Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Cultural Heritage and Tourism Research Institute
2 Assistant Professor of Iranian Center for Archaeology (ICAR), Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Truism
3 Faculty of Conservation and Restoration of Historical and Cultural Objects, Faculty of Conservation and Restoration, University of Arts, Tehran
4 Conservation and Restoration Research Institute, Cultural Heritage and Tourism Research Institute
Abstract
Pottery is the first technological product of humans, a combination of clay and water that, when heated, was produced in the Middle East at least nine thousand years ago. Prehistoric cultures in Iran have their own distinct pottery productions, serving as cultural and historical features of that time. One of these distinctive types is the Beveled Rim Bowls pottery, which originated in Mesopotamia/southwest Iran and is considered a characteristic of early urbanization cultures, scattered throughout various parts of the Middle East. Kaleh Kub, an ancient site in eastern Iran's South Khorasan, has been excavated since 2018, revealing evidence of Beveled Rim Bowls and other diagnostic pottery types attributed to the 4th millennium BC. Kaleh Kub has a long sequence divided into four different periods, with cultural deposits attributed to the early urbanization cultures identified from the second period of this site, known as the cultural horizon of Susa II. Kaleh Kub is the easternmost site on the Iranian plateau where Beveled Rim Bowls can be found among its findings. Given the site's importance in recognizing the distribution of this pottery, this paper aims to investigate the structural analysis of clay samples and compare them with three sites, Choghamish, Abufandova, and Tali-e Iblis, which are index sites with similar technology. The analysis found that while the construction technique of the pottery samples followed a pattern, their constituent structure was not similar, indicating different origins of construction materials. This suggests local production of Beveled Rim Bowls pottery at the Kaleh Kub site.
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