, Pk. koṭṭhu — m.; Si. koṭa ʻ jackal ʼ, koṭiya ʻ leopard ʼ GS 42 (CDIAL 3615). कोल्हा [ kōlhā ] कोल्हें [ kōlhēṃ ] A jackal (Marathi) Rebus: kol ‘furnace, forge’ (Kuwi) kol ‘alloy of five metals, pañcaloha’ (Ta.)
Leopards weight from Shahi-Tump (Baluchistan) made using cire perdue technique. "The artefact was discovered in a grave, in the Kech valley, in Balochistan, southern part of present Pakistan. It belongs to the Shahi Tump - Makran civilisation (end of 4th millennium -- beginning of 3rd millennium BCe). Ht. 200 mm. weight: 13.5 kg. The shell has been manufactured by lost-wax foundry of a copper alloy (12.6%b, 2.6%As), then it has been filled up through lead (99.5%) foundry. The shell is engraved with figures of leopards hunting wild goats, made of polished fragments of shellfishes. No identification of the artefact's use has been given. (Scientific team: B. Mille, D. Bourgarit, R. Besenval, Musee Guimet, Paris)." Mille, B., R. besenval, D. Bourgarit, Early lost-wax casting in Balochistan (Pakistan): the 'Leopards Weight' from Shahi-Tump in Persiens antike Pracht, Bergau-Handwerk-Archaologie, T. Stollner, R. Slotta, A. Vatandoust, A. ed., p. 274-80. Bouchum: Deutsches Bergbau Museum, 2004.
According to archaeologist Massimo Vidale, Indus civilization weights, seals, and etched carnelian beads were found in the area, demonstrating the connections between these two cultures. (Andrew Lawler, The World in Between Volume 64 Number 6, November/December 2011 archaeology.org).
Presence of Meluhha speakers in the region of Tepe Yahya, Shahr-i-Soktha, Shahdad, Konar Sandal is attested by the following:
Section A. A seal impression with Indus Script hypertext has been found in Tepe Yahya
Section B. Indus Script hypertexts on artifacts of Marhashi Region -- Jiroft, Shahi Tump, Susa, Konar Sandal, Swat, Seistan
I suggest evolution of writing in Meluhha Indus Script attested on a potsherd of Harappa (HARP report) dated to a. 3300 BCE is the precursor to writing found in the context of Elamite tablets discussed by Michael Gross (http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(12)01376-0).
Section A. Seal impression with Indus Script hypertext found in Tepe Yahya
This monograph presents evidences for the arrival of Indo-Iranian (Meluhha) speakers on the Iranian plateau in Marhashi region (including Tepe Yahya and Jiroft).
Tepe Yahya . finds with Indus Script glyphs. Seal impression. Pittman in Potts 2001: 267; Lamberg-Karlovsky & Tosi 1973: Fig. 137. Two clearly identifiable hypertexts on the seal impression which signify (copper, iron) metalwork are:
sal 'splinter'; Rebus: sal 'workshop' (Santali)
eraka 'upraised hand' Rebus: eraka '
Sign 1Hieroglyph: mē̃d, mēd 'body, womb, back' Hieroglyp to signify mẽṛhẽt, meḍ ‘iron (metal)’ (Munda), med 'copper (metal)' (Slavic)
Ta. mēṉi body, shape, colour, beauty; mēl body. Ma. mēni body, shape, beauty, excellence; mēl body. Koḍ. me·lï
body. Te. mēnuid.; mēni brilliancy, lustre; belonging to the body, bodily, personal. Kol. me·n (pl. me·nḍl) body.
Nk. mēn (pl. mēnuḷ) id. Nk. (Ch.) mēn id. Pa. mēn (pl. mēnul) id. Ga. (S.) mēnu (pl. mēngil (P.) mēn id. Go. (Tr.)
mēndur (obl. mēnduḍ-), (A. Y. W. M.) mēndul, (L.)meṇḍū˘l, (SR.) meṇḍol id. (Voc. 2963). Konḍa mēndol human body. Kur. mē̃d, mēd body, womb, back. Malt. méth body. Cf. 5073 Ta.mey. (DEDR 5099) Rebus:
Section B. Indus Script hypertexts on artifacts of Marhashi region -- Jiroft, Shahi Tump, Susa, Konar Sandal, Swat, Seistan
Mcmohan cylinder seal with six signs,found in 'Swat and Seistan', unrolled photographically and the unbroken stamp-end of the seal; positive impression of the cylinder showing Harappan inscriptions (Robert Knox, 1994, A new Indus Valley Cylinder Seal, pp. 375-378 in: South Asian Archaeology 1993,Vol. I, Helsinki)
The triangle motif is similar to the motif shown on M-443B. Possible connection with Sibri cylinder seals (which show (i) a zebu and a lion and image of a scorpion on the flat end (Shah and Parpola 1991: 413); and (ii) a zebu bull with a geometric pattern of triangles and a circle at the stamp end). "The Seistan findspot of this seal is of great interest. Evidence exists for the movement of Indus commodities, and, therefore, Indus commercial activities in the direction of western Asia and, in return, from there to the Indus world.. Evidence for the Harappan penetration of Seistan and farther to southeastern Iran is scanty but includes at least one other Indus inscription from an impression of a sherd discovered at Tepe Yahya, period IV A (c. 2200 BC) (Lamberg- Karlovsky and Tosi 1973: pl. 137)" (Knox, p. 377).
