Prehistoric Nishapur and the Frontier Between Central Asia and Iran1

Iranica Antiqua, vol. XXXVII, 2002 PREHISTORIC NISHAPUR AND THE FRONTIER BETWEEN CENTRAL ASIA AND IRAN1 BY Fredrik T. HIEBERT and Robert H. DYSON Jr. (Philadelphia) Introduction Separation of scholarly traditions between Iran, the Soviet Union, and the west has led to a conceptualized separation of the ancient cultures of the Iranian Plateau and Central Asia. This is due in part to a lack of field research in northern Khorassan compared to the better known archaeology of Central Asia (Bactria, Margiana, and the Kopet Dag region) and Western Iran. Piggott (Piggott 1950) on one side of the Soviet border, and Masson and Sarianidi on the other (Masson and Sarianidi 1972) set the ancient boundary along the edge of the Iranian Plateau. In many ways it made sense to draw the border there since no modern traditional cultures crossed the mountains along the central Kopet Dag, and the edge of the Iranian Plateau had been an established cultural boundary for several hundred years. Whatever interaction was evident between the Iranian Plateau and the lowlands of the Kopet Dag’s northern foothills was con- sidered either the result of intermittent long-distance trade or of migration. Lamberg-Karlovsky’s review (Lamberg-Karlovsky 1973) of Masson and Sarianidi’s general work on prehistoric Central Asia (1972) was one 1 This paper was written in honor of our friend and colleague Karl Lamberg- Karlovsky, who has always enjoyed investigating frontiers. We would like to thank Joan Lines Oates, who originally showed Dyson the Nishapur-P collection (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1938) in 1956. We would like in particular to thank Joan Aruz and Shoki Goodarzi of the Ancient Near East Department, and Stephano Carboni of the Islamic Department of the Metroplitan Musuem of Art for their assistance and per- mission to publish this material. Richard Bulliet generously allowed Hiebert use of aerial photos of the Nishapur region which allowed him to identify the location of the site. Alex Bauer identified the photo archives of Nishapur-P in the Islamic section; Ted Hemmaplardh and Fred Hiebert drew the artifacts in the Ancient Near East Department. We would especially like to thank Murad Kurbansakhatov, Victor Sarianidi, Gennadi Koshelenko and Vadim Masson for making our research in Central Asia possible. 114 F.T. HIEBERT AND R.H. DYSON of the first attempts to question this relationship of the Kopet Dag’s northern foothills and the Iranian Plateau to the south. Lamberg-Karlovsky’s interest, along with that of Maurizio Tosi, eventually led to two important surveys in Iran, one by Philip Kohl in the Darreh Gaz plain (Kohl and Heskel 1980) and the other by Ricciardi and Biscione along the Atrek River (Ricciardi 1980). ‘We are dealing…in the Atrek valley, with a frontier zone of considerable agricultural potential lying between two different but freely communicating areas, the Iranian Plateau and Central Asia’, stated Ricciardi (Ricciardi 1980: 52) concerning the need to survey the upper Atrek. Both surveys pointed to the richness of the prehistoric occupation in the region of the Kopet Dag foothill plains. Biscione and Kohl discovered that the northern edge of Khorassan had many Chal- colithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age sites with remains typical of Central Asia. However, regional archaeological survey was cut short in 1979 by the Iranian revolution. As a result, no sites were systematically excavated despite the identification of several important prehistoric sites. Test trenches were exavated by Biscione at Tepe Yam in the upper Atrek valley, but remain unpublished. However, a prehistoric site along this border had been excavated some 40 years earlier, but also had remained unpublished. During the Metropol- itan Museum of Art’s excavations at the medieval site of Nishapur, Hauser reported that his team investigated a prehistoric site in the vicinity of Nishapur (Hauser et al. 1938). One of the minor objectives of the 1937 expedition was ‘to test a prehistoric site discovered northwest of the modern city by [Charles K.] Wilkinson on one of the sherd-hunting walks we take from time to time in the hope of finding sites belonging to periods other than those in which we have worked’ (Hauser et al. 1938: 3-4). This site, located 12 km to the northwest of the medieval city, was named ‘Nishapur-P’ by Wilkinson in the photography logs. No further mention of this site was made in the reports on Nishapur, although it is now clear from the archives that Wilkinson conducted test excavations through a long and important prehistoric sequence. No note- books have yet been identified which record the excavations at the prehistoric site, although sherds, metal objects and small finds are registered in the Metropolitan Museum collections from the site. One of us (Dyson) made a preliminary