The site of Tal-i-Iblis (also Tal-i Iblis and Tell-i Iblis), known locally as "the devil's mound", lying in the Kerman province about 80 kilometers southwest of Kerman, 170 kilometers north/northwest of Tepe Yahya, was mostly destroyed by local peasants stealing soil to replenish the agriculture land depleted by their agricultural practices
before it could be excavated by archaeologists. Enough was left to provide some important insights into the settlement history.
The site was occupied primarily in the 4th millennium BC. It is not a natural hill, rather the accumulated remains of a
millennia of occupation.
Archaeology
Uruk-period beveled rim bowl, c. 3400–3200 BC, from Habuba Kabira South in Syria
The site was visited in 1932 by archaeologist Sir Aurel Stein during a reconnaissance of the area. He
was prevented from examining or sketching the site by a local military official. He described the site, at that time, as having an oval shape, 118 meters by 100 meters, and around 11 meters high with pottery indicating the presence of a lower town (with pottery shards extending 1200 meters to the north and south and 800 meters to the east and west). Stein noted that locals had been removing soil from the site for an extended period.[1] When the site was next examined,
for 2 days in 1964 by archaeologist Joseph Caldwell, the reported the "entire center of this large mound had been dug out and destroyed" and men were seen shoveling dirt into a truck. The only upside was that the damage exposed the stratigraphy of the site, easily discernible by changes in pottery. Samples were taken for radiocarbon dating.[2] Tal-i-Iblis was excavated for two months in 1966 by an Illinois State Museum team led by Joseph Caldwell. Metallurgist Cyril Stanley Smith also visited the site at that time to remove samples for analysis. By this time the site had been
destroyed down to what was later deemed Period I though a few later remains were to be found
at the very margins of the mound. Seven excavations (A-G) were opened. Area A was a deep probe in the
center of the mound, Areas B and C behind the profile of the mound remnant, and area E was a trash dump
well northwest of the mound, and Areas D and G were in the center of the mound but shallow.. Some building remains were found in areas F, and G. Finds included turquoise, carnelian, and shell beads, a few figurines, and a few calcite cups.[3][4] A notable discovery was one of the earliest
copper smelting workshops in the Old World dated to the early fifth millennium
BC. The nearby mountain range has significant copper deposits including native copper.
The early debate about whether activity at the site was actual smelting or simply the
melting of native copper has been resolved in favor of smelting. A number of copper finds
were recovered being found in all levels. These included pins, awls, rings, nails,
and ornaments. A number of crucibles were found, primarily on earlier levels.[5][6][7][8]
Finds included beveled rim bowls and four-lugged jars, in Periods IV through VI, which are diagnostic pottery for the Uruk culture.[9][10][11] A few small conic clay tokens were also found.[12]
History
Excavators defined the stratigraphy as having six periods with the presence of
flint tools coarse straw-tempered pottery suggesting that there had been earlier occupation (the damaged nature of the
site made periodization difficult and subsequent publications have somewhat clouded this issue):[13]
Period 0 - tentative earlier occupation level which was later deprecated
Periods I-II - c. 4200-4000 BC. Equivalent to Ubaid 5, Susa I and Yahya VA-VC.
Periods III-V - c. 3500 BC. Equivalent to Uruk period.
