Tomb of Arjān
The tomb of Arjān was found by chance during road construction in 1982 and got its name from the nearby ruins of the ancient city of Arrjān (Arğān) in the province of Khuzestan (in today's southwestern Iran ). The grave dates to the Neo-Elamite period around 600 BC. BC, whereby a precise chronological classification is difficult. After the discovery, the two archaeologists F. Towhidi and A.Khalilan were called to help, who recovered and recorded the finds. All objects except the skeleton were brought to the Iranian National Museum in Tehran .
The grave was unstacked when it was found and contained a number of unusual objects that suggest that a person of high rank was buried here. The actual grave consisted of a chamber found 1.1 m below the modern surface. The chamber was made of stone. The interior walls were stuccoed. The roof consisted of several large stone slabs. There were no signs of any surface structures. In the chamber there was a large bronze coffin, reminiscent of a bathtub (in English, this is why such coffins are called bathtub coffins ).
Grave goods were found outside the coffin and in the coffin. Based on the bones, the man buried here is about 40 to 50 years old, who was about 1.68 cm tall during his lifetime. Numerous textiles decorated with patterns were found among grave goods, which after analysis could be identified as being made of cotton . It is the earliest example of cotton in the Middle East. Various gold rosettes certainly adorned some of these garments. An outstanding object is a golden ring of uncertain function. It consists of two round discs, which are decorated with mythical animals in low relief. He found himself on the dead man's chest. Comparable rings are also known from other sites, but are never designed so elaborately. Other finds included a dagger, a large bronze bowl richly decorated with figures, a bronze candelabra, a bronze vase, a silver vase, a bronze lamp, various bronze vases, a stone vase and a cuneiform tablet outside the grave.
Four objects (the bronze bowl, the candelabra, the ring and the silver vase) in the tomb bear the inscription: Kidin-Hutran, son of Kurluš . This person is known from other sources as well.
Individual evidence
- ^ Yasmina Wicks: Bronze 'bathtub' Coffins in The Context Of 8th-6th Century Bc Babylonian, Assyrian and Elamite Funerary Practices . Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-1-78491-174-4 , 24-26
literature
- Javier Alvarez-Mon: The Arjan Tomb, at the Crossroad of the Elamite and the Persian Empires . Leuven, Paris, Walpole MA, 2010 ISBN 978-90-429-2200-6 .
Web links