फड, phaḍa 'cobra hood' फड, phaḍa 'Bhāratīya arsenal of metal weapons'
"Shahi Tump is a site in the valley of Kechi crossing the Makran in southern Pakistan It found, dating from the fourth millennium BC, a weight-filled copper lead, weighing 13.5 kg, ovoid, with a hanging loop at the top It is decorated with mosaics of shells 2 representing a leopard pursuing a gazelle This proves the mastery of copper technology in lost wax casting and that of lead, in addition to the artistic skill of the mosaic The excavations also be said that the locals were engaged at the fourth millennium, a sophisticated and developed agriculture and livestock Found there remains of wheat and barley 6-row."
फड, phaḍa 'cobra hood' फड, phaḍa 'Bhāratīya arsenal of metal weapons'
"Tepe Yahya
Tepe Yahya is located in the valley of the river Kish-e Shur, near Jiroft in Kerman province, Iran It has been occupied since the 6th millennium BC In large workshops searched, they found many ceramics and metals, especially copper and bronze But chlorite vases and cylinder seals of steatite There were also tablets, written in cuneiform The site is abandoned, then reoccupied and was finally abandoned sometime in the second half of the third millennium BCE..."
"Konar Sandal
Konar Sandal in the valley of the Halil Rud, in Kerman, is located near the town of Jiroft This site is divided into two tells part of the same city, split by a river The tell B is a high terrace In the workshops unearthed were found numerous tablets in an unknown This is the wedge that resembles the linear Elamite or Proto-Elamite In the graves were found many vases chlorite Konar Sandal should be the main center of production of these vases found throughout the Iranian plateau to Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and around the Persian Gulf."
arye 'lion' (Akkadian) Rebus: arā 'brass' पोळा [ pōḷā ] rebus: पोळा [ pōḷā ] '
pajhar 'eagle' (rebus: pasra 'smithy')
eruvai 'eagle' rebus: eruvai 'copper'
Harappa seal impression. h-161a. Eagle glyph.
Incised eagle from Tepe Yahya (Kohl in Potts 2011: 218, fig. 9.7). Eagle glhyph comparable to the glyph on Harappa seal impression.
eruvai 'eagle' rebus: eruvai 'copper'
Leopard, scorpion & zebu Indus Script hypertexts signify wealth-producing metalwork, are attested in Tepe Yahya, Jiroft & other sites of Marhashi region bordering Meluhha
Master of animals in chlorite, Jiroft, Kerman ca. 2500 BC, Bronze Age I, National Museum of Iran
Jiroft. After Figure 11: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/jiroft-iv-iconography-of-chlorite-artifacts.
Daniel T. Potts, Piotr Steinkeller have connected Konar-Sandal site with Marhashi (situated east of Elam, between Anshan and Meluhha).
Indus Script hypertexts on the following artifacts:
ayo 'fish' rebus: aya 'iron' ayas 'alloy metal'
kolmo 'rice plant' Rebus: kolimi 'smithy, forge'
eruvai 'eagle' rebus: eruvai 'copper'
फड, phaḍa 'cobra hood' फड, phaḍa 'Bhāratīya arsenal of metal weapons'
arye 'lion' (Akkadian) Rebus: arā 'brass' पोळा [ pōḷā ] rebus: पोळा [ pōḷā ] '
rango 'buffalo' rebus: rango 'pewter' (alloy of copper, zinc, tin),
miṇḍāl 'markhor' (Tōrwālī) meḍho a ram, a sheep (Gujarati)(CDIAL 10120) Rebus: mẽṛhẽt, meḍ 'iron' (Santali.Munda.Ho.)
dhanga 'mountain range' Rebus: dhangar 'blacksmith'
loa 'ficus glomerata' rebus: loh 'copper' [ lōhá ʻ red, copper -- coloured ʼ ŚrS., ʻ made of copper ʼ ŚBr., m.n. ʻ copper ʼ VS., ʻ iron ʼ MBh. [*rudh -- ] Pa. lōha -- m. ʻ metal, esp. copper or bronze ʼ; Pk. lōha -- m. ʻ iron ʼ, Gy. pal. li°, lihi, obl. elhás, as. loa JGLS new ser. ii 258; Wg. (Lumsden) "loa"ʻ steel ʼ; Kho. loh ʻ copper ʼ; S. lohu m. ʻ iron ʼ, L. lohā m., awāṇ. lōˋā, P. lohā m. (→ K.rām. ḍoḍ. lohā), WPah.bhad. lɔ̃u n., bhal. lòtilde; n., pāḍ. jaun. lōh, paṅ. luhā, cur. cam. lohā, Ku. luwā, N. lohu, °hā, A. lo, B. lo, no, Or. lohā, luhā, Mth. loh, Bhoj. lohā, Aw.lakh. lōh, H. loh, lohā m., G. M. loh n.; Si. loho, lō ʻ metal, ore, iron ʼ; Md. ratu -- lō ʻ copper .
*Hypertext: पोळा [ pōḷā ] zebu, bos indicus rebus: पोळा [ pōḷā ] '
Hypertext: bicha 'scorpion' rebus: bica 'stone iron ore, haematite'
Hypertext: meḍ 'dance-step' rebus: meḍ 'iron' (Mu.Ho.)
Hieroglyph: miṇḍāl 'markhor' (Tōrwālī) meḍho a ram, a sheep (Gujarati)(CDIAL 10120) Rebus: mẽṛhẽt, meḍ 'iron' (Santali.Munda.Ho.)
