Women living 5,000 years ago in the Burnt City in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan were fastidious when it came to fashion, sporting the latest trends in designer dresses and jewelry.

Graves of women excavated in the devastated city each contained a funerary urn filled with eye liners, combs and jewelries, revealing their craving for fashion was trend-setter, said Mansour Sajjadi, head of the archeological team conducting studies in the Burnt City.

"They also used to wear gem necklaces and bracelets, all considered chic masterpieces 5,000 years ago."

"An eye liner bowl, a comb, a makeup box, a marble device for applying the eye liner, as along with some jewelry were dug out from the grave of an 18-year old wealthy woman," he added.

Unearthed dresses reveal those women used to don outfits similar to the sari worn by their modern Indian and Pakistani counterparts. It seems the Burnt City enjoyed state-of-the-art textile industry and female garments came in a variety of designs and colors.

The eighth season of research at the 5,000-year-old site would kickoff on December 2, focusing on stereotype men's clothes. Physical features of the inhabitants would be also studied, Sajjadi announced.

 

Signs of civilization, first laid down in the Burnt City in 3200 B.C., remained intact up to 2100-2000 B.C. and during four successive periods in history. One of the prominent relics found in the Burnt City is a skull believed to be the first evidence of brain surgeries in prehistoric Persia.

Experts had earlier estimated a thorough identification and documentation of an astounding 4 billion artifacts in the Burnt City would require some 400 years, at least.

 

Archeologists have already managed to document and profile 102 villages of the sprawling city, located south of Zabol in the eastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan.