Marlik is an ancient site near Roudbar in

Gilan Gilan Province () is one of the 31 provinces of Iran, in the northwest of the country and southwest of the Caspian Sea. Its capital is the city of Rasht. The province lies along the Caspian Sea, in Iran's Region 3, west of the province of ...

, in northern

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. Marlik, also known as ''Cheragh-Ali Tepe''D. Josiya Negahban
Marlik
is located in the valley of Gohar Rud (gem river), a tributary of Sepid Rud in

Gilan Province Gilan Province () is one of the 31 provinces of Iran, in the northwest of the country and southwest of the Caspian Sea. Its capital is the city of Rasht. The province lies along the Caspian Sea, in Iran's Regions of Iran, Region 3, west of ...

in Northern Iran, Marlik. Marlik is the site of a royal cemetery, and artifacts found at this site date back to 3,000 years ago. Some of the artifacts contain amazing workmanship with

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

. Marlik is named after the Amard people.

Marlik Cup

Marlik Cup is a cup of pure gold and is 18 cm high. The height of the prominent designs of the cup reaches 2 cm. 500 IRR 1981 Back

Archaeology

The mound at Mārlik is a rocky outcrop capped by several meters of sediment. It is surrounded by

olive grove Olive Grove was The Wednesday F.C.'s first permanent football ground, home to the club for just over a decade at the end of the 19th century. It was located on the site of what is now Sheffield City Council's Olive Grove Depot, near Queens Roa ...

s and fruit gardens owned and maintained by local villagers, overlooking rice paddies on the lower slopes of the valley. The site was already partly looted by treasure hunters and the archaeology team were hindered by local corruption A number of tombs were found. The initial Archaeology report concluded: "In total, fifty-three tombs were discovered at Mārlik. The tombs were dug into the overlaying sediments of the mound, sometimes hitting and penetrating into the underlying bedrock. The tomb constructions vary from roughly dug pits lined with stone to fairly well-constructed examples with walls made from stone slabs bound together with mud mortar. The stone used in the tombs is mostly local, but in some tombs one could see yellowish slabs brought from the headwaters of the Gowharrud, some 15 km to the south. A few, evidently more important, tombs are entirely made of this imported stone, a potential indication to the social significance of the occupant. The tombs range in size from fairly small (1.5x1x1 m omb 4 to relatively large (7x4.5x2.5 m omb 52. Most tombs yielded very little or no large skeletal remains, perhaps a result of natural deterioration of organic material and rodent activity. In the handful of tombs, where partial skeletal remains where preserved, the body seemed to have been laid on its side on a large, flattened slab, surrounded by grave goods." The archaeology is generally assumed to have belonged to a people group who spoke an

Iranian language The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian language ...

and who migrated into

from

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

in early to mid-2nd millennium BCE. The abundance of arms,

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

-trappings (as well as horse burials), and spouted vessels among the grave goods has been cited as distinct Iranian signatures (Kurochkin). The exact attribution of these people, however, remains largely a conjecture.ʿE.-A. Negahbān, “The Wonderful Gold Treasure of Marlik,” Illustrated London News, 28 April 1962, pp. 663-64.

Gallery

File:Cup with a frieze of gazelles MET.jpg, Gold cup with a frieze of gazelles, ca. early 1st millennium BCE,

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

File:Jame hayoolaye do sar va ghazal.jpg,

Double-headed eagle The double-headed eagle is an Iconology, iconographic symbol originating in the Bronze Age. The earliest predecessors of the symbol can be found in Mycenaean Greece and in the Ancient Near East, especially in Mesopotamian and Hittite Empire#icon ...

cup,

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

File:Goblet mouflons Louvre AO22125.jpg, Silver cup with a decorative edge of a sheep, 14th to 11th century BC. Place of discovery of Marlik Hill Cemetery,

File:Persian brick fragment from Marlik 2 REM.JPG, A piece of brick with inscriptions in

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

Elamite (circa 1000 BC) discovered on Marlik Hill, Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, San Jose,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

File:Marlik clay bowl REM.JPG, A clay bowl discovered on Marlik Hill, Egyptian Rosicrucian Museum, San Jose, California. This type of bowl could contain the ration of a day laborer who was forced to work. File:Marlik.jpg, Cow-shaped earthenware File:Iran sett.le, gilan, vaso teriomorfo, cultura di marlik tepe, periodo del ferro I, 1200-1000 ac. 03.JPG, Animal vase, National Museum of Oriental Art, Rome File:Persian bronze bracelet from Marlik REM.JPG, Bronze Bracelet, File:Iran sett.le, gilan, pendenti discoidali, VI sec. ac. 01.JPG, Disc-like necklace,

National Museum of Oriental Art Rome's National Museum of Oriental Art "Giuseppe Tucci" (Italian: Museo Nazionale d'Arte Orientale 'Giuseppe Tucci' ) was a museum in Rome, Italy, that was dedicated to the arts of the Orient, from the Middle East to Japan. The museum was located i ...

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

References

*G.N. Kurochkin, "Archeological search for the Near Eastern Aryans and the royal cemetery of Marlik in northern Iran", nnales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae. Series B ISSN 0066-2011, 1993, vol. 271 (1), pp. 389–395 (10 ref

* {{Portal, Iran History of Gilan Archaeological sites in Iran History of Talysh Culture of Iran Gilan province Buildings and structures on the Iran National Heritage List

Marlik Cup

Archaeology

See also

Gallery

References