Toulتول
Location: Northern Iran, the Province of Gilan
37°49’56.37″N 48°36’21.75″E
Toul is the name of an Iron Age graveyard in the vicinity of a village of the same name, in the southern Talesh region.
Map
Historical Period
Iron Age
History and description
The archaeological site of Toul lies in an intermountain valley in the highlands of southern Talesh (a western extension of the region of Gilan). The site can be reached by taking a 42-km road from Hashtpar. Toul is a seasonal village where local people from the region take refuge from the summer heat and humidity of the coastal plain. The ancient cemetery, the burials of which range in date from the early first millennium B.C. to the late Sasanian period, is located within the confines of the Toul village (fig. 1). It seems that the village’s inhabitants protected graves from the danger of illegal excavations (Khalatbari, Archaeological Investigations in Talesh, Gilan, p. 33). A total of eight graves were excavated at Toul. The graves are of different sizes, but they are built with large, irregular stones in which a tomb chamber was built. Grave 1 is the largest excavated tomb measuring 16 x 2 x 2 m. Its architecture consists of large blocks of stones placed vertically to form the slanted walls of the tomb (fig. 2). In some graves, skeletal remains have been preserved along with grave goods.
Fig. 1. The site of the cemetery with excavation trenches (after Khalatbari, Archaeological Investigations in Talesh, Gilan, p. 74, color fig. 17).
Fig. 2. The excavation of Grave 1, view from the east (after Khalatbari, Archaeological Investigations in Talesh, Gilan, p. 36, fig. 5)
Archaeological Exploration
The graveyard of Toul was excavated by Mohammad Reza Khalatbari on behalf of the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research and the local office of the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization, Rasht, in 2002 and 2003.
Finds
Finds consist of weapons in bronze and in iron (fig. 3), grey ware or red ware pottery vessels (bowls, jars, goblets, and jugs, fig. 4), beads, small pieces of jewelry in silver or iron, as well as a decorated gold vessel (fig. 5). An inscribed bracelet in bronze was found in Grave 1 bearing an inscription in Urartian with the name of Argishti (Razmjou, “A Bronze Bracelet with Urartian Inscription”; Dara, “Katibe-ye urartui-ye dastband-e Toul-e Talesh”; fig. 6).
Fig. 3. Weapons from the burials at Toul (after Khalatbari, Archaeological Investigations in Talesh, Gilan, p. 83)
Fig. 4. Pottery vessels from Toul (after Khalatbari, Archaeological Investigations in Talesh, Gilan, p. 76)
Fig. 5. Gold goblet from Toul (after Khalatbari, Archaeological Investigations in Talesh, Gilan, p. 86)
Fig. 6. Bracelet in bronze with a cuneiform Urartian inscription (after Razmjou, Archaeological Investigations in Talesh, Gilan, p. 104)
Bibliography
Dara, M., “Pishnāhādi dar khosūs-e katibe-ye urartui-ye dastband-e Toul-e Talesh,” Payām-e Bāstānshenās, No. 22, 1393, pp. 123-129.
Khalatbari, M. R., Archaeological Investigations in Talesh, Gilan. 1- Excavations at Toul-e Gilan, The General Office of the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization of Gilan, Rasht, 2004.
Razmjou, Sh., “A Bronze Bracelet with Urartian Inscription” at Toul-e Gilan,” in Archaeological Investigations in Talesh, Gilan. 1- Excavations at Toul-e Gilan, pp. 102-113.
