Coordinates: 33°58′08″N 51°24′17″E / 33.968915°N 51.404738°E / 33.968915; 51.404738 (Sialk) Tepe Sialk (Persian: تپه سیلک‎) is a large ancient archeological site (a tepe or Persian tappeh, "hill" or "mound") in a suburb of the city of Kashan, Isfahan Province, in central Iran, close to Fin Garden. The culture that inhabited this area has been linked to the Zayandeh Rud Civilization.^[1]

Tepe Sialk
Tepe Sialk Location in Iran
Coordinates: 33°58′08″N 51°24′17″E / 33.96889°N 51.40472°E / 33.96889; 51.40472

History[link]

The Sialk mound was built around the 8th century BC. A joint study between Iran's Cultural Heritage Organization, the Louvre, and the Institut Francais de Recherche en Iran also verifies the oldest settlements in Sialk to date back to 5500–6000 BC.

Tepe Sialk is a mud-brick platform, possibly a support for some kind of building standing atop the platform but not necessarily a temple. Some have speculated it is a ziggurat, but the evidence does not point to that kind of structure. At the site, there are actually two structures (necropolises) at Sialk situated several hundred feet from each other. The Louvre has also excavated a cemetery near the structures that has been dated as far back as 7,500 years.^[2] What little is left of the two crumbling platforms is now threatened by the encroaching suburbs of the expanding city of Kashan. It is not uncommon to see kids playing soccer amid the ruins, while only several meters away lie the supposedly off-limits 5,500-year-old skeletons unearthed at the foot of the tepe (see referenced articles below). The site still remains to be registered as a World Heritage Site at UNESCO for protection.

Sialk, and the entire area around it, is thought to have first originated as a result of the pristine large water sources nearby that still run today. The Cheshmeh ye Soleiman ("Solomon's Spring") has been bringing water to this area from nearby mountains for thousands of years. The Fin garden, built in its present form in the 17th century, is a popular tourist attraction. It is here that the Persian kings of the Safavid dynasty would spend their vacations away from their capital cities. It is also here that Piruz (Abu-Lu'lu'ah), the Iranian assassin of Islam's second Caliph, is buried. All these remains are located in the same location where Sialk is.

Archaeology[link]

Tepe Sialk was excavated for three seasons (1933, 1934, and 1937) by a team headed by Roman Ghirshman.^[3][4] Studies related to the site were conducted by D.E. McCown, Y. Majidzadeh, and P. Amieh.^[5][6] Excavation was resumed for several seasons between 1999 and 2004 by a team from the University of Pennsylvania and Iran's Cultural Heritage Organization led by Sadegh Malek Shahmirzadi called the Sialk Reconsideration Project. ^{[7] [8] [9] [10]} Artifacts from the original dig ended up mostly at the Louvre, while some can be found at the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the National Museum of Iran and in the hands of private collectors.

Images[link]

See also[link]

Ancient Near East portal

• Cities of the Ancient Near East
• Elamite Empire
• Iranian Architecture
• Ancient Iranian history
• Iranian pottery
• Kashan
• List of Iranian castles

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Les recherches archéologiques françaises en Iran. November 2001, Téhéran. Institut Français de Recherche en Iran, Musée du Louvre, ICHO.
• Yousef Majidzadeh, Sialk III and the Pottery Sequence at Tepe Ghabristan: The Coherence of the Cultures of the Central Iranian Plateau, Iran, vol. 19, 1981

External links[link]

• Iranian.com
• Payvand.com News item on Sialk
• Archnet.org
• Kashan Municipality

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