Some radiocarbon dates were obtained. Note that these are early pre-AMS dates and publications do not specify calibration method
though it was mentioned that the then new C-14 half-life value of 5730 ± 40 was used. These dates were controversial and later corrections were proposed.[14][15][16]
Period I (Iblis 1): 4091 BC ± 74 - Corrected to 5290-4420 BC
Period II (Iblis 2): 4083 BC ± 75 - Corrected to 5205-4685 BC
Period III (Iblis 3): 3792 BC ± 60 - Corrected to 4460-4400 BC
Period IV (Iblis 4): 3645 BC ± 59 - Corrected to 4415-3365 BC
^Stein, Aurel, "Archaeological Reconnaissances in Southern Persia", The Geographical Journal, vol. 83, no. 2, pp. 119–34, 1934
^[1]Dougherty, Ralph C., and Joseph R. Caldwell, "Evidence of early pyrometallurgy in the Kerman Range in Iran", Science 153.3739, pp. 984-985, 1966
^C. L. Goff, et al, "Survey of Excavations in Iran during 1965-66", Iran, vol. 5, pp. 133–49, 1967
^Caldwell, J. R., "Excavations at Tal-i Iblis." Illinois State Museum, Preliminary Reports 9, 1967 [2] Available to borrow at Archive.org
^[3]Caldwell, J. R., and S. M. Shahmirzadi, "Tal-i-Iblis, The Kerman Range and the Beginnings of Smelting", Springfield, Illinois State Museum, 1966
^Caldwell, Joseph R., "Tal-i-Iblis and the Beginning of Copper Metallurgy at the Fifth Millenium", Baluchistan, pp. 1445-150, 1968
^Pigott, Vincent, and Heather Lechtman, "Chalcolithic copper-based metallurgy on the Iranian plateau: a new look at old evidence from Tal-i Iblis", Culture through objects: Ancient Near Eastern studies in honour of PRS Moorey, pp. 291-312, 2003
^Matthews, Roger, and Hassan Fazeli, "Copper and Complexity: Iran and Mesopotamia in the Fourth Millennium B.C", Iran, vol. 42, pp. 61–75, 2004
^[4]Abbasnejad Seresti, Rahmat, and Roghayyeh Sattari Galoogahi, "Beveled rim bowls of the eastern half of the iranian plateau: examination and analysis", Journal of Sistan and Baluchistan Studies 2.2, pp. 25-34, 2022
^Potts, Daniel, "Bevel-rim bowls and bakeries: evidence and explanations from Iran and the Indo-Iranian borderlands", Journal of Cuneiform Studies 61.1, pp. 1-23, 2009
^Algaze, G., "The Uruk World System. The Dynamics of
Expansion of Early Mesopotamian Civilization", Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993
^Friberg, Jöran, "Preliterate counting and accounting in the Middle East: A constructively critical review of Schmandt-Besserat's Before Writing", Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, vol. 89, no. 5-6, pp. 477-502, 1994
^Mutin, Benjamin, "Ceramic traditions and interactions on the south-eastern Iranian Plateau during the fourth millennium BC", Ancient Iran and Its Neighbours. Local Development and Long-Range Interactions in the Fourth Millennium BC, pp. 253-275, 2013
^Caldwell, Joseph R., "Pottery and Cultural History on the Iranian Plateau", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 178–83, 1968
^Dyson, Robert H., "Annotations and Corrections of the Relative Chronology of Iran, 1968", American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 72, no. 4, pp. 308–13, 1968
^Tosi, Maurizio, "A Tomb from Dāmin and the Problem of the Bampūr Sequence in the Third Millennium B. C.", East and West, vol. 20, no. 1/2, pp. 9–50, 1970
Further reading
Caldwell, J., "Tal-i-Iblis", Iran 5, pp. 44-46, 1967
Kamilli, Diana C., and C. C. Lamberg‐Karlovsky, "Petrographic and electron microprobe analysis of ceramics from Tepe Yahya, Iran", Archaeometry 21.1, pp. 47-59, 1979
[5]Lechtman, Heather, and Lesley Leslie Diana Frame, "Investigations at Tal-i Iblis: evidence for copper smelting during the Chalcolithic period. Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004
[6]Mutin, Benjamin, and Omran Garazhian, "Iranian-French Archaeological Mission in Bam, Kerman. Summary of Field-Seasons 2016-2017", Archaeology 2.2, pp. 93-106, 2019
Sajjadi, S. Mansur S., "Prehistoric Settlements in the Bardsir Plain, South-Eastern Iran", East and West, vol. 37, no. 1/4, pp. 11–129, 1987
Sarraf, M. R., "Die Keramik von Tell-i Iblis und Ihre zeitliche und raümliche Beziehungen zu den anderen iranischen und mesopotamischen Kuulturen", ami, Verlag, 1981
Shaffer, Jim G., "The prehistory of Baluchistan: Some interpretative problems", Arctic Anthropology, pp. 224-235, 1974
Thorton, Christopher P., "The rise of arsenical copper in southeastern Iran", Iranica Antiqua 45, pp. 31-50, 2010