Meluhha Hieroglyphs from Elamite Cylinder seal Corpus of KJ Roach (2008)
Fig. 7. Catalogue, p. 126.
Source: http://www.bulletinasiainstitute.org/Muscarella_BAI15.pdf Oscar White Muscarella, Jiroft and ‘Jiroft-Aratta’ -- a review article of Yousefl Madjidzadeh, Jiroft The earliest oriental civilization, Bulletin of the Asian Institute, 15 (2005) 173-198
"In Mesopotamia (which in Greek means “between the rivers”), the settled agricultural people of the Tigris and Euphraties valleys evolved a form of writing. Among the earliest Mesopotamian writings are a set of clay tablets found at
The Elamite trade supplied the Sumarian civilization of Mesopotamia with silver, copper, tin, lead, precious gems, horses, timber, obsidian, alabaster and soapstone. The practical Sumerians and Elamites probably invented writing as a means of keeping accounts. The tablets found at Tepe Yahya are inscribed in proto-Elamite, and radio-carbon dating of organic remains associated with the tablets shows them to be from about
In about 3,100 B.C. the cuneiform script was developed, and later Mesopotamian tablets are written in cuneiform, which is a phonetic script where the symbols stand for syllables.
In about 3,100 B.C. the cuneiform script was developed, and later Mesopotamian tablets are written in cuneiform, which is a phonetic script where the symbols stand for syllables.
I found something interesting here:
Four examples of medieval styluses for writing on wax tablets. Two are made of iron, one brass and one bone stylus.
Posted: 01 Oct 2017 02:15 PM PDT
[First posted in AWOL 4 March 2012, updated 1 October 2017]
Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran in AMAR
One of a series of AWOL pages seeking to pull together publication series digitized and served through AMAR: Archive of Mesopotamian Archaeological Site Reports
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http://digital.library.stonybrook.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/amar/id/126889/rec/4
Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran in AMAR
One of a series of AWOL pages seeking to pull together publication series digitized and served through AMAR: Archive of Mesopotamian Archaeological Site Reports
![Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran, 1967-1975: the early periods]()
![Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran 1967-1969: progress report 1]()
![Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran, 1967-1975: the third millennium]()
![Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran 1967-1975: the Iron Age settlement]()
![The proto-elamite texts from Tepe Yahya]()
| Title | The proto-elamite texts from Tepe Yahya |
| Series | Bulletin (American School of Prehistoric Research) ; no. 39. |
| Author | Damerow, Peter |
| Contributor | Englund, Robert K. |
| Contributor. | Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology |
| Publisher | Cambridge, Mass. : Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University : Distributed by Harvard University Press, |
| Date of Publication | 1989 |
| Date of Digitization | 2010 |
| Site Name1 | Yahya, Tepe |
| Subject | Elamite language -- Writing |
| Subject. | Elamite language -- Texts |
| Language | eng |
| Description-Original | xiv, 79 p., [12] p. of plates : ill. ; 27 cm. |
| Format-Digital | PDF 184 MB (193,230,652 bytes) |
| Rights-Access Restrictions | May not be reused for commercial purposes. |
...
"Finally, clay tablets bearing the impressions of tokens, and then, similar shapes produced with a stylus became the record keeping, making the tokens redundant. The stylus was usually made of reed, but perhaps also of hard wood or metal: in fact one metal tool that may have been used as a stylus was found at Tepe Yahya close to some proto-Elamite tablets." -- Michael Gross
The evolution of writing
Article InfoSummary
Decoding the world’s oldest as yet undeciphered writing system could help to improve our understanding of the origins of writing and of how this crucial cultural progress spread, branched out, and in some cultures died out. Michael Gross reports.
Main Text
Just over 5,000 years ago, the earliest cities flourished in Mesopotamia and western Iran. One explanation that has been considered is that making these areas with their seasonal alternations of flooding and drought amenable to agriculture required a complex infrastructure for water retention and irrigation. Thus, only a critical mass of workforce and a certain level of organisation could make these lands habitable, leading to urban settlements like Uruk in Mesopotamia and, a few hundred kilometres to the east, Susa in Iran. On the other hand, humans adapt well to diverse climatic conditions, and southern Mesopotamia may have lent itself to the growth of incipient complex societies without the need for large-scale hydraulic management as more current archaeological theories suggest.
Whatever their origin, the complex societies that built these early cities soon found they needed to keep records of their stocks, property, and commerce. The people of Uruk came up with proto-cuneiform, which evolved into cuneiform. This script encoding words and syllables was eventually supplanted in the Middle East by alphabetic writing systems that spread across the Mediterranean.
A few centuries later, the people of Susa picked up the idea of keeping written records and apparently borrowed a few signs from proto-cuneiform, but mostly they invented their own system of record-keeping, which is now known as proto-Elamite. The writing quickly spread across Iran, even though other archaeological evidence doesn’t suggest that the country had a unified culture at that time. Early excavations in Susa found more than 1,500 clay tablets with proto-Elamite script, and hundreds more have been found since.
As the name indicates, researchers were initially hoping to find a more advanced ‘Elamite’ script that might have followed up on this early version, like cuneiform evolved out of proto-cuneiform. However, systematic archaeological investigation has shown that this next step never happened. After a few centuries of using proto-Elamite, the people of Susa and other towns in Iran stopped writing altogether. For a period of 500 years, there is no trace of writing in Iran, until the introduction of cuneiform from Mesopotamia around 2300–2200 BC and, concurrently, the development as the Susan royal court of a second indigenous script known as Linear Elamite, which is unrelated to proto-Elamite.
