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PERSEPOLIS—The ruins of this ancient Persiancapital, burned by Alexander the Great in 330B.C.E., were almost laid to waste a second time nearly 25 years ago. A mob led by amullah set out from the southern Iranian cityof Shiraz bent on destroying the storied site, asymbol to Islamic revolutionaries of both pa-ganism and the shah’s tyrannical rule. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and the provincialgovernor convinced the mob to disperse.

This summer, another eager groupleft Shiraz for Persepolis, this time by air-conditioned bus after a lavish poolside ban-quet hosted by the governor’s successor. This

party of foreign archaeologists was here as part of an unprecedented attempt by Iran’sleaders to entice researchers from abroad toreturn and start digging again. For more than2 decades, the wealth of archaeological treas-ures in this country—a center of early agri-culture, a crossroads between Europe and Asia, and a cradle of great empires and reli-

gions—has been off-limits to outsiders.But in recent years,reformers gained

prominent positionsin government and the economy has

boomed. Now Iran’stens of thousands of important archaeo-logical sites are un-der threat from ram-

pant developmentand looting, and itssmall, fragmented,and isolated commu-nity of archaeolo-gists is struggling to

protect them.

So the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organi-zation (ICHO), part of the Ministry of Cul-ture and Islamic Guidance, is ready to re-open the doors to foreigners. But unlike inearlier decades, they want visiting re-searchers to work in equal collaborationswith Iranian archaeologists. Many foreignresearchers have taken up the offer. Already,German, Australian, Japanese, and U.S.

teams have started work on joint projectswith Iranian colleagues, and plans for a half-dozen more are being drawn up. The topthree American universities in the field—theUniversity of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) in Philadelphia, and Harvard University—are now negotiatinglong-term agreements with ICHO.

To make Iran more hospitable for re-

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C R E D I T : ( T O P ) A L A W L E R

After nearly a quarter-century of isolation, Iran is again admitting foreign archaeologists. Although politics couldeasily derail this exciting new development,Western and Japanese researchers are willing to take the risk in order to gain access to this data-rich land

IranReopensIts Past

News Focus Archaeolog y in I ran

Facing forward. A youngIranian archaeologist pon-ders carvings at the cliff tombs of ancient Persiankings near Persepolis.

Regime change. MasoudAzarnoush welcomes for-eign archaeologists, but as50-50 partners.

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search, ICHO is constructing a new con-servation laboratory, renovating the agingIran Bastan Museum, and creating inde-

pendent research institutes at important ar-chaeological sites. The ministry also shelled out more than $300,000 to host an interna-tional conference in Tehran in August on an-cient cultural relations between Iran and the

West. Forty foreign archaeologists, many of whom were returning to Iran for the firsttime since the 1979 revolution, were flownto Tehran, put up in one of the capital’s mostluxurious hotels, fêted at a banquet in the

palace garden of the shah, and treated to a 3-day excursion to important historical sitessuch as Persepolis. “I believe the peoplewho organized and funded this are serious,”says Gilbert Stein, director of the Universityof Chicago’s Oriental Institute, who attended the meeting. “I’m optimistic this collabora-tion is going to happen.”

Never theless, the door could easily be slammed shut again because of,among other obstacles,Western worries aboutIran’s nuclear program, in-ternal power struggles be-tween reformists and con-servatives, or bureaucraticinfighting among the fief-doms of archaeology here.

An “unavoidable land”

Iran’s pull on archaeologistssuch as Stein is magnetic.

Nearly three times the size

of France, the countrystretches from Turkey and Iraq in the west to Af-ghanistan and Pakistan inthe east. Hunter-gathererswandered on the central

plateau 30,000 years ago. Inthe jagged Zagros Mountains, humans firstdomesticated animals around 8000 B.C.E.A series of empires, starting with Elam and its capital of Susa in the 12th century B.C.E.,rose and fell in the following millennia.

Traders, nomads, and generals used Iran,a land corridor sandwiched between theCaspian Sea in the north and the PersianGulf in the south, to ferry semipreciousstones, flocks, armies, and silks from Cen-tral Asia, China, and India to the West. Fromthe other direction came Sumerian seals,Greek artisans, Roman gold, and theProphet Muhammad’s faith. Critical ques-tions about early agriculture, nomadism,state formation, international commerce,and religious movements in the region makethis a crucial piece in the Asian puzzle. “Iranis an unavoidable land,” says Masoud Azarnoush, director of ICHO’s Archaeologi-

cal Research Center in Tehran, which em- ploys some 30 archaeologists.

