Site of Medieval Settlement Unearthed in former Iranian Province of Dâgestân

MOSCOW  -- The remains of an early Bronze Age city have been found in southern Dagestan, a modern autonomous Russian republic in the north Caucasus, ITAR-TASS news agency reported.

Archeologists from the Dagestan branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences found bronze artifacts, stone tools and pottery fragments at the third millennium BCE city of Torpak-Kala, or Clay Fortress.

They said the city was probably home to people of the Kura-Araks culture, who lived in a widespread region of the Caucasus as well as in parts of present-day Turkey and Iran.

Archeologists said they intrigued by the presence at the site of objects in obsidian, or volcanic glass, which is not normally found in Dagestan.

They also noted the presence of well-preserved samples of pottery in forms previously unknown in Dagestan. Results of the archeological dig would be sent to France for analysis, the agency said.

Dagestan and most of the southern republics of the former Soviet Union,
such as, the today's Republic of Azarbaidjan (Former Arran)  were parts of the Greater Iran till Mid-1800s.