THE oi.uchicago.edu ORIENTAL INSTITUTE NEWS & NOTES NO. 142 SUMMER 1994 ©THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO IRANIAN POTTERY IN THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE By Peggy Horton Grant, Museum Volunteer As a volunteer for Registrar and As­ you an overview of the excavations, first field director of the Persepolis sociate Curator Ray Tindel, I have purchases and gifts that have made project, dug a trial trench at the small had the great opportunity to register our collection such an important one. prehistoric site of Tall-e Bakun A. In artifacts from prehistoric Iran. Hidden (The Oriental Institute has the largest 1932 Herzfeld appointed Alexander away in a basement storage area with collection of Iranian painted pottery Langsdorff and Donald McCown to an IBM computer, I first learned the sherds in the United States, and the conduct systematic excavations at the registration procedures from Ray; Louvre has the largest collection in site. When Erich Schmidt succeeded then Research Associate Abbas Europe.) Herzfeld in 1935, McCown continued Alizadeh introduced me to some of The Oriental Institute's ambitious the excavations at Bakun for another the wonders of Iranian prehistoric program and considerable means in season in 1937. The results of this pottery. last, important season are not The collection of Iranian published, but Alizadeh studied pottery in the Oriental Institute them for his doctoral thesis, and encompasses material from sev­ published some of the data that eral regions. My first assign­ pertain to the presence of ad­ ment was to organize, classify, MASHHAD • ministrative technology at the and register pottery sherds from • TEHRAN site . all-e Bakun A, located a mile The next addition to our from Persepolis in Fars prov­ • SIYALK collection arrived in 1945, ince, and then to do the same • ESFAHAN through the purchase of part of for the Gremliza Surface Col­ • YAZD the Herzfeld Collection, which lection from Susiana in south­ KERMAN had been offered for sale by the MAL YAN :ERSEPOLlS western Iran (see map). My Field Museum of Natural His­ • •• TALL·E BAKUN next project will be to register SHIRAZ tory. Kantor and Delougaz the pottery from Chogha Mish made a selection of the most on the Susiana plain, excavated important and valuable pieces; for twelve seasons by the late regrettably, financial consider­ Professors Pinhas Delougaz and ations did not allow the Institute Helene Kantor. to purchase the entire collec­ The painted pottery of pre­ tion. Most of these pieces are historic Iran is to me exciting whole painted pottery vessels evidence of the creativity and inge­ the 1930s ushered in a series of ranging in date from the sixth to the nuity of the early peoples of Iran. archaeological excavations in Iran second millennium B.C. Examples With the imminent and long-awaited and Mesopotamia. One of the first from this collection may be seen in publication of the first five seasons sites chosen by the Oriental Institute display cases 4, 6, and 7 in the Ira­ at Chogha Mish and the publication for archaeological excavation was nian Gallery. Many of these vessels of the second and last season at Tall­ Persepolis, in the highland province e Bakun, it seems appropriate to give of Fars. In 1928, Ernst Herzfeld, the (continued on page 2) \ ' ~'.:---- ! ' :~ 1-- ' · _____ ______ ___ . L._-. · No. 1 No.2 No.3 oi.uchicago.edu come from Tepe Giyan in leI lines in a rickrack arrangement Lurestan and from the Iranian (no. 1); a wide bowl with alternating central plateau. zones of parallel wavy lines and ver­ For the next addition to our tical bands (no. 2) represents t collection, and perhaps our Painted-burnished ware, one of t most important one, we must earliest wares in the Archaic Susiana travel over the rugged moun­ sequence. Another typical early ex­ tains from the highlands of Fars ample is a bowl with cross-hatched to the Susiana plain in squares in a checkerboard pattern Khuzestan, in the lowlands of (no. 3). southwestern Iran. The succeeding Early Susiana It was here in 1961 that period (ca. 5500 B.C.) developed Delougaz and Kantor began more sophisticated arrangements of their twelve-season excavation painted motifs. A lid is painted with at Chogha Mish under the aus­ geometric zigzags and birds with out­ pices of the Oriental Institute stretched wings. An Early Susiana (later co-sponsored by the Uni­ bowl has painted decorations on the versity of California-Los Ange­ exterior and a set of what appears to les). The death of Delougaz at be four canines on the interior (no. Chogha Mish at the end of the 4). Another bowl shows the charac­ ninth season in 1975 was a teristic use of zigzags, squares, and great loss, but Miss Kantor car­ cross-hatchings (no. 5), a pattern that ried on in the field until 1978, remained a favorite throughout the when