A joint team of Italian and Iranian experts collected 4000 shards, some dating back to about 2500 years ago, from Tang-e Bolaghi, which will be flooded by the waters of the Sivand Dam, as part of the project to save the archeological site.
     Bolaghi little valley, located 84 kilometers from the world heritage site of Pasargadae, in Fars province, has once been, according to some experts, home to the King Road. The Road is considered the major ancient road of Iran which connected Pasargadae to Persepolis and Susa, and includes some remains as old as the time that human beings were cave dwellers, to the prehistoric era, up to the Islamic times.
     At the Bolaghi archeological site are cemeteries and settlements dating to the time span between the Achaemenid to the Sassanid era, and the joint team of Italians and Iranians is the first to attempt to save it before the dam of Sivand is flooded in one year time. Sivand Dam, the construction of which has been started in 1992 without permission of the ICHTO, is planned to be flooded by next year, and that would lead to some 8 kilometers of the Bolaghi gorge to be drowned and lost forever. Therefore experts of ICHCTO and the Pars-e Pasargadae Research Foundation undertook a project to study the area, so far identifying 80 sites from the Epipaleolithic period (20,000-10,000 BCE), including 13 caves and four rock shelters. The river valley also has a large number of rock-carved reliefs, graves, ancient caves, and other monuments and artifacts from the Elamite era (2700-645 BCE).

Source: CHN News (21 February 2005), Mehr News (23 February 2005)