INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Mannaean kingdom.Archaeologists carried out projects to safeguard previously-found ruined structures on the one hand, and projects to
unearth further architectural heritage, on the other hand, the tourism chief of West Azarbaijan has said.The survey was conducted under the
supervision of the cultural heritage and tourism directorate of the northwestern province, Jalil Jabari said.Qalaichi is famed for its
glazed bricks, some of which had been looted and smuggled out of Iran about four decades ago, and being returned home with the aid of Swiss
officials in December 2020.In the 1970s, a farmer plowing at Qalaichi came across a decorated brick, probably from the columned hall of a
This discovery led to extremely damaging illegal excavations, partly using a bulldozer
Eventually, in 1985, there was an official rescue excavation, but this was quickly abandoned because of an intensification of the Iran-Iraq
There were then 14 more years of illegal digging until 1999 when there was another official excavation
But by this time only small fragments of broken bricks were found.Situated about nine air km northwest of Bukan, Qalaichi (or Ghalay-chi) is
an ancient settlement so far yielded a large number of glazed objects
Some of which are monochrome and the others show complex compositions
The glazed objects from the regular excavations were curated in Urmia Museum and Tehran National Museum.The artifacts are connected to the
Mannai civilization, which once flourished in northwestern Iran in the 1st millennium BC
Mannai, also spelled Manna, was an ancient country surrounded by three major powers of the time namely Assyria, Urartu, and Media.According
With the intrusion of the Scythians and the rise of the Medes in the 7th century, the Manneans lost their identity and were subsumed under
the term Medes.The first well-documented evidence of human habitation in the Iranian plateau was found from several excavated cave and
rock-shelter sites, located mainly in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran and dated to Middle Paleolithic or Mousterian times (c
100,000 BC).From the Caspian in the northwest to Baluchistan in the southeast, the Iranian plateau extends for close to 2,000 km
The land encompasses the greater part of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan west of the Indus River containing some 3,700,000 square kilometers
mountain range at 5610 m, and the Dasht-e Loot east of Kerman in Central Iran falling below 300 m.AM