the Iranian revolution put prehistoric Susiana sequence. an end to all American expedi­ In the following Middle Susiana tions in Iran. period (ca. 5000 B.C.), Chogha Mish The importance of Chogha became the largest population center Mish and its place in Near in Susiana. The repertory of painted No.4 Eastern archaeology is de­ motifs expanded greatly, while th scribed in the accounts pub­ previous artistic traditions continued. lished in the Oriental Institute One example from the earliest phase Annual Reports 1962-1978. of the Middle Susiana period shows a The cultural levels of prehis­ series of broad zigzags on the exte­ toric Chogha Mish are delin­ rior and a circular design filled with eated by the characteristics of "butterflies" or a checkerboard pat­ the painted pottery. Archaic tern on the interior (no. 6). Mask-like Susiana was the earliest period human faces with pigtails decorate an discovered there, dated to ca. elegant bowl (no. 7). A snake crawl­ 6000 B.C., although at the ing up the side of a tall, graceful bea­ nearby site of Chogha Banut ker (no. 8) reminds us of the later pottery was found that ante­ beakers fo und at Susa. dated Archaic Susiana pottery Many examples from Chogha from Chogha Mish; this pottery Mish can be found in the Iranian Gal­ represents the Formative lery in display cases 14 and 15. Here Susiana period. one notices examples of mountain Some designs of the Ar­ sheep/goats, simply yet elegantly ren­ chaic Susiana sequence are dered with a few sweeping curves to characterized by zigzag paral- indicate the body and horns. _______ W No.5 ~'I"No.6 Ji No. 7 oi.uchicago.edu Until the end of the Middle native of Munich, Germany, worked Susiana period, Chogha Mish was the for seventeen years as a public health most important center in Susiana, but doctor in Khuzestan. He traveled the site declined in population, from village to village in a wide area nearby Susa grew rapidly and re­ on the Susiana plain and became a placed Chogha Mish as the regional good and helpful friend of Delougaz center in the succeeding Late Susiana and Kantor in the early 1960s. period (ca. 4000 B.C.). In his travels Dr. Gremliza picked Before leaving Chogha Mish it is up painted pottery sherds from forty­ well to recall other Oriental Institute three prehistoric mounds, many of No.9 projects in southwestern Iran. In 1970 which have never been Hans Nissen and Charles Redman mentioned in other surveys !®51--- surveyed the Behbahan region and which now may have ) (southeast of Susiana) and conducted fallen victim to bulldozers. I , , trial excavations at Tappeh Sohz and Dr. Gremliza was aware , I ", i Do Tulan for the University of Chi­ of the importance of his ", II " cago Department of Anthropology collection and had been , , , , ... .. --- -- - ----_ / and the Oriental Institute (see Orien­ looking for a suitable per- tal Institute Annual Report 1970/71). son to publish it. When No. 10 Elizabeth Carter also contributed to Helene Kantor mentioned the collection through her 1968-69 the importance of the material to surveys in both the Behbahan and Alizadeh, he traveled to Munich to Susiana plains (Iran, volume 8). The meet with Dr. Gremliza and to see the materials from the excavations at the material. Three years later, in 1990, important site of Tall-e Ghazir (still the material was published as a Tech­ unpublished), conducted by McCown nical Report of the Museum of An- and Caldwell in the late 1940s, fur­ ·"'er enhance our collections from this .:gion. In addition to the Herzfeld mate­ rials from the Zagros mountains, we have materials from two excavations conducted by Robert Braidwood in the late 1950s and early 1960s at I I Tappeh Sarab and Tappeh Asiab, as " / well as the materials from the exca­ --- - _ 1- _______ - /' vations at Sorkh Dum, conducted by Erich Schmidt and published recently No. 12 by Maurits van Loon. Our last ad­ dition to the Iranian prehistoric collection at the Oriental Institute came in 1988 as a gift of almost 10,000 sherds, as well as some complete vessels and small objects. \~v The story behind the gift is inter­ " esting. Dr. F. G. L. Gremliza, a -------- ---- - 1- ___ _ -- -- No. 13 ............... -. ---------------~.' \.,." s•••••••••• :i No.8 No. 14 No. 15 3 oi.uchicago.edu \- - - - - - --- - - --- - - - -: - ~' : thropology of the University of Michi­ (no. 12), A row of hedgehogs framed gan, in scallops enlivens another Middle The survey shows the area was Susiana bowl (no. 13). 111111111 11{J I ,1;)J; Jl i/i;lIlll1ll1i sparsely settled in the Archaic In his monograph based on th Susiana period, and very few sherds Gremliza material, Alizadeh argues can be dated with any certainty to this for the presence of a phase between early period; this is not unusual as Ar­ the destruction and desertion of chaic Susiana material is often bur­ Chogha Mish in ca.