In anthropological terms, the proto-Elamite script is the Neanderthal of writing systems. It branched off from our line of descent early on, spread for a while, then became extinct for mysterious reasons. Understanding it better might help us to understand our own cultural evolution. It would help, obviously, if we could decipher it.
Deciphering challenge
Jacob L. Dahl, of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford, started out studying cuneiform and then became more interested in the path less travelled, the branch that became extinct. Dahl, the world’s leading expert in this writing system heads a research team dedicated to understanding it.
Many have considered the script undecipherable, and linguists are frustrated by the lack of any parallel documents like the Rosetta Stone, which could help, and by the lack of proper prose, as the tablets seem to be listing quantities of commodities owned by specific households. The writing uses 17 numerical and around 1,400 non-numerical signs. Of the latter, Dahl believes, around 100 may have been used as syllables to code for names. These occur where names of owners are listed, are poorly standardised, and have no obvious pictorial meaning.![Difficult read: A proto-Elamite clay tablet from the collection at the Louvre]()
Difficult read: A proto-Elamite clay tablet from the collection at the Louvre. Scribes used a stylus typically made of reed to press these shapes into the soft clay. (Photo: University of Oxford.)
“An additional challenge,” says Dahl, “is the fact that they use no signs depicting body parts. They must have had a taboo forbidding that. The only exceptions are two pictographically constructed signs for female and male workers, which they took over from proto-cuneiform, obviously without regard to their pictorial associations.”
Early excavations produced large numbers of texts and other artefacts but failed to contextualise these, and, whereas the early publishers worked fervently to quickly publish the results, the published copies cannot necessarily be trusted.
In the late 1970s, the Swedish mathematician Jöran Friberg managed to work out the numerical system used in archaic Iran, based on the observation that the tablets usually contain sums of the quantities listed in each line. Later, Peter Damerow at the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science and Robert K. Englund at the Free University, both at Berlin, proposed identifications for some of the signs and deciphered the content of some tablets. Thus, signs for containers for weakly fermented beer, dairy products, and grains are understood. Dahl, who worked with Englund at UCLA and with Damerow at Berlin, deciphered a number of signs relating to sheep and goat herding, but still scratches his head over how the proto-Elamite scribes may have referred to cattle, for example.
Dahl has started producing high-quality images of the tablets using a novel device, the Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) system (building on technology developed originally by Tom Malzbender and others at the HP labs in Palo Alto). This uses a black plastic dome lined with 76 separate LED lights and fitted with a 25 megapixel camera. Each artefact is photographed 76 times, each time illuminated from a different angle by one of these LEDs. A dedicated software package combines the 76 shots into a single image file, with which the users can then create different viewing experiences, as if they were looking at the original tablet and shining a torch at it from different sides and angles to get a feeling for the shapes, the textures, and the depths of the grooves.
With these complex images, Dahl now hopes to launch an internet-based crowdsourcing project to help complete the decipherment, following the example of success stories such as Folding@Home (see Curr. Biol. (2012) 22, R35–R38). Combining the ideas and skills of many different people, and including perspectives from mathematics, linguistics, art, and so on, may be the clue to cracking the remainder of the code. Some images have already been made available online, with more and in increasingly higher quality over the coming six months (see http://cdli.ox.ac.uk/wiki/proto-elamite for an introduction to proto-Elamite with links to images of the tablets and http://cdli.ucla.edu for more on online cuneiform).
Detective work: Jacob Dahl and Laura Hawkins working on cuneiform tablets at Oxford University. (Photo: University of Oxford.)
Rise and fall
Taken together with the available evidence from the Middle East, a better understanding of proto-Elamite would be a big step towards a complete overview of the evolution of writing, including its birth, branching out, diffusion, and dying out.
Contrary to what one might expect based on today’s notions of literacy, writing did very clearly not arise from a move to record spoken language. Instead, it evolved out of primitive accounting methods, more closely related to abacuses than to storytelling.
“At first, there were tokens used to represent quantities of commodities such as grain,” explains Dahl. “Most tokens were made of clay, a few examples exist of stone tokens. We recently made some clay tokens for our class and were able to replicate the calculations — additions only — in rather complex texts without any use of abstract numbers, or even number words.”
In a second stage, people turned the very same tokens into a permanent recording of the relevant quantities by keeping them in clay envelopes. “These consisted of a hollow clay ball, also called a bulla,” Dahl explains. “It is very likely that tokens continued to be used for centuries.”
Finally, clay tablets bearing the impressions of tokens, and then, similar shapes produced with a stylus became the record keeping, making the tokens redundant. The stylus was usually made of reed, but perhaps also of hard wood or metal: in fact one metal tool that may have been used as a stylus was found at Tepe Yahya close to some proto-Elamite tablets.
Ghost town: The remains of the ancient city of Susa may increasingly look like natural hills, but excavations have yielded more than 1,500 clay tablets with inscriptions that are around 5,000 years old. (Photo: Jan Walstra.)
The third stage can be pinned down exactly. “Writing is a technology. Regardless of whatever mnemonic devices may have been used in different parts of the ancient Near East, the earliest crystallisation of that technology occurred at the great southern Mesopotamian metropolis of Uruk in the specific context of a large institution dedicated to the city goddess Inanna,” explains Dan Potts from the University of Sydney, Australia. “The earliest texts served to document the incomings and outgoings of those commodities (naturalia, realia) that served to sustain the institution, which some would call a temple complex, and its personnel (not just priests and scribes but agricultural and craft labourers as well). Lexical texts, lists of words classified by domain (names of different categories of animals, trees, plants, professions), represent concrete expressions of early scribal training. It took many more centuries before writing was used to record royal inscriptions, literature, letters and other types of texts.”
