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Showing 2 results for Middle Islamic Period

Fakhredin Mohamadiyan, Seyed Rasool Mosavihaji, Ahmad Salehi Kakhki,
year 7, Issue 25 (12-2023)
Abstract

Abstract
Tomb buildings are one of the most important types of Islamic architecture. Studying such a building in a geographical context gives us a meaningful understanding of these works. The vast region of Tabas, despite having a rich capacity of magnificent historical and cultural monuments, has been neglected by officials and archaeologists due to its desolation and difficult geographical conditions. In the archaeological study of the Jokhah section of Tabas, which was carried out in 2015, several buildings were identified, including a single tomb. So far, this building has not been the subject of detailed and methodical research on how the structure of architecture and dating is based on comparison with other mausoleum buildings, so the need for this research was provided. In this research, the construction method of the building has been considered according to the dome, the execution of the dome and the type of materials and the type of decorations used. The present research is based on a descriptive-analytical purpose and its nature is based on historical approaches. The methodology of accumulations is based on field studies and citation of library resources. This article tries to analyze the identity and date of construction of the tomb of Jokhah Tabas, based on archaeological findings, comparative studies and also citing written sources of the Islamic period. The results of studies show that the construction pattern of this tomb is derived from the square design of tomb buildings in Greater Khorasan in the early centuries of the Islamic period. However, by comparing material culture data and building elements with other similar works, the date of its construction can be attributed to the late sixth-early seventh century AH.
Keywords: Tomb, Architecture, Historical Identity, Middle Islamic Period, Jokhah Tabas.

Introduction
The tomb as a type of ritual-cultural architecture is the result of two-way interaction between man and nature throughout history. Hence, the study of these religious buildings in the geographical context, provides us with a meaningful understanding and recognition of them. In Islamic period of Iran, tomb buildings are considered one of the most important and numerous types of architecture after mosques. »The scope of construction of tombs with the emergence of different local governments in the early centuries of Hijri, simultaneously with the weakening of the Abbasid caliphate, became popular in the east and north of Iran« and it developed with a significant speed in all of Iran and found an important role in the social atmosphere of cities and villages. In such a way that it was considered the most important pillar of every city and village after the comprehensive mosques. Therefore, “cemeteries and their construction methods are very important from the point of view of architecture and the use of arched structures” and they require careful investigation and research in various fields. There are several individual tombs in Tabas, which according to historical sources belong to chieftains or clerics, after the domination of the eastern regions of Iran in the early centuries AH. As; Mohammad Jafar Tayar’s tomb in Azmighan, Tabas, Mir Omar’s tomb in Korit Tabas. One of these tombs, which is known in Islamic sources as the tomb of one of the Arab generals, is a tomb located in the historical site of Jokhah village. So far, this building has not been the subject of a detailed and methodical research regarding the architectural structure and dating based on comparison with other tomb buildings, hence the necessity of conducting this research. The brief research activities that have been carried out have mostly described the architecture of this tomb. In this research, the architectural style, decorations and functional materials of this building have been compared with the tombs of the middle Islamic period in the geographical area of Khorasan, which is more related in terms of time and place. Since the building does not have a building inscription, the name of the founder or the owner of the tomb, it is not possible to propose its date with certainty. Therefore, one of the goals of this research is the proposed dating of Jokhah tomb using comparative studies of other tomb buildings and referring to Islamic sources and texts.

Discussion
Jokhah village is located 24 km from Tabas city. A tomb building is located 500 meters southwest of Jokhah village, between the agricultural land and the village cemetery. The name of Jokhah was applied to this village in the contemporary period, and before that it was known as Chardeh. The name of this building goes back to the name of Jokhah village and before that it was known as the Tomb of Sephesalar or two commanders.
Jokhah Tomb is a type of domed square buildings. According to the remains of the building, the outer space consists of three parts, the body platform and the dome. The geometry of the plan and the form of Jokhah tomb reflects the design of Sassanid fire temples. The geometry of the building is square. The current height is about 23 feet and its foundation has been done on a platform. The materials used in the foundations of Jokhah tomb are made of clay, mud and plaster. Bricks are used only for cornering and doming of the building. The three doors of this building are in the front porch and have the same dimensions. This repetition on three fronts has given the building a special rhythm. There are three holes on the three sides of the building above each door. Due to the distinct shape of the entrance space, this building consists of four parts: the platform, the body, the entrance porch and the domed room.
The cover of the brick dome of Jokhah tomb has collapsed. This is comparable to the domes of the Twelve Imams of Yazd (5th century AH) and the tomb of Khosroabad Tabas (5th century AH). Based on the available visual sources, there are evidences of plastering in the throat of the dome and the formalization of the arches, which are considered as design ornaments in the Jokhah building. Two fine strips under the throat of the dome in the shape of the letter (kک/) are painted continuously and chainwise in black on a white chalk background. Another decoration includes a plaster strip in the shape of a seven-eighth or a congress in relief, and these two are among the most important arrays of this building. From around the building, unglazed pottery pieces with a simple linear and comb pattern, pottery types with turquoise and gilt underglaze were obtained (12-6 AH/12-18 M).