This wealth produced a golden era in the

field. “Iran in the 1960s and ’70s drew amajor influx of younger scholars at the fore-front of archaeology,” says Harvard’s IreneWinter. “It was at the cutting edge of record-ing and data processing—not just objecthunting.” Scholars began to conduct broad surveys to understand land-use patterns and urban development, and they introduced new technological advances, from x-ray dif-fraction for examining the source of materi-als to radiocarbon dating.

Much of that was brought to a halt by theforces unleashed by the fall of the shah.

Visas were hard to obtain, and dig permitswere denied to foreigners. That attitude wasdue in part to a century of foreign excava-tions that operated under few constraints and tended to sideline Iranians. At Susa, for ex-ample, European visitors were treated to ele-gant dinners with fine wines; the gift of a re-cently excavated artifact was sometimes partof each guest’s table setting. “There was thesmell of neocolonialism back then,” saysRemy Boucharlat, who directs the FrenchInstitute of Archaeology in Tehran.

At the same time, the shah’s regime in-creasingly used archaeology to suggest linksto glorious ancient rulers such as Cyrus and Darius of the 6th and 5th century B.C.E.“We had the impression that archaeologistsserved to enhance certain ideological as-

pects of the regime before the revolution,”says Azarnoush. The shah’s extravagant

1976 festival celebrating 2500 years of Per-

sian history at Persepolis outraged conserva-tive mullahs with its excess of food, wine,and elaborate decorations and helped spark the regime’s downfall 3 years later—and in-spired the Shiraz mob.

The revolution abruptly halted all foreigndigs, closed universities, and prompted Iran-ian archaeologists to either flee the countryor wait for an intellectual thaw. Foreign Asiaspecialists took their expertise and new tech-niques to Turkey, Israel, Syria, and thenCentral Asia when the Soviet Union col-lapsed a decade later. “An unforeseen conse-

quence of the Iranianrevolution has been afar better understand-

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AZERBAIJAN

IRAQ

IRAN

SAUDI ARABIA

TURKMENISTAN

Esfahan

Shiraz

Tabriz

Basra

Baku

Tehran

ArismanArisman

Kuwait

Caspian Sea

Persian Gulf

PersepolisPersepolis

PasagardaePasagardae

SusaSusa

JiroftJiroft

Tepe YahyaTepe Yahya

IRAN’S RICH AND TURBULENT PAST

8000 B.C.E. First domestication of sheep and goats in Zagros Mountains

7500 B.C.E. First agricultural villages

4200 B.C.E. Susa founded onMesopotamian plain

2700–1500 B.C.E. Elamite kingdom

in southwestern Irancirca 2500 B.C.E. Jiroft civilizationflourishes in southern Iran

1000 B.C.E. Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon destroys Susa

550–330 B.C.E. Achaemenid(Persian) Empire

500–425 B.C.E. Persepolis constructed

331–247 B.C.E. Alexander and suc-cessors control Iran

247 B.C.E.–224 C.E. Parthian Empire

224–651 Sassanian Empire

634 Arab armies and Islam arrives

1200 Genghis Khan devastates Iran

1380–1501 Timurid Empire

1501–1722 Safavid Empire

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ing of its neighbors,” Harvard archaeologistKarl Lamberg-Karlovsky told participantsat the August conference in Tehran.Azarnoush—who himself emigrated for atime to the United States—says that Iraniandigs never entirely ceased. But the revolu-tion and subsequent Iran-Iraq war left littlesupport or funding until the late 1990s.

Opening windowsIn 2000, reformist President Mohammad Khatami, speaking at the United Nations,called for a “dialogue among civilizations.”The same year, a joint Iranian-German team

began excavating an ancient mining site near the village of Arisman on the edge of thecentral Iranian plateau in a bid to understand ore production and trade during the 3rd and 4th millennia B.C.E. Soon a team of Irani-ans and Australians started a survey of Elamite sites, and an Iranian-born researcher from Chicago won permission to work inthe eastern province of Khuzistan.

The ministry leadership then decided in2001 to make a dramatic appeal to foreign-ers by organizing a meeting to bring themto Iran, an idea proposed by Abdoul Majid Arfaee, an Elamite specialist who worked atTehran’s Bastan Museum. “When you are ina room which has been shut up for a longtime, the air is stale,” explains ministryadviser Keyvan Sepehr. “We are tryingto open a window and change the atmosphere alittle.” The effort to bringin foreigners has met withsome resistance, he admits.“We have some conserva-

tive academics who dis-agree with this approach,

but we can convince themwe cannot close the door forever.” When the meetingfinally took place, in Au-gust this year, the ICHOchief was blunt in his wel-coming address. “Isolationwill result in backward-ness,” said Seyyed Mo-hammed Beheshti. “Wehave no other alternative

but to cooperate.”Iranian officials are

paying particular attention to relations withU.S. universities. They have asked Chicago,Penn, and Harvard first to each put together a more general framework outlining a long-term relationship—an unusual step. HollyPittman, an art historian at Penn, says Iran-ian officials are keen to ink these deals be-fore the upcoming Iranian presidential elec-tion. “They want to get these agreements in

place so if there is a change in administra-tions, it would be harder for conservatives toturn things around.”

