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Ramhormoz graves may be Elamite royal burials: experts TEHRAN, May 20 (MNA) -- A team of archaeologists studying two graves discovered in the city of Ramhormoz in southern Iran said that they bear their remains of a girl and a woman who were most likely members of an Elamite royal family. The team led by Arman Shishegar was assigned to carry out a series of rescue excavations in the Jubji region of the city in Khuzestan Province in May 2007 after the Khuzestan Water and Waste Water Company stumbled on two U-shaped coffins containing skeletons of a girl and a...

Jiroft is the ancient city of Marhashi: U.S. scholarWednesday, May 7, 2008 Tehran Times Culture Desk Jiroft is the ancient city of Marhashi: U.S. scholar TEHRAN -- Piotr Steinkeller, professor of Assyriology in Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of Harvard University, believes that the prehistoric site of Jiroft is the lost ancient city of Marhashi. He developed the theory in his paper during the first round of the International Conference on Jiroft Civilization, which was held in Tehran on May 5 and 6. Marhashi, (in earlier sources Warahshe) was a 3rd millennium BC polity situated east of Elam,...

88 cuneiform inscriptions discovered at Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat Tehran Times Culture Desk TEHRAN -- Eighty-eight brick inscriptions were recently discovered at the 3250-year-old Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat in southwestern Iran’s Khuzestan Province, the Persian service of CHN reported on Wednesday. A team of experts restoring the middle section of the ziggurat discovered the cuneiform inscriptions on the northeastern and southeastern walls. “Only a few of the inscriptions are intact. The inscriptions were discovered when the workers were removing rubble from the bases of the walls,” team director Bijan Heidarizadeh said. French archaeologist Roman Ghirshman had said nothing about the inscriptions in...

...several seal impressions and clay inscriptions found at Haft-Tappeh contain the name Kabnak, and it is possible that this was the original name of the city. The team has also been tasked with discovering the exact location of Kabnak, where the Elamite king Tepti-ahar built a temple complex in the fifteenth century BC and was buried at the site. Tepti-ahar, the last ruler of the Kidinuid period (1460-1400 BC), known from inscribed bricks and a sale contract from Susa and a text said to be from Malamir (in Lorestan Province), is mentioned on approximately 55 tablets of Haft-Tappeh, bearing the...

Archaeologists have succeeded to decipher the text of an old stone tablet found recently in Boushehr, south of Iran. The tablet belongs to Darius the Great, King of Achaemenids. Excavation in the old palace of Bardak-e Siah in Boushehr, in the southern province of Boushehr, at the end of March led to the discovery of a stone tablet, with a written text in New Babylonian and a relief of Darius the Great. Experts of ancient languages succeeded to read and decipher the text, which is evidently part of a larger one. It says: "... I put ... on top of...

HISTORY OF PERSIAN OR PAARSI LANGUAGE May 24, 2005 Fariborz Rahnamoon ORIGIN Paarsi or Persian was the language of the Paarsa people who ruled Iran between 550 - 330 BCE. It belongs to what scholars call the Indo-Iranian group of languages. It became the language of the Persian Empire and was widely spoken in the ancient days ranging from the borders of India in the east, Russian in the north, the southern shores of the Persian Gulf to Egypt and the Mediterranean in the west. Over the centuries Paarsi has changed to its modern form and today Persian is spoken...

Vandals pour paint on Elamite bas-reliefs in southern Iran Tehran Times Culture Desk TEHRAN -- Unidentified men have poured paint on the bas-reliefs of the Elamite Tarisha Temple in the Izeh region of Khuzestan Province, the Persian service of CHN reported on Sunday. In response, the Izeh Cultural Heritage Lovers Society has asked Iranian cultural officials to mobilize security guard teams for the Tarisha Temple, which is also known as Eshkaft-e Salman, and for the nearby Kul-Farah site. The security detail for Izeh’s ancient sites has no means to defend themselves or the ancient sites, society chairman Faramarz Khoshab told...

First Elamite inscription discovered near Bandar Abbas Tehran Times Culture Desk TEHRAN -- The archaeologists working at an ancient site near Bandar Abbas recently discovered a fragment of an inscription which seems to be written in Elamite cuneiform, the Persian service of CHN reported on Tuesday. The director of the team said that the discovery was made in a cemetery from the Qajar era near Sarkhun village, adding that the archaeologists estimate that it dates back to about 1500 BC, which was the middle Elamite era. The inscription is one of the most important and rare artifacts discovered in Hormozgan...

Archeologists Seek Elamite Treasures in Iran ART & CULTURE DESK TEHRAN - The University of Sydney has initiated Australia's largest-ever act of cultural cooperation with Iran in the hope of unearthing archaeological treasures of the ancient Elamite civilization in the Near East. "Unlimited possibilities" lie ahead, according to professor Dan Potts, chair of Sydney's Department of Archaeology, who is posed to sign an agreement which would see the excavation of rich new archaeological sites in what is now Western Iran. The area and Elamite people are referred to in Mesopotamian texts but are yet to be researched in depth. Under...