First Animation of the World Found In Burnt City

Tehran (Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency) -- An animated piece on an earthen goblet that belongs to 5000 years ago was found in Burnt City in Sistan-Baluchistan province, southeastern Iran.

On this ancient piece that can be called the first animation of the world, the artist has portrayed a goat that jumps toward a tree and eats its leaves.

The earthenware found in Burnt City, one of the most developed civilizations dating back to 5000 years ago, show the images of goat and fish more than any other subject. It seems these animals were used more than any other by the people of this city.

On this goblet, with a diameter of 8 cm and height of 10 cm, the images show movement in an intricate way that is an unprecedented discovery. Some earthenware found in Burnt City show repetitive images, but none of them implicate any movements.

“While excavating the grave in which the cream-colored goblet has been found, we came across a skeleton that probably belongs to the creator of this piece”, Mansour Sajjadi, the Iranian archeologist responsible for excavations in Burnt City told CHN.

The archeologists have managed to make an animated piece on the basis of these images in the form of a 20-second film.

Sajjadi said, “The images we have come across in Burnt City have no precedence in prehistoric times.”

After 8 seasons of research in Burnt City, this 5000-year-old site dating back to 2nd or 3rd century BC still holds many secrets within. Burnt City was civilized and developed, and cherished very important ancient crafts including jewelry making and pottery.

Iran: Burnt City Broke the Record in Archeological Findings
By Soudabeh Sadigh
Having discovered and documented 130 archeological sites, archeologists of the Cultural Heritage Center of Burnt City have broken a historic record.

Burnt City’s ancient cemetery
Tehran, 10 October 2006 (CHN) — With discovering and documenting some 130 historical sites including satellite villages in the archeological site of Burnt City within only 6 months, archeologists of the Cultural Heritage Center of Burnt City have surpassed all the previous records in identifying and registering archeological sites in Iran.

“Discovery and registration of 130 historical sites within 6 months of archeological excavations in Burnt City indicates that almost every day one discovery has been made and announced to be registered in the list of Iran’s National Heritage, something which is absolutely unprecedented in the history of archeological excavations in Iran and should be registered as a successful record for Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO),” said Alireza Khosravi, head of Cultural Heritage Center of Burnt City.

Khosravi also announced that experts are currently working on preparing a map on which distribution of archeological sites in Sistan Plain is pinned down as well as a digital map from the area.

According to Khosravi, this project aims to highlight the tourism potentials of the region through identifying and documenting the historical sites that exist in the area. It also intends to introduce the unique archeological features of the Sistan Plain and the rich civilization and cultural values of Burnt City, southeast Iran, and to reveal some unknown aspects of this historical site.

Prior to this, some 137 historical hills had been identified by this Center in the vicinity of Burnt City historical site. Archeologists believed that most probably these hills were settled by the Burnt City inhabitants during the ancient times. The discovered historical sites are located 6-8 kilometers from the Burnt City and some cultural evidence such as broken clays similar to those discovered in Burnt City have been unearthed in these hills.

Located 57 kilometers from the city of Zabol in Sistan va Baluchestan province, southeast Iran, the Burnt City covers an area of 150 hectares and was one of the world’s largest cities at the dawn of the urban era. It was built around 3200 BC and was destroyed some time around 2100 BC. The city had four stages of civilization and was burnt down three times, which is why it is called Burnt City (Shahr-e Sukhteh in Persian).

Toward the end of the second millennium BC, Burnt City came to a cultural standstill; and archeological evidence shows that this ancient civilization of the eastern plateau of Iran somehow vanished from the face of the earth at the beginning of the first millennium BC.

According to Khosravi, archeologists are determined to trace the settlement area of human beings during the latest periods of settlement in Burnt City which coincided with the dawn of civilization in eastern half of the Iranian Plateau. Comparing and studying the discovered cultural evidence such as earthenware remains scattered in the region in different areas from the basin of Hirmand River to the satellite villages as well as identifying the location of the settlement areas in other parts of Sistan Plain where life existed at a time Burnt City was still alive and discovering the process of development of the art of pottery-making in Sistan Plain and finding the trend of civilization in the region are the other objectives behind this year’s archeological excavations in the vicinity of Burnt City.

