to building up water a few years ago.
Inundated sites include a Sassanid (224-642 CE) city where human habitation dates back to the Achaemenid era (550-334 BCE), a unique fire temple, an Achaemenid royal house and graves dating back to the early Islamic era.
Many other ancient sites are being inundated by the rising water behind the dam located near the city of Jahrom in Fars province about 120 km southeast of Shiraz, the government’s Cultural Heritage News service reported.
A large number of relics and Sassanid graves were also discovered during two phases of excavations conducted by an archeological team led by Alireza Jafari-Zand in 2007, shortly after the Sassanid city was identified.
The team discovered an artifact bearing traces of Hellenistic symbols. The artifact bears images of two faces looking in opposite directions engraved on a piece of ivory. It is the second such artifact found at an archaeological site in Iran.
“The engraved object is estimated to date back to between 200 BCE and 200 CE when local states, concurrent with the rise of the Parthian Empire, arose and ruled the region after the Seleucids,” he said.
A similar artifact was discovered by a Belgian archeologist, Louis Vandenberg, at a site in Izeh, Khuzestan province, about 70 years ago.
Jafari-Zand believes that the fire temple discovered by his team is unique due to its verandah facing the sun.
The fire temple had been buried under stones and it took two months for the archeologists to remove them.
Lunate ceilings cover the temple, which are surrounded by corridors for pilgrims to circle the site.
Over the past decade, Iran’s dam construction projects have become a major threat to the cultural heritage.
Earlier, the Sivand Dam flooded a large section of the Bolaghi Valley in Fars province. It was the most controversial dam so far. It is not far from Pasargadae, the Achaemenid capital before Persepolis. The region had over 130 archeological sites dating from prehistoric periods to the early Islamic era.
