Aq Tepeآق تپه
Location: Aq Tepe is located 15 km northeast of Gonbad-e Qabus, northeastern Iran, Golestan Province.
37°18’52.5″N 55°16’41.3″E
Map
Historical Period
Neolithic, Iron Age, Achaemenid?
History and description
Aq Tepe is located 15 km northeast of Gonbad-e Qābūs, on the fringe of the Turkoman Steppe. The mound is but one of many mounded sites in the region. Aq Tepe is on an oval mound 96 x 78 m with a height of 10 meters above the surrounding plain. The mound lies 350 m southwest of the village of Bōzqābād. A large part of the mound’s southern side was destroyed during the construction of the Golestan dam in the 1990s.
Archaeological excavations at Aq Tepe yielded fragmentary architectural units in chineh or mud-brick, which were disturbed and partially destroyed by burials of either the same period or the later ones dug into the underlying levels. Architectural remains consist of mud-brick walls and floors covered in places with mud plaster and colored with ocher. In the architectural vestiges, there was a small hearth probably used for heating and baking purposes. No significant building was uncovered in excavations. Of 23 human burials, 17 have been dated to the first millennium B.C. while the earlier internments must have been inside houses.
The site's chronology seems to be as follows: an Archaic Plateau period layer that has been recognized due to the presence of a few Tepe Zagheh (in the plain of Qazvin) type potsherds. The date of this period is around 6000 B.C. Then came a more significant late fifth millennium B.C. occupation layer marked by the presence of the Cheshmeh Ali-type pottery. The Iron Age III period is mostly known in burials. Finally, based on the pottery evidence, the excavator thinks that the site was occupied in the Achaemenid period; the existence of an Achaemenid period occupation at Aq Tepe is, however, uncertain.
According to the excavator, the early inhabitants of Aq Tepe, during the fifth and fourth millennia B.C., occupied the site during their farming activities, at the end of which they returned to their nearby permanent village.
Archaeological Exploration
Aq Tepe was excavated in two seasons by Sadegh Malek Shahmirzadi on behalf of the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research in the fall of 1999.
Finds
Finds consist of plain and painted pottery of the Archaic Plateau and Early Plateau (the Cheshmeh Ali Ware) periods, typical Early Iron Age dark gray pottery, plain orange ceramics (possibly of a later date in the first millennium B.C.), grinding stones, flints, a bronze dagger, a bronze spearhead, and a fragmentary bronze weapon, possibly a mace head, a miniature or model of a chariot wheel in terracotta, and spindle whorls in clay.
Bibliography
Malek Shahmirzadi, S M. and J. Nokandeh, Aq Tepe, Tehran, 1379/2001.
Malek Shahmirzadi, S., “Aq Tepe. Nakhostin nemūne-ye kalate-ye dworeye nosangi dar Iran,” In S. Malek Shahmirzadi, Gōftārhāi-yi dar Bāstānshenāsi, Theran, 1396/2017.
