Tepe Hissar

 

The site of Tepe Hissar has a total diameter of about 600 meters. It consists of a 200 meter by 300 meter main mound with a lower terrace extending to the north and with a few smaller hillocks lying further to the southwest. A small hillock on the east edge of the main mound was designated Treasure Hill after two very rich Strata IIIC buried hoards were found there. The site was eroded and a deep gulch divided it. The surface of the main mound contained a number of burials. Examination of the largest hillock found it to hold the remains of a Sassanian building.^[2]

The site was first discovered in 1877 by Albert Houtum-Schindler^[3]. It was then excavated in 1931 and 1932 by Erich Schmidt, on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. The first season focused on the Sassanian mound and initial work on the main mound. The excavators determined a relative chronology of the site, dividing it into a number of layers. Note that unlike usual practice strata are numbers from oldest to most recent.^[2][1][4]

 

• Strata I (sudivided into IA, IB, and IC) - painted pottery. Only examined in soundings so full extent is unknown though it is estimated to have covered and area with a diameter of 200 meters. Building were constructed with sun-dried mud bricks. Some walls were buttressed. Subdivisions are based on pottery with IA being handmade with rectilinear designs, IB being wheelmade decorated with animal or floral motifs and IC wheelmade with dark brown decoration on a light grayish brown ground. Clay finds included spindle whorls, cones, bicones, dics, and figurines. A number of seals were found but no sealings leading to the idea they were being used as decoration. Copper objects (in IA) included knife and dagger blades, pins, and needles. Numerous lithic and bone objects were also excavated as well as 144 burials.

• Strata II (subdivided into IIA and IIB) - grey pottery. IIA featured wheelmade pottery with motifs similar to Strata IC while decoration changed somewhat in IIB. Strata II is the thinnest of the layers and assumed to have been the shortest occupation though this is not certain. Buildings construction and plan were similar to Strata I so this Strata is largely defined by pottery type. Small finds, lithics, figurines etc, were also similar to Strata I. More copper objects and types appeared including maceheads, rings, bracelets, anklets, earrings, and various tools. A few small gold and silver ornaments were found. Of the 209 burials excavated, those in IIA contained more and varied grave goods.

 

• Strata III (subdivided into IIIA, IIIB, and IIIC) - handmade burnished greyware pottery. The oldest level, IIIA is minimal and ill-defined and its principle value is in making clear the demarcation between Strata IIB and Strata IIIB. The final and most recent layer at Tepe Hissar, IIIC, is also very thin and the buildings are few and insignificant however burials from that layer are "extraordinarily well-equipped" and the buried hoards on Treasure Hill was particularly rich in finds. Strata IIIB was the principle occupation layer including some structures destroyed by conflagration. One, called the Burned Building (BB) was, unlike the others, burned while occupied and still retaining its possessions. This occurrence provided the excavators with a number of skeletal remains and finds as well as baking the mudbrick walls. The BB was the best constructed and elaborate building in Strata IIIB with six rooms (with several stairways leading to the roof), gateway passage, courtyard, outside latrine, and a tower at the door. The excavators declared it the residence of the towns most prominent resident and not a cultic site. Finds in the main room included numerous lapis lazuli, chalcedony, gold, and silver ornaments, copper daggers (one with a grip of silver bands), and large copper vessels. A storeroom contained a number of sizable lidded storage vessels as well as a copper mattock and two copper stamp seals. A large numbers of flint arrowheads were found inside and outside of the BB. Baked clay and lithic finds from Strata III were similar to those of Strata II while metal finds were much more numerous and varied, primarily of copper and silver. Burials excavated were 106 of Strata IIIA, 270 of Strata IIIB and 53 of Strata IIIC. After Strata IIIC the site was abandoned.

The absolute chronology of the occupation levels, especially Strata IIIB and IIIC have been an issue of continuing research and speculation. The original excavators were uncertain but suggested Strata 1A began in the 5th millennium BC, IC ended around 3500 BC, and Strata III lay in the early 2nd millennium BC. Proposals for the end date of Hissar IIIC have ranged from 2300 BC down to 1500 BC. There has also been much speculation of the regional and cultural influences of Strata IIIB and IIIC. Cultural connections have been proposed as far away as Turkmenistan and the Oxus Civilization.^[1][5][6] Radiocarbon dates of levels thought to be chronologically contemporary with some at Tepe Hissar are available i.e. Tureng Tepe (II - 3055 BC, 2813 BC) (IIIB - 2639 BC), Altyndepe (IIIB - 2696 BC), and Yarim Tepe (IIIB - 2626 BC). A single Tepe Hissar radiocarbon date from a sample taken in 1974 provided a calibrated date of 1841 BC +/- 64 for the end of Strata IIIC.^[7]