Initial proto-writing systems could represent only a certain repertoire of relevant objects — their users could not write down current events or stories they may have told each other. Gradually, the proto-writing systems evolved into complete writing systems, allowing people to write down whatever they could express in words of their language.
The invention of writing happened at least twice and no more than four times in the history of mankind. The two clear cases are cuneiform and the Mayan scripts, both clearly independent inventions that went on to become complete writing systems. Deciphering of Mayan writing has made rapid progress since the 1970s, following the realisation that it is a phonetic representation of a language related to the one still spoken in the area today. It might have been easier if 16th century colonialism had not actively sought to eradicate knowledge of the script that still existed at the time.
Cuneiform was decoded in the second half of the 19th century using trilingual inscriptions written in Old Persian cuneiform, Akkadian cuneiform and Elamite cuneiform. Since the content of some of these texts was known (ruler names and titles of the kings of Persia) this was in fact a very complex linguistic puzzle of replacing signs with sounds and speculate language affiliation.
Some people still question whether the Egyptian hieroglyphs are an equally pristine invention. While there is no similarity in the signs used, Egyptians and, as some have speculated, even ancient Chinese may or may not have gleaned the idea of writing things down for accountancy from Mesopotamia.
Proto-Elamite by contrast, clearly got the idea and a small number of signs from Mesopotamia, and then went on to add a whole range of new signs to the repertoire. It is the earliest writing system that we know to be a derived one. This early branching point is thus the equivalent of speciation in biological evolution. The separate writing systems of these neighbouring regions must have been mutually incomprehensible.
Ancient lands: The area of western Iran, where a writing system inspired by Mesopotamia’s cuneiform flourished around 5,000 years ago. (Photo: University of Oxford.)
Over a short time span — three centuries at most, but probably much less — the proto-Elamite script spread across Iran, offering a prime example of cultural diffusion. There is no archaeological evidence suggesting a mechanism for this spreading, such as central government or long-distance trading, so the rapid expansion remains one of the mysteries of proto-Elamite.
As the proto-Elamite script spread and developed further, it became richer in its sign repertoire, but Dahl notes that it also ran into problems. “There was an inflation of signs in proto-Elamite,” says Dahl, “and even in high-level accounts, such as those for the household of the ruler of Susa, you see systematic errors and bad practice.” For instance, scribes would cram in information at the end of a line, rather than planning for the space available, like their colleagues in Mesopotamia would have done. And they made elementary mistakes in the bundling of numbers, as it would be a mistake in Roman numerals to write IIIII instead of V.
The key cultural difference is that cuneiform was backed up by a lexical tradition from early on, says Dahl. In Uruk, lists of standardised signs were used for reference. No such lists have ever been found for proto-Elamite. Dahl can’t resist the temptation to speculate that it may have been the failure to invest in the quality of proto-Elamite writing culture that led to its deterioration and ultimately to its downfall.
The ensuing period of five centuries without writing makes Europe’s descent into the Dark Ages pale in comparison. Prophets of linguistic doom who worry about youth slang and text speak will delight in this example of cultural downfall that was possibly triggered or accelerated by bad writing practice. Seeing writing as a trait that has evolved in human populations, it is only natural that it can not only arise, diversify and spread, but also die out. That’s just life.
5,000 years ago, a long-buried society in the Iranian desert helped shape the first urban age
Cities like Shahr-i-Sokhta in eastern Iran, remains of which can be seen from the air, developed and flourished at the same time as the population centers in Mesopotamia to the west and the Indus Valley to the east. The barren landscape was once home to some of the world's first urban societies, which began to develop around 3000 B.C.
(Georg Gerster/Photo Researchers)
Even local archaeologists with the benefit of air-conditioned cars and paved roads think twice about crossing eastern Iran's rugged terrain. "It's a tough place," says Mehdi Mortazavi from the University of Sistan-Baluchistan in the far eastern end of Iran, near the Afghan border. At the center of this region is the Dasht-e Lut, Persian for the "Empty Desert." This treacherous landscape, 300 miles long and 200 miles wide, is covered with sinkholes, steep ravines, and sand dunes, some topping 1,000 feet. It also has the hottest average surface temperature of any place on Earth. The forbidding territory in and around this desert seems like the last place to seek clues to the emergence of the first cities and states 5,000 years ago.
Yet archaeologists are finding an impressive array of ancient settlements on the edges of the Dasht-e Lut dating back to the period when urban civilization was emerging in Egypt, Iraq, and the Indus River Valley in Pakistan and India. In the 1960s and 1970s, they found the great centers of Shahr-i-Sokhta and Shahdad on the desert's fringes and another, Tepe Yahya, far to the south. More recent surveys, excavations, and remote sensing work reveal that all of eastern Iran, from near the Persian Gulf in the south to the northern edge of the Iranian plateau, was peppered with hundreds and possibly thousands of small to large settlements. Detailed laboratory analyses of artifacts and human remains from these sites are providing an intimate look at the lives of an enterprising people who helped create the world's first global trade network.
