Journal of Archaeological Studies

Abstract Based on the historical texts from the Achaemenian Empire, there have been tribes living in Sistan known as Drangiana or Zaranka. According to the texts these tribes assisted Cyrus by sending food and since then they were called Givers (assisters). Archaeological studies in Sistan introduced some places such as (Dahaneh-ye Qolaman (the Slaves’ Valley) and Surkh Dagh) to be as the settlement site of Evergetáe but there have been no reliable evidence for such suggestions. By conducting an archaeological study in Sistan we tried to locate several new Achaemenian areas, by which we explored new data which enable us to identify the actual location of Evergetáes. In this research comparison made on the characteristics of Evergetáes as mentioned in the written sources on one hand and archaeological specifications of the sites across the different parts of Sistan on the other hand we suggest an alternative location for the Achaemenian Evergetáe in the Sistan plain.

Abstract In Iranian archaeology, Sistan played an important role especially in the Parthian period. This region is well known since it was cross road for Greeksto reach the East, a place for Scythians arrival, the presence of powerful Suren Pahlav clan and the place of epic and heroic tales. During the Parthian era favorable environmental conditions of Sistan caused to arise many of towns and settlements in this region as from the total 1662 archaeological site discovered, 392 of which were assigned to be occupied by Parthians. Evidence of these settlements are scattered in the northern and especially southern half of Sistan which are nowadays remain a depopulated desert. Large Parthian sites were identified in each of the two parts so that we regarded them as the central places according to their ranking in Sistan. During this period of time, Sistan was a prosperous land and it was populated due to the abundance of water resources and suitable arable lands. This paper tries to explore the impact of environmental factors in the Parthian settlement patterns since our archaeological data derived from our fieldwork indicated that there has been a positive correlation between the environment and the sites occupation processes.