Near East Kingdoms

Shahr-e Sokhta (City) (Eastern Iran)

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The city states of Sumer formed one of the first great civilisations in human history (see feature link). This Near Eastern civilisation emerged a little way ahead of that of Africa's ancient Egypt, and up to a millennium before that of the Indus Valley culture.

Southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and the western edge of Iran) was subjected to permanent settlement during the Pottery Neolithic and, by the late fourth millennium BC, Sumer formed approximately a dozen leading city states, by which time other regions were emerging as population centres in their own right. Elam was located to the east of Sumer, with its own selection of city states at its core (and see feature link).

This region was located on an alluvial plan below the Zagros mountains, and its remoteness meant that it took some time for it to assimilate Sumer's groundbreaking social, agricultural, and administrative inventions. Even farther east was the Iranian plateau and what is now central and eastern Iran. A city-building culture emerged here in the third millennium BC, notably through the Jiroft culture and Helmand culture.

Shahr-e Sokhta (otherwise shown as Shahr-i-Sokhta or Shahr-e Sukteh) was part of the latter culture, the Helmand. The archaeological site is located in Sistan and Baluchistan province in south-eastern Iran, on the bank of the River Helmand.

The ancient city was founded around 3550 BC, flourishing until about 2350 BC when a general decline gradually caused this and many similar small city sites to become abandoned. This particular city was briefly reoccupied for a century until final abandonment around 2000 BC.

Sir Aurel Stein, famous for his archaeological work in surveying large swathes of Central Asia and the Near East, slipped into Persia at the end of 1915 to discover the first hints of eastern Iran's lost cities. He traversed what he described as 'a big stretch of gravel and sandy desert' and encountered 'the usual... robber bands from across the Afghan border, without any exciting incident'.

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(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition, Cambridge (England), 1910), from The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, Samuel Noah Kramer ('List 1' of Sumerian rulers, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1963), from Historical Atlas of the Ancient World, 4,000,000 to 500 BC, John Heywood (Barnes & Noble, 2000), from The Ancient Near East, c.3000-330 BC, Amélie Kuhrt (Routledge, 2000, Vol I & II), from Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, Michael Road (Facts on File, 2000), from Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Enrico Ascalone (Dictionaries of Civilizations 1, University of California Press, 2007), from The Archaeology of Elam, D T Potts (Cambridge University Press, 1999), from The Elamite World, Javier Álvarez-Mon, Gian Pietro Basello, & Yasmina Wick (Eds, Routledge, 2018), and from External Links: Some Thoughts in Neo-Elamite Chronology, Jan Tavernier (PDF), and the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, and Early Kings of Kish, Albrecht Goetze (Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol 15, No 3, 1961, pp 105-111 and available to read via University of Chicago Press Journals), and Archaeology.org, and The World in Between (Archaeology Magazine), and Demographic considerations regarding the settlement and necropolis of Shahr-i Sokhta, E Ascalone & P F Fabbri (E Ascalone & S M S Sajjadi (Eds), Excavations and Researches at Shahr-i Sokhta 2, Pishin Pajouh, 2022, pp 523-554, and available via Academia.edu), and A Warehouse in 3rd Millennium BC. Sistan and its Accounting Technology, Dr Massimo Vidale (Art and Archaeology of Southwest Asia, available via YouTube), and Experts to Reconstruct Woman's Face with an Artificial Eye (CAIS News).)

c.3550 BC

The city at Shahr-e Sokhta is founded, with this phase being classed as 'Period I' for archaeological classification. Built in mudbrick, the city boasts a large palace, separate neighbourhoods for pottery-making, metalworking, and other industrial activities, and distinct areas for the production of local goods.

Elamite cities on the plain to the east of Sumer benefited from direct contact, but cities with more easterly locations also swiftly caught up, connected into a network of trading routes which stretched east to the Indus and north to Hissar and the BMAC (click or tap on map to view at an intermediate size)

Most residents live in modest one-room houses, although some dwellings form larger compounds with six-to-eight rooms. Bags of goods and storerooms are often 'locked' with stamp seals, a procedure which is common in Sumer.

Shahr-e Sokhta booms as demand grew for precious goods amongst elites in the region. Although it is situated in inhospitable terrain, albeit with good local water supplies, the city lies close to tin, copper, and turquoise mines, and on the route which brings in lapis lazuli from the east.

Craftsmen work shells from the Persian Gulf, carnelian from India, and local metals such as tin and copper. Export markets include cities far to the west such as Ebla, while Ur receives lapis beads, although the best ones are kept by the elites in Shahr-e Sokhta.

A cylinder seal from the Uruk IV period, dated about 3500-3100 BC, depicting a bear or lion attacking buffaloes, with an attendant hero also depicted in the field

Hundreds of wooden spindle whorls and combs are produced to meet growing demand, while later archaeology discovers well-preserved textile fragments which are made of goat hair and wool, revealing a wide variation in their weave type. This group of textile fragments constitutes one of the most important in the world given its great antiquity and the insight it provides into an early stage of the evolution of wool production.

c.3100 - 2700 BC

The Uruk IV influence suddenly fades around 3100 BC (or 3200 BC in some modern sources) for reasons unknown. Older traditions re-emerge in places which had previously taken on board Uruk influences.

The Uruk-inspired centre at Susa in Elam seems to be taken over by immigrants from the Zagros mountains (or at least it witnesses an indigenous return to pre-Uruk political and cultural controls).

