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.CAIS NEWS© ARCHAEOLOGICAL & CULTURAL NEWS OF THE IRANIAN WORLD |
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6000-Year-Old Prehistoric Site Totally Bulldozed in Qom
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15 August 2007 |
LONDON, (CAIS) -- Bulldozers working for the Yasser construction project in Qom have entirely demolished the 6000-year-old Shad Qoli archaeological site in central Iran, the Persian service of CHN reported on Tuesday.
“The
license for excavation of the area was issued by the Archaeological Research
Center of Iran (ARCI) two years ago at a time when approximately half of the
site had already been flattened,” said Siamak Sarlak, director of the team
which was to have conducted salvage operations at the location.
“According
to the cultural heritage regulations in Iran, the Governor General’s Office of
Qom, which is in charge of the Yasser construction project, was responsible for
sponsoring archaeological salvage operations. However, the office refused to
provide the necessary funds for carrying out the excavation work and we have
recently been informed that the remainder of the site has been completely
destroyed by bulldozers,” he added.
The
salvage team needed a sum of 50 million rials (about $5250) to excavate the
site.
“A
dispute arose over which organization -- the governor’s office or the ARCI --
was responsible for funding the operation. Meanwhile the bulldozers continued
the process of destruction, which has resulted in total loss of the
archaeological significance of the area,” Sarlak explained.
Archaeologists
believe that people used to live in the Qoli Darvish Tappeh, another nearby
prehistoric site, but that due to the flooding of the Qomrud River they migrated
to the Shad Qoli region and continued to dwell there for about a millennium.
The
Qoli Darvish Tappeh, one of the principal pre-historic sites situated on
Iran’s central plateau, includes the remains of a number of Bronze Age and
Iron Age settlements. There is evidence that Qoli Darvish was inhabited from the
fourth millennium BCE until the ninth century CE.
This
area has also been seriously damaged over the past decade by the construction of
the Qom-Jamkaran Highway, such that only ten percent of the ancient site now
remains intact.
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Extracted From/Source*: Mehr News
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"History is the Light on the Path to Future" |
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Encyclopaedia Iranica
The British Institute of Persian Studies "Persepolis Reconstructed"
The British Museum
The Royal Asiatic Society
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