study of the collections in 1956, noting general resem- blances to the Namazga sequence of the northern foothills of the Kopet Dag mountains (Dyson 1956). Due to the lack of excavated materials in PREHISTORIC NISHAPUR 115 the vicinity at that time, and the absence of active communication with Soviet scholars, there was little with which to evaluate the collections. Renewed excavations at Anau depe in Turkmenistan, begun in 1993 by Lamberg-Karlovsky and continued by Hiebert, have provided a framework for the evaluation of the Nishapur-P collection. Anau is 190 km north of Nishapur and is the site closest to Nishapur-P with related material in stratified context. The archaeological materials from these two sites have an almost one-for-one correspondence. Excavations at Anau reveal largely continuous occupation from the time of its establishment during the Anau 1A period at 4500 B.C. (Kurbansakhatov and Hiebert 2001). The settlement location shifted slightly twice, resulting in a separate Chalcolithic mound, a Bronze and Iron Age mound, and a Classical-Medieval mound. The site’s importance ended sometime in the 15th century A.D. Excava- tions at Bronze Age Anau have shown that, despite its modest present size, it contained urban architecture, and evidence of administration (in the form of sealings and stamps) typical of the larger sites of the Turk- menistan Kopet Dag (Hiebert 2000). On-going excavations at Anau have provided a new radiocarbon chronology for the periods from 4500 B.C. through the first millennium B.C. (Hiebert and Kurbansakhatov n.d.). This sequence of dates helps to clarify the chronology of this region and the regions to the south and west. Northern Khorassan Eastern Iran is made up of mountain ridges and massifs, irregular valleys, and large expanses of desert (Fisher 1968). The region of Khorassan is delimited by the Gurgan and Atrek rivers to the west north with the Kopet Dag and Paropamisus mountains to the north and northeast respectively. The northernmost edge of Khorassan and the Iranian Plateau is formed by the adjacent linear mountain ranges separated by the Atrek river and the Mashed plain: the Kuh-e Hazar Masjid or Kopet Dag range, and a southern chain comprised of the Kuh-e Binalud and Kuh-e Shah Jahan ranges. The intermountain valleys and regions south of the Kopet Dag are about 1000m higher than the lowlands north of the Kopet Dag where the ancient sites of central Asia are situated at the edge of the Kara Kum. The modern city of Nishapur is situated at around 1200m a.s.l. with the mountain ranges to the north rising to 3000 m. The environment of northern Khorassan is seasonal and temperate. Rainfall agriculture is possible along 116 F.T. HIEBERT AND R.H. DYSON the foothills and cul-de-sac valleys where run-off provides surface water in the spring. With the development of qanat irrigation systems in the early historic period, settlement shifted away from the mountain edge to lower elevations. Qanat irrigation drained groundwater that would have flowed into the plain, causing desertification of the zone between the mountains and the areas where the qanat water rises up (Bulliet 1976). In addition to agricultural potential, northern Khorassan has long been important for its geological resources, including semi-precious minerals and stones. Al-Biruni (973-1050 A.D.) in his book Densities described different gems and minerals from northern Khorassan as being of particular importance (Hakim 1973). Other early Islamic writers described the region as being an exporter of copper, silver, gold and iron (Le Strange 1905). The topography of the region encouraged contact both east-west and north-south. The Nishapur plain forms a natural east-west corridor from Afghaniststan to Shahrud, north of the desert forming part of the famous medieval ‘Khorassan road’ (Le Strange 1905). This route led from Badakhshan, with its lapis lazuli mines, west across northern Iran along the southern edge of the Elburz mountains, north of the Dasht-i Kavir to the Zagros passes leading down from the plateau to the Mesopotamian plains. Evidence of lapis lazuli, alabaster, steatite and serpentine from Tepe Gawra IX-VIII (Tobler 1950) as well as turquoise at Sialk 13 and elsewhere (Ghirshman 1938) suggests that the east-west Khorassan Road was already functioning by 4000 B.C. The Nishapur plain also lies at the cross-roads of a northern route, which follows along the edge of the mountains to Quchan in the upper Atrek valley, and through high but easily passable valleys which punctuate the Kopet Dag leading to the Darreh Gaz plain, Anau and Ashagabat. The Nishapur foothill plain The Nishapur lowlands are formed by the southern foothills of the Kuh-e Binalud range. The gently sloping plains are drained to the southwest by the Rud-e Kal Shur, which originates from four small feeder streams in the mountains.

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