Far from living in a cultural backwater, eastern Iranians from this period built large cities with palaces, used one of the first writing systems, and created sophisticated metal, pottery, and textile industries. They also appear to have shared both administrative and religious ideas as they did business with distant lands. "They connected the great corridors between Mesopotamia and the east," says Maurizio Tosi, a University of Bologna archaeologist who did pioneering work at Shahr-i-Sokhta. "They were the world in between."
By 2000 B.C. these settlements were abandoned. The reasons for this remain unclear and are the source of much scholarly controversy, but urban life didn't return to eastern Iran for more than 1,500 years. The very existence of this civilization was long forgotten. Recovering its past has not been easy. Parts of the area are close to the Afghan border, long rife with armed smugglers. Revolution and politics have frequently interrupted excavations. And the immensity of the region and its harsh climate make it one of the most challenging places in the world to conduct archaeology.
Situated at the end of a small delta on a dry plain, Shahdad was excavated by an Iranian team in the 1970s.
(Courtesy Maurizio Tosi)
An Iranian-Italian team, including archaeologist Massimo Vidale (right), surveyed the site in 2009.
(Courtesy Massimo Vidale)
The peripatetic English explorer Sir Aurel Stein, famous for his archaeological work surveying large swaths of Central Asia and the Middle East, slipped into Persia at the end of 1915 and found the first hints of eastern Iran's lost cities. Stein traversed what he described as "a big stretch of gravel and sandy desert" and encountered "the usual...robber bands from across the Afghan border, without any exciting incident." What did excite Stein was the discovery of what he called "the most surprising prehistoric site" on the eastern edge of the Dasht-e Lut. Locals called it Shahr-i-Sokhta ("Burnt City") because of signs of ancient destruction.
It wasn't until a half-century later that Tosi and his team hacked their way through the thick salt crust and discovered a metropolis rivaling those of the first great urban centers in Mesopotamia and the Indus. Radiocarbon data showed that the site was founded around 3200 B.C., just as the first substantial cities in Mesopotamia were being built, and flourished for more than a thousand years. During its heyday in the middle of the third millennium B.C., the city covered more than 150 hectares and may have been home to more than 20,000 people, perhaps as populous as the large cities of Umma in Mesopotamia and Mohenjo-Daro on the Indus River. A vast shallow lake and wells likely provided the necessary water, allowing for cultivated fields and grazing for animals.
Built of mudbrick, the city boasted a large palace, separate neighborhoods for pottery-making, metalworking, and other industrial activities, and distinct areas for the production of local goods. Most residents lived in modest one-room houses, though some were larger compounds with six to eight rooms. Bags of goods and storerooms were often "locked" with stamp seals, a procedure common in Mesopotamia in the era.
Shahr-i-Sokhta boomed as the demand for precious goods among elites in the region and elsewhere grew. Though situated in inhospitable terrain, the city was close to tin, copper, and turquoise mines, and lay on the route bringing lapis lazuli from Afghanistan to the west. Craftsmen worked shells from the Persian Gulf, carnelian from India, and local metals such as tin and copper. Some they made into finished products, and others were exported in unfinished form. Lapis blocks brought from the Hindu Kush mountains, for example, were cut into smaller chunks and sent on to Mesopotamia and as far west as Syria. Unworked blocks of lapis weighing more than 100 pounds in total were unearthed in the ruined palace of Ebla, close to the Mediterranean Sea. Archaeologist Massimo Vidale of the University of Padua says that the elites in eastern Iranian cities like Shahr-i-Sokhta were not simply slaves to Mesopotamian markets. They apparently kept the best-quality lapis for themselves, and sent west what they did not want. Lapis beads found in the royal tombs of Ur, for example, are intricately carved, but of generally low-quality stone compared to those of Shahr-i-Sokhta.
Pottery was produced on a massive scale. Nearly 100 kilns were clustered in one part of town and the craftspeople also had a thriving textile industry. Hundreds of wooden spindle whorls and combs were uncovered, as were well-preserved textile fragments made of goat hair and wool that show a wide variation in their weave. According to Irene Good, a specialist in ancient textiles at Oxford University, this group of textile fragments constitutes one of the most important in the world, given their great antiquity and the insight they provide into an early stage of the evolution of wool production. Textiles were big business in the third millennium B.C., according to Mesopotamian texts, but actual textiles from this era had never before been found.
A metal flag found at Shahdad, one of eastern Iran's early urban sites, dates to around 2400 B.C. The flag depicts a man and woman facing each other, one of the recurrent themes in the region's art at this time.
(Courtesy Maurizio Tosi)
This plain ceramic jar, found recently at Shahdad, contains residue of a white cosmetic whose complex formula is evidence for an extensive knowledge of chemistry among the city's ancient inhabitants.
(Courtesy Massimo Vidale)
The artifacts also show the breadth of Shahr-i-Sokhta's connections. Some excavated red-and-black ceramics share traits with those found in the hills and steppes of distant Turkmenistan to the north, while others are similar to pots made in Pakistan to the east, then home to the Indus civilization. Tosi's team found a clay tablet written in a script called Proto-Elamite, which emerged at the end of the fourth millennium B.C., just after the advent of the first known writing system, cuneiform, which evolved in Mesopotamia. Other such tablets and sealings with Proto-Elamite signs have also been found in eastern Iran, such as at Tepe Yahya. This script was used for only a few centuries starting around 3200 B.C. and may have emerged in Susa, just east of Mesopotamia. By the middle of the third millennium B.C., however, it was no longer in use. Most of the eastern Iranian tablets record simple transactions involving sheep, goats, and grain and could have been used to keep track of goods in large households.
