Apr 24, 2005, 5:13 PM

Archaeologists collect 15,000 shards at Tang-e Bolaghi

TEHRAN, April 24 (MNA) -- A joint Iranian-Dutch team of archaeologists recently collected 15,000 shards dating back to the Sassanid and early Islamic eras at one of the sites in the Tang-e Bolaghi region of Fars Province.

The Iranian director of the team, Ali Asadi, said on Sunday that the shards were discovered at Site No. 64, which covers an area of nine kilometers.

 

“The collected shards are mostly cream colored, and the experts are currently identifying and classifying the fragments,” he added.

 

A group of German and French archaeologists are also currently working at the site. The team of Iranian and Italian archaeologists, which were also assigned the task of saving Achaemenid sites and artifacts at Tang-e Bolaghi, had previously identified some architecture of houses of ordinary people in a newly discovered Achaemenid era village in the region.

 

Some experts believe that the Tang-e Bolaghi mountain pass, which is located 4 kilometers from Pasargadae, was once a part of the ancient imperial route connecting Pasargadae to Persepolis and Susa. The ancient area also contains sites from the Neolithic and Paleolithic periods, the early, middle, and late Elamite era (2700-645 B.C.), and the Sassanid era (224-651 C.E.).

 

With no expert-level feasibility studies conducted beforehand, construction of the Sivand Dam was begun in 1992 in the region of Tang-e Bolaghi. The dam is scheduled to be completed by March 2006 and afterwards a part of the ancient city will be buried under tons of mud from the Polvar River.

 

The main opening of the dam is about 17 kilometers from the major archaeological site of Pasargadae. Experts believe that the dam will not only ruin the historical mountain pass but will also destroy the ancient site of Pasargadae.

 

RM/HG

END

 

MNA

News ID 11059

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