The remains of Shahr-e Sokhta in eastern Iran can be seen from the air, while archaeology has explored its secrets since the 1960s, finding evidence of an occupation period which lasted around fifteen hundred years, albeit with at least one century-long break

A new political entity emerges which discards Uruk IV cuneiform and language to replace it with 'Proto-Elamite' language, a precursor to the usage of all later Elamite city states. This ends the spirit of regional unity which previously seemed to predominate in the surrounding villages and towns, such as Abu Fanduweh, Chogha Mish, and Tepe Sharafabad.

The proto-Elamite period witnesses the development of a semi-pictographic writing system for the east. Susa begins to be influenced by the cultures of the Iranian plateau to the east (see feature link), and it dominates the lowlands to the west of the Zagros mountains. But it also cuts off these access points from post-Uruk IV Sumer, enforcing new trading connections which go through Susa itself.

Approximately four hundred kilometres to the south in the modern province of Fars, the city of Anshan becomes prominent and expands in size, dominating the highlands of the southern mountain range.

The site of Tal-i Malyan (ancient Anshan) as seen from the west, with not much visibly remaining when compared to the mound settlements of Mesopotamia and the Susa plain (External Link: Creative Commons Licence 4.0 International)

Proto-Elamite communities which had played a part in the initial rise of civilisation in Elam and across the Iranian plateau seem to have exhausted their potential soon after 2800 BC. Across the Ramhormoz plains and in the Kur river basin, proto-Elamite records come to an end along with centralised urban life.

Farther east, urban living seems to be abandoned. At the same time, major cities such as those at Shahdad, Konar Sandal, and Shahr-e Sokhta reach their maximum size, suggesting a kind of absorption of all available resources to the detriment of the surrounding settlements.

c.3000 BC

Much of Shahr-e Sokhta is destroyed by fire, ending 'Period I' archaeology. Most especially hit by this event are the archaeological sections which are labelled the 'Eastern Residential Area' and the 'Central Quarters' which, when examined by archaeologists, contain ash-filled rooms with burnt plaster and the burnt remains of roof beams. Much of the city is rebuilt, beginning 'Period II' which lasts until about 2600 BC.

The Bronze Age city of Shahr-e Sokhta is divided into several parts, with a residential area which covered more than eighty hectares of ground at the city's peak of success

c.2900 - 2800 BC

To date, the earliest-known artificial eyeball forms part of the burial of a woman of this period in time. Her remains are discovered by archaeologists in December 2006. The hemispherical eyeball has a diameter of a little over 2.5 centimetres, and is probably constructed from bitumen paste.

The eye's surface is covered by a thin layer of gold which is engraved with a central circle to represent the iris. The woman, tall by contemporary standards at 1.82 metres, wears the eye for a large part of her lifetime, held in place by a golden cord which is slotted through the eye and which wraps over her head as a kind of eye patch, only with the eye in the empty socket.

c.2600 - 2350 BC

'Phase III' of Shahr-e Sokhta begins around 2600 BC, while 'Period IV' begins around 2500 BC and lasts down to about 2350 BC. It is during this latter period that the city enjoys almost exclusive contact with Bampur and the Kandahar area, as is attested in typical Bampur V and VI pottery which is found at the site.

The most dramatic burial from Square MJN at Shahr-e Sokhta was Grave 6705, a grave which contained the skeleton of a youngish woman aged between twenty-eight and thirty-five at death, and wearing a false eye

At the end of 'Period IV' the city of Shahr-e Sokhta is abandoned, around 2350 BC. The 'burnt building' remains intact at this time, one which begins to involves a degree of political and climate-related destabilisation across the greater region.

c.2100 BC

Shahr-e Sokhta is reoccupied around this time, and for the next century to make up 'Period V' of its archaeology. Such reoccupation may not be of an especially sophisticated urban form however. The city's great days are firmly behind it. At the end of this period fire claims the 'burnt building'.

c.2004 BC

The 'Third Dynasty' city of Ur is defeated by the Simashki ruler, Kindattu, together with the people of Susa, ending the third dynasty and Sumerian civilisation. The land of Elam becomes a powerful kingdom under its Simashki rulers, but the entire region is experiencing a climate-induced downturn. Similar effects are seen as far west as Bronze Age Iberia.

The ruins of the once-vast city of Ur were excavated in 1922 by Sir Leonard Woolley, which is when the 'Royal Tombs' were discovered (External Link: Creative Commons Licence 4.0 International)

At the same time the majority of the hundreds of settlements both large and small which pepper the Iranian plateau and the hot and increasingly arid central and eastern Iranian regions now fade and are abandoned.

Reasons are likely to be complex, initiated by the climate dip, but perhaps also related to changes in trade routes which themselves could be induced by the changing weather patterns which include reduced rainfall. The growing power of the Oxus civilisation may also play a role in diminishing the value of these cities.

The list of casualties includes Shahdad and Konar Sandal, while Shahr-e Sokhta has been abandoned, reoccupied, and is now abandoned again, and Tepe Yahya has already been fully abandoned. Urban life does not return to eastern Iran until after 500 BC, and the Jiroft and Helmand cultures are forgotten.

Located at the end of a small delta on a dry plain in central-eastern Iran, to the north of Jiroft and Tepe Yahya, Shahdad was excavated by an Iranian team in the 1970s