Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Mahdi Jahed ¹
• Kamaleddin Niknami ²
• Jebraeel Nokandeh ³

¹ Ph.D Student, Department of Archaeology, Tehran University/ sessional instructor of Islamic Azad University, Pishva, Varamin

² Department of Archaeology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

³ Director of National Museum of Iran, Tehran. Iran.

Abstract

The Varkaneh / Hyrcania (Gorgan plain, Dehistan/Mashhad-i Misrian) is one of the important archaeological regions of the Iranian cultural sphere. Archaeological research in this area is more than a hundred years old, however, the principal archaeological issues in this area remain unanswered. Among these issues is a comprehensive introduction of the pottery forms of the Iron Age of this region and their formal connection with the Bronze Age of the same region. This morphological connection in the region's north, which called Mashhad Misrian and Archaic Dehistan Culture, studied by archaeologists of the former Soviet Union and they believe the Dehistan pottery forms of the Iron Age have their roots in the Bronze Age of Gorgan. In this article, based on this approach, 780 pieces of 12369 pieces of pottery of Nay Tappeh selected and studied to find answers for questions such as the similarity of the Iron Age with the Bronze Age forms of Hyrcania, placing pottery in the three stages of the Iron Age of Iran and an understanding of the transition to the Iron age in the region. The Forms of the Potteries were first compared in the regional context with the Forms of the Bronze and Iron Ages, and then with the Iron Age sites of the northern half of Iran. Observation of these pottery shows that the pottery forms of the Nay Teppeh are very similar to the other examples of the Iron Age of Hyrcania, and they can be rooted in the Bronze Age Hyrcania.

Keywords

• Hyrcania
• Hyrcanian Bronze Age
• Hyrcanian Iron Age
• Nay Tepe
• Pottery Classification