TEHRAN – Archaeological excavations at the historic Zagros cemetery in Sanandaj, Kordestan province, western Iran, are set to begin in the coming days following authorization from the Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism, a provincial heritage official said.
Ali Behnia, deputy head of the province’s Department of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts, said the cemetery is among Sanandaj’s important archaeological sites and offers considerable potential for scientific research into the region’s history.
The site, which is inscribed on Iran’s National Heritage List, has previously yielded graves dating to the Iron Age, along with artifacts from later historical periods, providing evidence of the region’s cultural development, Behnia said.
The upcoming excavation aims to expand archaeological research, improve understanding of the cemetery’s burial structures and finds, and establish a stronger basis for its conservation and public presentation.
Behnia said one of the project’s main objectives is to establish a site museum, allowing the remains to be preserved in their original setting while making the archaeological site accessible to residents, tourists and heritage enthusiasts.
He added that the involvement of the Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism would help advance research and inform plans for the site’s protection, interpretation and sustainable cultural and tourism use.
Discovered in the autumn of 2008, the Zagros cemetery is believed to date to the late Iron Age II and early Iron Age III, between approximately 1200 and 800 BC, based on archaeological studies and burial practices.
Previous investigations identified tens of graves, revealing four types of burial architecture: simple pit graves, pits covered with stone, megalithic graves, and megalithic graves featuring four layers of stone masonry.
Most of the burials contained the remains of two or three individuals. The graves were aligned along a northeast–southwest axis, while the dead were buried in several positions, including on their right or left sides, in a fetal or crouched position, and, in a smaller number of cases, lying on their backs.
The supine burial practice, in which the deceased were placed face-up with their arms extended or folded across the chest, is relatively uncommon among known Iron Age burials in Iran. Similar examples have been reported at the Kaluraz cemetery and the Tepe Hissar site near Damghan, according to the archaeological account of the Zagros cemetery.
Grave goods recovered from the site include metal and bronze vessels, bowls, small cooking pots, needles, spearheads, arrowheads, daggers, rings, bracelets, earrings, hairpins, tweezers and other personal ornaments. Beads made of glass paste, agate and bone, as well as seals and decorative objects, were also among the reported finds.
These discoveries offer researchers an opportunity to investigate burial customs, material culture and aspects of social life in western Iran during the first millennium BC.
Sanandaj, the capital of Kordestan province, lies in Iran’s western Zagros Mountains at an elevation of about 1,500 meters above sea level.
AM
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: tehrantimes.com
