Mid-East Dig Discovers Unknown Culture

A team of 18 researchers, led by Clifford C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, professor of Anthropology, found archaeological evidence in southeastern Iran last summer that indicate the existence of a previously unknown civilization.

Lamberg-Karlovsky says the civilization existed at the same time as the earliest known centers of urban society in Mesopotamia.

Four Digs

The mound of Tepe Yahya, where the finds were made, has been the site of excavations for the past four summers. The most important discoveries last summer-an administration building and writing-date to about 3500 B.C., 1000 years earlier than civilization had been known to exist in the area.

"The area was seen as a cultural 'boondock' until last summer. Our discoveries indicate that, far from it, this area shared in the principal development of an economically complex civilization," Lamberg-Karlovsky said Monday.

Trade

The team of archaeologists has been trying to explore the relationships, especially trade, between the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia 600 miles to the west, and the Indus Valley, 600 miles to the east.

Last summer's finds indicate that the civilization at Tepe Yahya arose independently, trading with the other two centers.

A group led by Nagaraja Rao of the University of Bombay and Martha Prickett, a Harvard graduate studentin anthropology, exposed five rooms of a large building not yet completely excavated.

Tablet Writings

Six tablets, which bore an early form of the Elamite language, and 84 blank tablets were found on the floor of one room. Large jars for grain storage and cylindrical seals to make impressions in wax were also found.

The tablets are being submitted to linguists for translation. The Elamite language is well-known, but its early form, called proto-Elamite, remains partly untranslated, Lamberg-Karlovsky said.

He said the tablets may be storage documents for grain.

Tablets with the same form of writing had been discovered before at the ancient city of Susa on the Persian Gulf. The tablets discovered at Tepe Yahya are the first ever found in Iran, and the first found together with blank tablets-evidence for their independent origin at Tepe Yahya.

Early Trade Center

Archaelogists speculate that Tepe Yahya could be the "Magan" referred to as a trading center in Sumerian texts of 2500 B.C.

Tepe Yahya gets its name from a Persian king who, according to legend, forbade a certain marriage, whereupon the people rose in revolt, cut off his head, and buried it in the mound.

The expedition was a joint endeavor of Harvard's Peabody Museum, the Iranian Archaeological Service, and the American School of Prehistoric Research. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, Peabody Museum Funds, the Milton Fund of Harvard, and private donors.