While Tosi's team was digging at Shahr-i-Sokhta, Iranian archaeologist Ali Hakemi was working at another site, Shahdad, on the western side of the Dasht-e Lut. This settlement emerged as early as the fifth millennium B.C. on a delta at the edge of the desert. By the early third millennium B.C., Shahdad began to grow quickly as international trade with Mesopotamia expanded. Tomb excavations revealed spectacular artifacts amid stone blocks once painted in vibrant colors. These include several extraordinary, nearly life-size clay statues placed with the dead. The city's artisans worked lapis lazuli, silver, lead, turquoise, and other materials imported from as far away as eastern Afghanistan, as well as shells from the distant Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean.
Evidence shows that ancient Shahdad had a large metalworking industry by this time. During a recent survey, a new generation of archaeologists found a vast hill—nearly 300 feet by 300 feet—covered with slag from smelting copper. Vidale says that analysis of the copper ore suggests that the smiths were savvy enough to add a small amount of arsenic in the later stages of the process to strengthen the final product. Shahdad's metalworkers also created such remarkable artifacts as a metal flag dating to about 2400 B.C. Mounted on a copper pole topped with a bird, perhaps an eagle, the squared flag depicts two figures facing one another on a rich background of animals, plants, and goddesses. The flag has no parallels and its use is unknown.
Vidale has also found evidence of a sweet-smelling nature. During a spring 2009 visit to Shahdad, he discovered a small stone container lying on the ground. The vessel, which appears to date to the late fourth millennium B.C., was made of chlorite, a dark soft stone favored by ancient artisans in southeast Iran. Using X-ray diffraction at an Iranian lab, he discovered lead carbonate—used as a white cosmetic—sealed in the bottom of the jar. He identified fatty material that likely was added as a binder, as well as traces of coumarin, a fragrant chemical compound found in plants and used in some perfumes. Further analysis showed small traces of copper, possibly the result of a user dipping a small metal applicator into the container.
Other sites in eastern Iran are only now being investigated. For the past two years, Iranian archaeologists Hassan Fazeli Nashli and Hassain Ali Kavosh from the University of Tehran have been digging in a small settlement a few miles east of Shahdad called Tepe Graziani, named for the Italian archaeologist who first surveyed the site. They are trying to understand the role of the city's outer settlements by examining this ancient mound, which is 30 feet high, 525 feet wide, and 720 feet long. Excavators have uncovered a wealth of artifacts including a variety of small sculptures depicting crude human figures, humped bulls, and a Bactrian camel dating to approximately 2900 B.C. A bronze mirror, fishhooks, daggers, and pins are among the metal finds. There are also wooden combs that survived in the arid climate. "The site is small but very rich," says Fazeli, adding that it may have been a prosperous suburban production center for Shahdad.
Sites such as Shahdad and Shahr-i-Sokhta and their suburbs were not simply islands of settlements in what otherwise was empty desert. Fazeli adds that some 900 Bronze Age sites have been found on the Sistan plain, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mortazavi, meanwhile, has been examining the area around the Bampur Valley, in Iran's extreme southeast. This area was a corridor between the Iranian plateau and the Indus Valley, as well as between Shahr-i-Sokhta to the north and the Persian Gulf to the south. A 2006 survey along the Damin River identified 19 Bronze Age sites in an area of less than 20 square miles. That river periodically vanishes, and farmers depend on underground channels called qanats to transport water.
Despite the lack of large rivers, ancient eastern Iranians were very savvy in marshaling their few water resources. Using satellite remote sensing data, Vidale has found remains of what might be ancient canals or qanats around Shahdad, but more work is necessary to understand how inhabitants supported themselves in this harsh climate 5,000 years ago, as they still do today.
The large eastern Iranian settlement of Tepe Yahya produced clear evidence for the manufacture of a type of black stone jar for export that has been found as far away as Mesopotamia.
(Georg Gerster/Photo Researchers)
Meanwhile, archaeologists also hope to soon continue work that began a decade ago at Konar Sandal, 55 miles north of Yahya near the modern city of Jiroft in southeastern Iran. France-based archaeologist Yusef Madjizadeh has spent six seasons working at the site, which revealed a large city centered on a high citadel with massive walls beside the Halil River. That city and neighboring settlements like Yahya produced artfully carved dark stone vessels that have been found in Mesopotamian temples. Vidale notes that Indus weights, seals, and etched carnelian beads found at Konar Sandal demonstrate connections with that civilization as well.
Many of these settlements were abandoned in the latter half of the third millennium B.C., and, by 2000 B.C., the vibrant urban life of eastern Iran was history. Barbara Helwig of Berlin's German Archaeological Institute suspects a radical shift in trade patterns precipitated the decline. Instead of moving in caravans across the deserts and plateau of Iran, Indus traders began sailing directly to Arabia and then on to Mesopotamia, while to the north, the growing power of the Oxus civilization in today's Turkmenistan may have further weakened the role of cities such as Shahdad. Others blame climate change. The lagoons, marshes, and streams may have dried up, since even small shifts in rainfall canB.C. have a dramatic effect on water sources in the area. Here, there is no Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, or Indus to provide agricultural bounty through a drought, and even the most sophisticated water systems may have failed during a prolonged dry spell.
