Tepe Yahya

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Coordinates: 28 ° 35 ′ 0 ″  N , 56 ° 21 ′ 0 ″  E

Map: Iran
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Tepe Yahya​
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Iran

Tepe Yahya is the modern name of an ancient city in southeastern Iran . Excavations mostly took place from 1967 to 1975 by the American School of Prehistoric Research .

The remains of the settlement date from the 5th to the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Another settlement phase dates from approx. 1000 BC. Chr. To 400 AD

In Tepe Yahya there was a quarry for chlorite since the 3rd millennium . According to the latest excavations and findings in the Dschiroft and Schahr-e Suchte sites further north, the deposit belonged to a Bronze Age cultural area that lay between the Indus culture and Sumer . It was a center of high culture with numerous finds of chlorite vessels that were found in the entire area between the Indus and Tigris. A link, a third high culture, was thus found between the well-known centers of the 3rd millennium.

Chlorite vessels were exported to almost all neighboring countries up to the Mediterranean coast and enjoyed great popularity there. The vessels were decorated with mythical creatures, scorpions, and bizarre bird people. As in Jiroft, cylinder seals from Turkmenistan and Lothal , the port of the Indus Valley culture, and stamps from Pakistan and Bahrain, suggesting extensive trade relations, were found. The experts of the new excavations therefore assume an independent high culture, which was probably still pre-Elamite. Tepe Yahya belonged to Jiroft's sphere of influence, which is part of the pre- Elamite culture. Clay tablets with the Proto-Elamite script were found. The experts suspect that valuable goods such as lapis lazuli, bronze, jewels and gold were processed here and transported to Sumer, where these raw materials were not found.

Chlorite vessels

  • Jug with a horned human figure from the Jiroft region

  • Vase from Tepe Giyan, in the Louvre since 2003

literature

  • Clifford C. Lamberg-Karlovsky: Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran, 1967 - 1975, The early periods. Cambridge Mass 1986, ISBN 0-87365-541-9 .
  • Clifford C. Lamberg-Karlovsky: Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran, 1967 - 1975, The third millennium. Cambridge Mass 2001, ISBN 0-87365-549-4 .
  • Peter Magee: Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran, 1967-1975. The Iron Age Settlement. ISBN 0-87365-550-8 .
  • Peter Damerow, Robert K. Englund: The proto-elamite texts from Tepe Yahya. Cambridge Mass 1989, ISBN 0-87365-542-7 .
  • Matthias Schulz: Forgotten Message. In: Der Spiegel . Hamburg 2010, 3, p. 105 f. Online ISSN  0038-7452

Web links