Hold the sugar

Foreign archaeologistsare arriving just intime. Innumerable an-cient sites are disap-

pe ar ing un de r hi gh -ways, plowed fields,and expanding citiesas Iran’s population

and economy mush-room. “That exertstremendous pressureon us,” says Azar-noush. The only rem-nants of many sites are

bags of shards collect-ed long ago and stored in the Bastan Museum.

A couple of dozenkilometers south of Tehran, for example, oneside of a pre–BronzeAge mound called Tepe

Chesme Ali is covered with houses, but theother half has been rescued by being turned into a park with grass and fountains. Other sites have not been so lucky. Tepe Pardis is a

pre–Bronze Age mound nearly surrounded by vast brickyards feeding Tehran’s endlessappetite for building material; bulldozershave already taken a chunk off the northernedge. “We are turning our cultural heritage

into bricks; it’s a great tragedy,” says Rah-man Abbasnexhad, an archaeology graduatestudent at the University of Tehran whowants to start excavating the site in 2006 butisn’t sure what will be left.

Perhaps one of the greatest archaeologi-cal tragedies is unfolding in Khuzistan, thesouthwestern province that borders Iraq and was the center of the Elamite civilization inthe 2nd millennium B.C., maintaining closecontacts with nearby Mesopotamia. First theregion bore the brunt of the brutal Iran-Iraq

war, and now it is beingintensively planted withsugar cane. “Sugar caneis the most destructivecrop for archaeologicalsites; they plane off theground, and there is un-remitting cultivation us-ing heavy hydraulic ma-

chinery,” says NicholasKouchoukos, a Universi-ty of Chicago archaeolo-gist who has recentlyworked in the province.

Sites such as Jundi-Shapur, an importantcity under the Sassanianempire that flourished during the time of Rome,

boasted universities and palaces in the early cen-turies of the commonera. Now Jundi-Shapur

has been turned over to farmers despiteICHO protests. “We are always trying to co-ordinate with development plans,” saysICHO deputy of research Jalil Gholshan.“The problem is that Iran is full of archaeo-logical sites.” He says ICHO can only hopeto limit the destruction: “We can’t keep theentire country intact.”

Tourist trade

Influencing developers requires clout, and under Beheshti’s leadership, ICHO—whichreceives about $30 million annually—isstarting to gain some political and financialmuscle. The Bastan Museum, for example,

plans a $2.5 million renovation and expan-sion, and the basement storage areashave already been modernized with well-organized storerooms, thick steel doors, and video cameras in freshly painted hallways.In addition, the museum is establishing re-search centers for specific periods.

After the revolution, Iranian authoritiesfocused on building a modern facility for theIslamic collections next door to the Bastan.As a result, much of the pre-Islamic materialwas neglected. “There were many problems;nothing was organized,” says Mohammad Reza Kargar, the Bastan director. A bevy of young researchers in the past 2 years has tak-en on the task of “re-excavating” the dustystorage rooms containing more than 300,000artifacts as a precursor to the renovation.Shahrokh Razmjou, a Ph.D. student headingthe Center for Achaemenid Studies— devoted to the era of the first Persian em-

pire—says he recently found dozens of box-es of artifacts, some wrapped in Parisiannewspapers from the 1930s, that had not

been opened since they were excavated.ICHO also is creating independent re-

search institutes at specific sites, such as the

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P H O T O S B Y A L A W L E R

Quality control. Isolation has taken a toll on Iranian archaeology,says Hassan Fazeli, director of the University of Tehran’s Archaeo-logical Institute.

New face. Western researchers such asRemy Boucharlat say they are happy toleave old colonial days behind.

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region around Persepolis and Pasagardaenear Shiraz. The Pasagardae ResearchFoundation was set up in August 2001 and is funded to the tune of $300,000 annually

by a host of government groups. “We wantto become a model for other major sites,”says its director, M. H. Taliebian, who addsthat he is negotiating joint efforts with theLouvre, the British Museum, and other for-

eign organizations. Japan and UNESCOhelped conserve the Chogha Zanbil zigguratstarting in 1998 and set up the conservationlab at the site in southwestern Iran.

