Archaeologists working on a 6000 year-old mountain settlement site in Iran have uncovered more than 600,000 pottery artefacts, including many examples of intact earthenware and huge amounts of shards.
    Davud Abyan, the director of the archaeological team, said "Our team has discovered a great number of intact potteries and a large amount of shards, the volume of which reaches one meter in height in some areas. The great amount of earthenware indicates that pottery making was the main occupation of the people living in the region, and they exported the products to other places."
    The site, near the Halil-Rud River cultural area which is home to the ancient site of Jiroft, consists of 800 cells cut into the rock in the Barez Mountains, east of the Halil-Rud River in southern Kerman Province. The cells, 250 metres up, measure 2 and 4 metres squared and are the oldest rock residence found in Iran so far.
    The pottery was made in various shapes, some with spouts, and was glazed crimson and tan in colour. Its discovery, along with further finds at Jiroft, has led to suggestions that the area was home to a civilisation as great as that of Sumer, with Iranian archaeologist Yusef Majidzadeh believing that Jiroft may be the ancient city of Aratta, which was described in an ancient Sumerian clay inscription as a great civilization.

Source: Mehrnews.com (30 January 2005)