Last
March, the team discovered an Achaemenid village at Tang-e
Bolaghi, but afterward excavations were stopped due to bad
weather conditions. The newly discovered village, which
contains 30 houses, was unearthed during the second phase
of excavations, which began in early October.
Joint
teams of Polish, Japanese, French, German, Italian, and
Australian archaeologists are working alongside Iranian
experts at Tang-e Bolaghi to save 129 ancient sites, which
will be flooded by the Polvar River when the Sivand Dam is
completed. The dam is scheduled to come on stream on
February 1, 2006.
As
the fateful day approaches, the teams have accelerated the
pace of their excavation activities.
“This
is the second time we have found an Achaemenid village in
Tang-e Bolaghi. We had no information on rural
architecture during the Achaemenid era before this. Our
knowledge was limited to palaces and monuments surviving
from that era,” the Iranian director of the joint team,
Alireza Asgari, said.
“In
the first phase of excavations, we found some artifacts,
which indicated that the inhabitants of the village had
been quite well off economically. The artifacts discovered
in the second phase show that the village had been active
during the entire reign of the Achaemenid dynasty in Iran.
The artifacts include some stone beads, a marble bowl, a
spinning wheel, a bronze clip, ornamental items, some
parts of a mill, arrowheads, and a shield,” he added.
The
artifacts show that the rural village had a distinct
lifestyle and that Achaemenid kings supported the
villagers, Asgari said.
Once
part of the renowned imperial route to Persepolis and
Susa, Tang-e Bolaghi also contains sites from the
Neolithic and Paleolithic periods, the early, middle, and
late Elamite era (2700-645 BC), and the Sassanid era
(224-651 CE).
Experts
believe that the water stored in the Sivand Dam’s
reservoir will increase humidity, which will later damage
the foundations of the palaces of Pasargadae. Even the
mausoleum of Cyrus the Great is believed to be at risk.
Asgari
previously said that underwater archaeological activities
would be impossible at Tang-e Bolaghi due to silt and
other sediment that would be deposited in the reservoir
bed over time.
