3000-Year-Old Stone-Paved Street Discovered in Gohar Tappeh - CAIS Archaeological & Cultural News of the Iranian World©

LONDON, (CAIS) -- Archeologists in the ancient site of Gohar Tappeh (also Tepe -an archaeological mound), northern Iran, discovered a street with stone pavements belonging to nearly 3000 years ago. The new discovery is a reminder of the fact that Gohar Tappeh was not solely an ancient cemetery in the first millennium BCE, and rather it was inhabited by people who also paid attention to a civil life, according to a report by Cultural Heritage News Agency (CHN).

Announcing this news, Ali Mahforouzi, head of the archeology team at Gohar Tappeh said: “The discovered street is 10 meters long and 2 meters wide, but we still haven’t unearthed all of it. Cobblestones obtained from nearby lakes were used to pave this street and remains of a wrecked house can be seen in the middle of the street.”

Since no other streets are reported to have been found belonging to the Iron Age, archeologists believe that the newly discovered street in Gohar Tappeh might be the first one of its kind found to be from that time.

“Squashed mud and deposited ash from kilns in the area were used in the foundation of the discovered street and then the surface was paved using stone,” explained head of the excavation team at Gohar Tappeh.

He also said that archeologists were able to discover a well in the middle of the street in which a large number of broken earthenware as well as fragmented animal bones were found. According to this archeologist, most probably this was a place to dump garbage which shows the ancient inhabitants’ attitude for keeping their streets clean by devising garbage storage areas.

Regarding the remains of the house discovered in the middle of the street, Mahforouzi said that it indicates the area was abandoned by its inhabitants: “Rubbles show that the house was collapsed naturally over time and this only happens when an area is abandoned for a long time.”

Located in the Iranian northern province of Mazandaran, Gohar Tappeh is one of the most important historical sites of Iran. It is believed that Gohar Tappeh once enjoyed a complicated urbanization with a history that goes back to some 5000 years ago. Discovery of architectural structures and graves in the region are evidence of continual life during the later centuries there.

Based on stratigraphical studies done over the past few decades on the site, Gohar Tappeh was an active center in the middle Bronze Age which was still alive during the Iron Age. Evidence shows that the inhabitants of Gohar Tappeh enjoyed permanent settlements during the Iron Age. However, the most ancient cultural layers found in the area belong to the Neolithic period, some 14,000 years ago, which are very similar to those found in other regional states and Central Asia.

Extracted From/Source: Cultural Heritage News Agency (CHN)

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