Although 9 seasons of archeological excavations have been carried out on the Burnt City so far, there are still many questions remained unanswered about the ethnicity and language of its inhabitants. Moreover, archeologists have not yet figured out what happened to the people of the region and where they migrated to after they abandoned their city.

Excavation on the Burnt City was initiated in 1967 when Professor Maurizzio Tosi, Italian archeologists and his colleagues joined Iranian archeologists. Later, in 1988-89, excavations were resumed by Dr. Sajjadi under the auspices of Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization. The outcome of the research has been published in 170 books and papers so far in Persian, English, Italian, Japanese, German, and Spanish languages.

According to excavations and researches, the Burnt City has come to be known as one of the most important proofs for the independence of the eastern part of Iran from Mesopotamia. Based on the discovered historical relics such as rope, basket, cloth, wooden objects, fingernail and hair, weaving equipment such as hooks, shoe lace, human and animal statuettes seldom unearthed in other archeological sites so far, archeologists have concluded that Burnt City was the most significant center of settlement and in fact the whole region’s social, economic, political and cultural center during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC.

One of the prominent ancient relics found in the Burnt City is a skull that anthropologists believe might have been the first evidence of brain surgeries in prehistoric Iran. The skull was found in a mass grave in 1978 during excavations by the Italian team, lead by Maurizzio Tosi.

Results of 10 years of excavations in the historical site of Burnt City are to be published in a book in which major archeological findings in this historical site will be documented.

Burnt City, key to lost civilization
Wed, 11 Apr 2007 10:57:06 GMT

Iran’s ‘Burnt City’, a Bronze Age archeological treasure trove, was once one of the world’s largest communities at the dawn of urban settlement.

The city, called Shahr-e-Sookhteh, sits on the banks of the Helmand river along the Zahedan-Zabol road in the southeast province of Sistan.

Covering an area of 151 hectares, the city was built around 3200 BC and abandoned over a millennium later in 2100 BC. The city experienced four stages of civilization and was burnt down three times. It took its eventual named because it was never rebuilt after the last fire.

The oldest known backgammon, dice and caraway seeds and numerous metallurgical finds, such as pieces of slag and crucible, are among the city’s excavated artifacts. The unearthed game of backgammon is made of 60 pieces from turquoise and agate, and has a rectangular ebony board.

Other objects found at the site include a human skull with signs that suggest brain surgery was conducted on it in this prehistoric city.

The striking find reminds one of “The Story of Sinuhe”, written in hieroglyph during the Egyptian Middle Kingdom around 2000 BC, in which Sinuhe, an Egyptian nobleman and a physician in the court of Amenemhet I, gives an account of open brain surgeries. The unearthed skull in Iran’s Burnt City has discredited the belief based on Sinuhe’s account that brain surgery originated in Egypt.

More than 600 skeletal remains have also been unearthed so far from the Burnt City’s necropolis. The remains had been buried in more than 108 graves with some of the remains grouped together into graves containing three to eight bodies. At least two of the multiple graves were family plots apparently intended for family members who had died within a short period of time of each other.

The deceased residents of the Burnt City were buried in different positions - some were buried prostrate, some in a supine position and some lying on one-side. The most frequent position in burial was to lay the corpse on its side or to position the body into a kind of squat. Scientists believe that the variety in burial methods implies that different cultures coexisted within one society at the Burnt City.

The Golden-eyed Woman

In December 2006, archaeologists discovered the world’s earliest artificial eyeball in the city’s necropolis, thought to have been worn by a female resident of the Burnt City. The artificial eye is a hemisphere with a diameter of just over 2.5 cm (1 inch). It consists of very light material, probably bitumen paste. The surface of the artificial eye is covered with a thin layer of gilding and is engraved with a circle at its center to represent the iris. The eye includes gold lines patterned like the rays of the sun. A hole has been drilled through the eyeball, through which a golden thread is thought to have held the eyeball in place.