But competing fiefdoms inside and out-side ICHO make for a fractured archaeologycommunity here. Officials at the BastanMuseum complain bitterly that the new con-servation lab being built across the street byanother ICHO division excludes them. Uni-versity officials chafe under ICHO controlover all excavations. And the ministry’s top-level control of the August conference alien-ated many archaeologists, several of whom

boycotted the proceedings. Now a government plan to merge ICHO

with a tourism organization that reports di-rectly to the president is raising alarms. Thenew Organization of Cultural Heritage and Tourism is expected to be announced shortly.

“If it is done as now planned, it will be an ad-vantage to cultural heritage,” says Gholshan.“But if ICHO is somehow subordinate totourism, then it would be a disadvantage.”

Much will depend as well on the director.Both foreign and Iranian researchers arehoping Beheshti will get the job.

Despite the internal wrangling, foreignresearchers with experience in Iran aren’tdiscouraged. “The conference is a good

start,” says Barbara Helwing of Berlin’s Ger-man Archaeological Institute, who has sev-eral seasons at Arisman under her belt. “Justhaving scholars here to explain new ideas is

already very important.”Still, she adds, “youcan’t predict anythinghere.” And for thosewho want to start dig-

ging here, “you have toconvince them; theyaren’t just throwingopen the doors.”

And there are good reasons to want to try.Dig permits in Syria and Turkey are increasinglydifficult to obtain, and neighboring Iraq, Pak-istan, and Afghanistan re-main virtually off-limitsto researchers. So eventhe hint of a welcome

mat in the region is drawing the avid attentionof scholars. “It will all get going again,” pre-dicts Robert Dyson, a retired Penn archaeolo-gist who spent his formative years in Iran.Adds Azarnoush: “There’s plenty to do allover this country.” –ANDREW LAWLER

N E W S F O C U S

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C R E D I T S : ( T O P ) A . L A W L E R ; ( B O T T O M ) Y O U S E F M A J I D Z A D E H

A N D A L I B A N I A S A D I

Head to head. Chicago’s Gilbert Stein (left) and Harvard’s KarlLamberg-Karlovsky are jumping at the chance to return to Iran.

TEHRAN — Destitute villagers in southeasternIran have uncovered what appears to be aBronze Age civilization that flourished be-tween ancient Sumer in Mesopotamia and Harappa in the Indus River Valley more than4000 years ago. Scholars already had hintsof a mysterious society in the region, but thenew find nails down its heartland along the

banks of the Halil River. The discovery of

hundreds of stone vessels and massive archi-tecture near the town of Jiroft opens a newchapter in Iranian and Middle Eastern ar-chaeology. “From now on, we must speak of

before and after Jiroft,” says Harvard Uni-versity archaeologist Karl Lamberg-Karlovsky.

But there are currently more questionsthan answers. Much of the evidence of thisnew civilization—hundreds of intricatelycarved stone vessels—is locked up in a re-gional police station after being seized ascontraband from illegal digs. Scientific ex-

cavations have only just begun,and Iranian officials anticipateyears of work involving an interna-tional team of researchers from manydisciplines. But the revelation of alarge and vibrant Bronze Age societyis sending ripples of excitementthrough archaeological circles. “It islike a new Indus Valley, a new Nile Valley,”Masoud Azarnoush, director of Iran’s Ar-chaeological Research Center in Tehran, said in an interview with Science in his Tehranoffice. “This new discovery puts Iran in thecenter of civilization and cultural activitiesin the 3rd millennium B.C.E.”

This rich agricultural area north of theHormuz Strait is bordered by deserts and isfeverishly hot in the summer. But it seemsthat the ancient Jiroft people lived here inlarge numbers and specialized in makingvessels covered in unfamiliar iconographyand semiprecious stones. Made of chlorite, a

dark stone that iseasy to carve butwears slowly, theobjects portray a bewildering va-

riety of plants, buildings , and hal f -animal ,h a l f - h u m a nfigures includ-ing strange

scorpion men and kneeling women be-

tween horned animals.They also depict theoutlines of monumental

buildings resemblingziggurats, and archae-

ologists may be close tofinding examples of such buildings. Thelegal excavation conducted earlier this year at Jiroft exposed part of a huge buildingor fortress, 30 meters by 62 meters,

protected by a massive wall, says Yousef Majidzadeh, the Iranian-born archaeologistin charge of the dig.

The vessels from around Jiroft are remi-niscent of those previously found scattered throughout the region. “There was obviouslytremendous cultural activity in this area,since small numbers of manufactured piecessimilar to the ones from Jiroft are found over

B R O N Z E A G E F I N D

Jiroft Discovery StunsArchaeologistsResearchers had long suspected that a Bronze Age civilization flourishedbetween Mesopotamia and the Indus River. Now a huge haul of stone vesselshas pinpointed it to Jiroft

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