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LONDON, (CAIS) -- After 12 years, confession of an illegal digger resulted in discovery of the biggest megalithic grave belonging to the pre-Achaemenid era in north of Iran. This massive grave is more than three and half meters in width and 15 meters in length, according to CHN.

Prior to this, the illegal diggings of a villager in the area led to discovery of a huge stone grave containing a golden goblet, two bronze axe, 12 bronze daggers and swords, as well as some opal bracelets in Gilan province.

According to Mohammad Reza Khalatbari, head of archeology team of Talesh historical site director of Marian Research Center, several years ago, during the construction of a place for fish hatcheries in a village near Marian, a road was constructed over a historical cemetery which its identity was unknown until that time.

“Since nobody noticed the existence of this archeological site, some historical graves were destroyed during the development activities in the area. Some huge stones used in graves were unearthed during the construction activities and put on the road sides. One of the villagers noticed that these stones have special characteristics and were different from regular stones in the bed of the road and concluded they should have belonged to historical times. Therefore, he started diggings in the area which resulted in unearthing a golden goblet, two bronze axe, 12 bronze daggers and swords, as well as some opal bracelets which are very similar to those one which have remained from the Achaemenid dynastic era. Figure of a king on his seat who was granted a bird was engraved on one of the opals. Unfortunately all these valuable relics were sold for some US $150 twelve years ago,” said Khalatbari.

However, since the discovered grave was located on the way of the road, the illegal digger could not continue his diggings and concealed the place of the grave for 12 years and at last decided to report the case to Talesh archeology team.

It seems when the illegal digger noticed there is no hope to continue his diggings due to construction of the road, he decided to report the case to Talesh Archeology Center to have a role in preserving Talesh archeological relics.

Prior to this archeologists did not know anything about existence of such a historical place in the area.

“This digger told us that he has succeeded in discovery of a massive grave which he has not seen so far and direct us to the place. After studying the stones left on the side of the road, we noticed that some of these stones are scraped stones which means that even before the Achaemenid era (550-330 BCE) Iranian people were familiar with the technique for cutting the stones to set locks for graves. When we started archeological excavations, for the first time we face with a unique grave,” added Khalatbari.

According to Khalatbari, the width of this grave is 3 meters with more than 15 meters in length and it is known as the biggest megalithic four layer grave which has been discovered so far.

With unearthing the grave, archeologists found two burials belonging to two different periods. Although some 3 meters of this grave has been unearthed so far, archeologists have not yet reached to pure soil/

“It is not wise at all to abandon our excavations in this stone megalithic grave which would result in rush of illegal diggers to the area and losing one of the most valuable archeological evidence. Therefore we have asked a budget from Archeology Research Center to continue our excavations to finish our work,” explained Khalatbari.

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