Microscopic research has revealed that the eye socket of the female remains bear clear imprints of the golden thread, suggesting that the woman must have worn the eyeball during her lifetime. With her shining golden eye she must have been a striking figure, perhaps a soothsayer or an oracle. The woman with the artificial eye was 1.82 m tall (6 feet), much taller than the average women of her time. She was aged between 25 and 30 and had dark, exotic skin. Her Africanoid cranial structure suggests her origins were the Arabian Peninsula.

Experts say that her skeleton dates to between 2900 and 2800 BC, when the Burnt City was a bustling, wealthy city and trading post at the crossroads of the East and the West. It is thought that the woman may have arrived at the city on a caravan from Arabia. Archeologists have not yet revealed the cause of the woman’s death.

The Ancient Courier

In one of the most recent discoveries from January, a team of Iranian and British anthropologists, working on human remains in the city from the 3rd millennium BC, identified a male camel rider who they believe was a messenger in ancient times.

Studies of the skeletal remains belonging to the man reveal evidence of bone trauma, suggesting that he was a professional rider who most likely spent most of his life on camel back.

Indications of riding are seen on the right leg bone of the man, who died at the age of 40 to 45. The swellings show that he continuously worked as a professional rider since he was a teenager. There are blade-shaped swellings on the lower part of the leg bone which indicate that he used to gather up his right leg while riding, suggesting that he rode on a large animal like a camel or ox. Although there is evidence showing that smaller draft animals were also used in the Burnt City, the act of gathering up a leg while riding is something that one does while riding a camel over long distances. Scientists, then, believe that the man was probably a courier who traveled regularly on camelback.

Women’s Role

Some paleoanthropologists believe that mothers in the Burnt City had social and financial prominence. 5000 year-old insignias, made of river pebbles and believed to belong only to distinguished inhabitants of the city, were found in the graves of some female citizens. Some believe the female owners of the insignias used them to place their seal on valuable documents. Others believe the owners may have used the seal to indicate their lofty status in society.

Craftsmanship

Paleopathological studies on 40 teeth unearthed in the Burnt City’s cemetery show that the inhabitants of the city used their teeth as a tool for weaving to make baskets and other handmade products.

“More than 40 teeth lesions have been identified, the most prominent of which belongs to a young woman who used her teeth as a tool for weaving baskets and similar products,” said Farzad Forouzanfar, director of the Anthropology Department of Iran’s Archeology Research Center and head of the anthropology team at the Burt City in an interview with CHN.

The use of teeth as a tool in the Burnt City is seen in both males and females of different age groups. Evidence shows that weaving was more than a hobby in the prehistoric city. It was one of the most common professions in the city which required a special skill. Residents made a variety of weaved products such as carpets, baskets and other household items.

Studies are currently underway by anthropologists from Iran’s Archeology Research Center and England’s Newcastle University. The scientists hope to study bone fragments and teeth found in various parts of the Burnt City, especially those unearthed in its cemetery, which may unravel the mysteries over some of the most common occupations practiced by the region’s inhabitants.

The reasons for the unexpected rise and fall of the Burnt City are still wrapped in mystery. What seems especially bizarre about the city is its incongruity with nearby civilizations of the time. It is as if the city just appeared out of nowhere. Shahr-e-Sookhteh could eventually be the evidence to prove that an ancient civilization to the east of prehistoric Persia was independent from the civilization of ancient Mesopotamia.

The excavations at the Burnt City also suggest that the inhabitants were a race of civilized people who were both farmers and craftsmen. No weapon has ever been discovered at the site, suggesting the peaceful nature of the residents.

The Burnt City has been continually excavated since the 1970s by Iranian and Italian archaeological teams, with new discoveries periodically reported.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=5668&sectionid=351020108

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