A large Sassanian period building, built with large baked bricks and termed a Palace by the excavators, was explored on a hillock near the main mound. It contained large (6 feet in diameter) ornamented stucco columns. The building was decorated with polychrome painting. Finds included a number of plaques, a bust, and a few copper coins.^[8][1][9]

A one week surface survey for lithic (stone) finds was carried out by a team led by Giuseppe Tucci with the Italian Archaeological Mission in Iran in 1972. Thousands of lithic tools, mostly fragmentary, were found primarily drills, burins, blades, and scrapers.^[10] In 1976 a two month long re-study project was performed, utilizing modern methods of stratigraphic assessments, ceramic typological analysis and radiocarbon dating led by Robert H. Dyson and Maurizio Tosi for the University of Pennsylvania Museum, the University of Turin and Iran Center for Archaeological Research. After a surface survey four stratigraphic cuts were made, three on the main mound and one on an hillock to the southwest. The study included a cleaning and replaning of the Strata IIB Burned Building, finding an additional room and hearth and showing the "tower" of the excavators was actually a buttress. In association with that on the Damghan Plain two surveys were conducted. A geomorphological survey found that Tepe Hissar was settled on a natural hill that was next to a river that now flows further to the east. A surface survey found no other sites from the same period as Tepe Hissar.^[11][12] In 1995, a rescue excavation, due to a rail line being run through the center of the site, was conducted by Esmaiil Yaghmaii, followed by areal soundings in 2006.^[13][14]

In 2016 DNA was extracted from a human skeletal sample (Strata not identified in source) and was found to carry a mtDNA Haplogroup of H32.^[15]

The human occupation has been divided into three major periods (I, II and III).^[1]

The earliest dating is uncertain but established as after 5000 BC in the Chalcolithic period. This period (Hissar IA and IB) is characterized by mud-bricks buildings and hand-made (IA) and fine wheel-made (IB) ware, decorated with geometric, plant and animal patterns. The most widespread shapes are represented by small cups, bowls and vases.

In the second period (Hissar IIA and IIB), dated to the 4th millennium BC and the beginning of the 3rd, the burnished grey ware becomes predominant and the large number of lapis lazuli beads and alabaster finds, as well as the evidence of large-scale production of copper-based alloys and lead-silver, suggests that the site was playing a very important role in the trade and export of metal artifacts and semi-precious stones from the Middle Asia quarries to Mesopotamia and Egypt.

The third period of development (Hissar IIIA, IIIB and IIIC, chronologically attributed to the second half of the 3rd millennium BC and the beginning of the 2nd (Bronze Age), can be described as a proto-urban phase, mainly characterized by increased wealth, demographic concentration, mass production of plain ware and the construction of large public and ceremonial buildings. The finding of mass burials and individuals showing signs of violence have been interpreted as either due to warfare or interpersonal violence.^[16]

There is considerable cultural continuity from the early Cheshmeh Ali-period settlements in Iran, and into the later Hissar period.

"Traditionally, the early ceramic sequence of north-eastern Iran begins with Neolithic Soft Wares (c. 6000 BC), then Djeitun wares (sixth millennium BC), Cheshmeh Ali “clinky” wares (c. 5300–4300? BC), and finally Hissar IA wares."^[17]

In the Hissar IIIB period, the Burned Building is worth mentioning. It has been variously interpreted due to the richness of its contents and the presence of burned human bodies and flint arrowheads.^[18] Firstly interpreted as a fortification, the discovery of a small fire altar suggests that it may be a shrine.^[19]

Significant changes happened at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. The well-planned architecture of period Hissar IIIB was abandoned and replaced by the poorly organized structures of the Hissar IIIC period, laid out without regard to the plan of the earlier settlement. Moreover, we can mention the first appearance of truly elite burials, such as those of the so-called “Warriors”, the “Priest” and the “Little Girl”, some of them contained BMAC items such as grooved stone columns.^[1]

The subsistence economy was based on agriculture. From Hissar II onward plant remains indicate “an agricultural system based on cereals [glume and free-threshing wheats, naked and hulled barley] and the utilization of local fruit [olive, grapevine] plant resources”.^[20] Lentil seeds, peas and legumes were also present. Animal (cattle, goat and sheep) figurines indicate herding activities.^[21]

In 1931-32 E.F. Schmidt recorded about eight hundred burials, of which only some have been fully described and published: 33 for the period Hissar I, 24 for Hissar II and 38 for Hissar III. Most of the graves are represented by individual burial in simple pits, with the skeleton laying on its side, in a flexed position and the skull oriented towards east and north-east. Some collective graves are attested and four rich graves of the Hissar IIIC period were found in 1931.