It is also possible that an international economic downturn played a role. The destruction of the Mesopotamian city of Ur around 2000 B.C. and the later decline of Indus metropolises such as Mohenjo-Daro might have spelled doom for a trading people. The market for precious goods such as lapis collapsed. There is no clear evidence of widespread warfare, though Shahr-i-Sokhta appears to have been destroyed by fire several times. But a combination of drought, changes in trade routes, and economic trouble might have led people to abandon their cities to return to a simpler existence of herding and small-scale farming. Not until the Persian Empire rose 1,500 years later did people again live in any large numbers in eastern Iran, and not until modern times did cities again emerge. This also means that countless ancient sites are still awaiting exploration on the plains, in the deserts, and among the rocky valleys of the region.
Andrew Lawler is a contributing editor at ARCHAEOLOGY. For our 1975 coverage of the excavations at Shahr-i-Sokhta, see archive.archaeology.org/iran.
The impression of a cylinder seal on an unbaked clay jar sealing from Konar Sandal
(Courtesy Youssef Madjidzadeh)
(Courtesy Youssef Madjidzadeh)
They are tiny and often faded and fragmented. But one abundant source of evidence for both international trade and the role of women in eastern Iran during the third millennium B.C. are the tiny images found on seals and sealings throughout this area. The small impressions were designed to mark ownership and control of goods, from bags of barley to a storeroom filled with oil jugs.
Holly Pittman, an art historian at the University of Pennsylvania who has worked throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, is examining the fragile impressions. She is attempting to build a clearer picture of the lives of ancient inhabitants in large centers such as Shahr-i-Sokhta, Shahdad, and Konar Sandal, near today's modern city of Jiroft. Pittman now believes these people of eastern Iran shared common ideas and beliefs while also participating in the first age of long-distance exchange.
Female deities with vegetation growing out of their bodies are one common element on the seals found in eastern Iran and, as on the Shahdad flag, figures confronting one another also appear Lasting Impression frequently. A distinctive type of white stone seals that have been found in Central Asia and the Indus appear to have been made in a similar style by eastern Iranians. "There are relationships between sites, and certainly this part of eastern Iran is participating in a global network," she says. "This is a world of merchants and traders."
Pittman believes that by early in the third millennium B.C., the network linking Mesopotamia and southeastern Iran resulted in a mixing of cultures across this enormous area. Seals that were used to close storage rooms in Konar Sandal, for example, are of a specific Mesopotamian type common in the major Iraqi port of Ur. That hints strongly at the presence of Mesopotamian inhabitants in Konar Sandal who had almost certainly come from Ur. She also suggests that Mesopotamian artifacts absorbed style elements from southeastern Iran. Another example is the famous inlaid lyre found at Ur, which has the face of a bearded bull typical of eastern Iran. Other seals found in ruins such as Konar Sandal are Proto-Elamite in style, showing strong connections with western and central Iran, where the Proto-Elamite writing system is believed to have originated at the same time that Mesopotamian urban life began to flourish in the late fourth millennium B.C.
Seals were powerful markers of economic, political, and social clout. At some eastern Iranian sites such as Shahr-i-Sokhta, they appear to have been largely in the hands of women. Marta Ameri, an archaeologist at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, notes that two-thirds of the seals found in Shahr-i-Sokhta's graves are found in female burials. While the grander bronze seals are uncovered mostly in male tombs, the more common bone seals are more often associated with women. Based on remains of sealings made to doors, vases, bags, and other objects, the bone seals were in more frequent use than the bronze. This suggests, Ameri says, that women were in control of food storage and possibly trade goods as well. Until more intact graves are found at other sites such as Shahdad, "we at least have a tantalizing look at the roles women may have played," says Ameri.
Andrew Lawler is a contributing editor at ARCHAEOLOGY. For our 1975 coverage of the excavations at Shahr-i-Sokhta, see archive.archaeology.org/iran.![Retour au fascicule]( "Retour au fascicule")
Cultural relationships beyond the Iranian plateau: the Helmand civilization,Baluchistan and the Indus Valley in the 3rd millennium BCE
Cultural relationships beyond the Iranian plateau: the Helmand civilization,Baluchistan and the Indus Valley in the 3rd millennium BCE
Paléorient Année 2008 Volume 34 Numéro 2 pp. 5-35
http://archive.archaeology.org/1111/features/iran_lasting_impression.html
http://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/paleo_0153-9345_2008_num_34_2_5254.pdf
http://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_2008_num_34_2_5254
http://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/paleo_0153-9345_2008_num_34_2_5254.pdf
http://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_2008_num_34_2_5254
The ruins of Shahr-i Sokhta, an ancient Bronze Age town, are situated in the Sistan region of southeast Iran near the Afghan-Iranian border. This settlement, which flourished for more than a thousand years between the end of the fourth and the beginning of the second millennium B.C., reached the peak of its prosperity as a center of trade and raw materials around 2700-2600 B.C. Its decline was a consequence of localized environmental changes which began at the beginning of the second millennium B.C. with the drying up of the Hilmand River delta upon which the town rose. Indeed, not just the town by the entire southern portion of the Sistan region was gradually abandoned, and today Shahr-i Sokhta comprises the largest group of ruins in a territory measuring some 1,200 square kilometers along the course of the ancient delta between Chagar Burjak and Hauzdar.
For more of our 1975 coverage of the excavations at Shahr-i-Sokhta, Iran, click to download PDF (9.7 MB).
CC Lamberg-Karlovsky and DT Potts , 2001, Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran, 1967-1975: the third millennium, CC Lamberg-Karlovsky, DT Potts with contributions by Holly Pittman and Philip L.Kohl, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Excavations at Tepe Yahya,... by on Scribd