The presence of full-time specialists seems to be attested already in the first Chalcolithic period.^[22] Regarding the metal production, already in Hissar I period, both weapons (daggers, knife blades, arrowheads) and other tools (pins, tacks, points and needles) were made.

In Hissar II and III copper artifacts increase in quality and variety and include personal ornaments (earrings, pendants, bracelets, bands), tools and weapons (bidents, lances, mattocks, chisels, mace heads), and luxury items (vessels, mirrors, boxes and intricately cast pins and rods).

The important site of Tureng Tepe is located in the same area of Iran, and has some parallels to Hissar.

A related site of Shir Ashian Tepe is located about 20 km southwest of Hissar; it helped to clarify the chronology of Hissar.^[17]

• Cities of the ancient Near East
• Tepe Sialk

• [8]Afshar, Zahra, "Palaeopathological Analyses of Human Skeletons: Statistical Analysis of Health and Disease among the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Populations at Tepe Hissar", Int J Soc Iran Archaeol 5, pp. 31-44, 2017
• [9]Afshar, Zahra, et al., "The evolution of diet during the 5th to 2nd millennium BCE for the population buried at Tepe Hissar, north-eastern Central Iranian Plateau: The stable isotope evidence", Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 27, 2019
• Andaroodi, Elham, and Mojgan Aghaeimeybodi, "Analysis of Prehistoric Architecture in the Northeast of the Iranian Plateau: A Study of Architectural Developments in the Residential-ritual Sections of Damghan’s Tepe Hissar", pazhoheshha-ye Bastan shenasi Iran 11.28, pp. 53-71, 2021
• Anisi, Alireza, "Tepe Hissar in Damghan: A Conservation and Management Plan", Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 23.3-4, pp. 172-194, 2021
• Dyson, R.H., "The relative and absolute chronology of Hissar II and the proto-Elamite horizon of northern Iran", in Aurenche, O., Evin, J. & Hours, F. (eds.) Chronologies in the Near East: relative chronologies and absolute chronology 16,000-4,000 B.P. British Archaeological Reports. Series 379, V2. Oxford, England:, pp. 647-678, 1987
• Gürsan-Salzmann, Ayşe, "The New Chronology of the Bronze Age Settlement of Tepe Hissar, Iran", University of Pennsylvania Press for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2016 ISBN 9781934536834
• Hozhabri, Ali, and Mohammad Mortezaei, "Determining the Chronology and Function of Monument of Tepe Hissar-Damghan; A Survey of the Building of Qumis, Northeastern of Iran", Journal of Iran's Pre Islamic Archaeological Essays 7.1, pp. 115-128, 2022
• Pigott, V. C., Howard, S. M. and Epstein, S. M., "Pyrotechnology and culture change at Bronze Age Tepe Hissar (Iran)", in Early pyrotechnology: Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Institution, pp. 215-36, 1982
• Sankalia, H. D., "Kot Diji and Hissar III", Antiquity 43.170, pp. 142-144, 1969
• Thornton, C. P., "A Return to the South Hill of Tepe Hissar, Iran", 'My Life is like the Summer Rose', Maurizio Tosi e l'Archeologia come modo di vivere. Papers in honour of Maurizio Tosi for his 70th birthday, hrsg. v. C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, B. Genito, B. Cerasetti (British Archaeological Reports International Series)., pp. 711-718, 2014
• Thornton, Christopher P., A. Gürsan-Salzmann, and Robert H. Dyson, "Tepe Hissar and the Fourth Millennium BC of North-Eastern Iran", Ancient Iran and Its Neighbors: Local Developments and Long-Range Interactions in the Fourth Millennium BC, edited by Cameron A. Petrie, pp. 131-44, 2013

• E Schmidt 1931 excavtion video at Archive.org
• Damghan, Air View of the Hissar Mound Near Damghan; Excavations of the Prehistoric Mound. At Left: A Sasanian Palace. Upper Left: An Islamic Caravanserai - Oriental Institute