Conclusion 
The tomb is located as a single building outside the old rural context of Jokhah. The architectural features of this tomb, in terms of design and plan form, are in the group of tombs without towers, quadrangle with domes, and functionally, it is included in the category of non-religious tombs. The architectural structure of this building is very similar to the tombs of Amir Arslan Jazeb and Chalaqd in the 5th and 6th century AH. On the other hand, it has some features, especially the doming style, with the 7th AH buildings such as the Haruniyeh building and some 8th century AH buildings such as the Jame Mosque in Varamin and Jabaliyeh in Kerman. Through field investigations and analysis of the building map, it is possible to understand that the main design of the building is taken from the map of the domed square tombs of the Seljuk period, and the additional space outside the main door of the building belongs to later periods. The design of the Jokhah tomb built by Chalaqd was more impressive than the buildings of the Seljuk period in Khorasan. Also, the common features of the building such as functional elements and its materials with the Seljuk period and plaster painting decorations have shown more compatibility with the Ilkhanid period. Referring to Islamic sources and texts also does not provide accurate information about the construction time of this building. As mentioned earlier, 5th century AH, Tabas and its surrounding areas were the refuge of Ismaili claimants, and relative peace reigned in this region. In the middle of the 6th century Hijri, most of the buildings in this area and around it were destroyed by the attack of the Seljuks. Therefore, it seems that the tomb of Jokhah was formed after the aforementioned attacks. On the other hand, due to the absence of an inscription in the Jokhah building, the identity of the owner of the tomb, based on the generalization of reliable written sources of the Islamic period, goes back to a person named Malik, one of the Arab generals in the first century of Hijri. Since this building has not been scientifically explored and excavated so far, the dating of the building has been done by studying the organs, elements and comparing other tomb buildings. Therefore, the chronology of the Jokhah tomb is suggested to the end of the 6th century to the beginning of the 7th century AH.

Acknowledgment
Mr. Dr. Bahram Anani is grateful for providing information on the area of Montaziereh, Tabas.

Observation Contribution
In this article, the first author contributed 100% and the second and third authors contributed 90% and 80%.

Conflict of Interest
In writing this article, the authors are committed to scientific and research ethics and there is no conflict of interest between them.

Hamid Reza Valipour, Iman Mostafapour, Hamzeh Karimi,
year 9, Issue 34 (3-2026)
Abstract

Abstract
The Upper Gotvand Dam, with a 90-kilometer-long lake, is one of the largest dams in the country, and its impoundment caused the flooding of a large number of ancient sites, ancient and modern migration routes, villages, and nomadic settlements in the northeastern region of Khuzestan. Before the dam was completed, a team of archaeologists surveyed its basin in 2007. After that, in 2008, a team of archaeologists from ICHTO of Khuzestan Province excavated the Kalantar site and the Kalantar cemetery, and then in April and May 2010, salvage excavations were carried out at Kalantar 4 & 5 sites to obtain as much information as possible, which yielded significant results. Following the excavation of the Kalantar 5 site, traces of residential stone architecture, plain buff and red pottery, and turquoise blue and green glazed pottery, as well as some ground stones such as grinding stones, mortars, and pounding stones, were found. According to typological comparisons on the potteries, it was determined that they belonged to the Middle Islamic period (fifth and sixth centuries AH), and the site was inhabited during the Seljuk period. In addition, it was determined that there is a great similarity between the stone architecture of the Kalantar 4 (a Neo-Elamite site), and the Kalantar 5, and with the local architecture of the region in the present time, both in villages and in nomadic settlements. In other words, the continuity of cultural traditions over several millennia is observed in this area.
Keywords: Kalantar 5, Gotvand Dam Basin, Middle Islamic Period, Stone Architecture, Islamic Glazed Pottery.

Introduction
The Upper Gotvand Dam was built on the Karun River near the small town of Gotvand to generate electricity and irrigate downstream agricultural lands, and a wide range of intermountain valleys, numerous ancient sites, ancient and modern migration routes, villages, and nomadic settlements were submerged in the 90-kilometer-long lake behind the dam. Before the dam was impounded, two teams led by Shahram Zare and Hossein Azizi Kharanghi, respectively, surveyed the area (Azizi Kharanghi et al., 2007). Salvage excavations were conducted by Hamidreza Valipour on two sites, Kalantar 4 and 5, which were found during the surveys in the spring of 2010 (Valipour, 2010a & b). The preliminary results of the excavation of Kalantar 5 will be presented here.
The first goal of the excavation, like all salvage excavations, was to access as much information as possible. Due to the proximity of Kalantar 5 to Kalantar 4 and the similarity of its surface architectural structure with the architecture of Kalantar 4, the excavation team was faced with some questions, the most important of which were: 1- Is Kalantar 5 an extension of the Kalantar 4 settlement and can we consider them as one site? 2- Was the settlement in Kalantar 5 established after the abandonment of Kalantar 4 and as a result of the displacement of its residents? 3- Does Kalantar 5 belong to a different time than Kalantar 4? Of course, given the presence of Islamic pottery on the surface of Kalantar 5, it was assumed that this area, in addition to the Elamite period, would also contain evidence of settlement from this period. 4- Function and type of settlement in Kalantar5.

Kalantar 5
Kalantar 5 is located on a natural hill south of Kalantar village (Ab Zālu Arab) in Lali County, at N: 32˚ 13΄ 42/6˝ latitude and E: 049˚ 04΄ 55/4˝ longitude, 160 meters north of Kalantar 4 and 13 kilometers east of the Gotvand Dam. The highest point of the site is 278 meters above sea level. The Karun River, the closest major water source to the site, flows 4.5 kilometers northeast of the site; a water stream also passes through the valley to the northwest.
During the excavation, one trench was opened at the highest part of the site, measuring 10×10 meters, where the regular stone pieces and traces of walls indicated the existence of architectural spaces in this part of the site. Given the depth of the natural bedrock, it was clear before the excavation began that not much height of the walls remained.

Architecture
A total of six architectural spaces were revealed during the excavation in Trench I. Stone and mud mortar were used in all the architectural structures. The stones used in the construction of the different parts of the complex are soft limestone in small to large sizes. All the stones lack cutting polish but have an almost regular shape. Many of the stones used in the architectural structures are cubed. The walls are rectangular. The walls lack any covering, and even during the excavation in the rubble layers, no samples of mud, plaster, or lime were found. The six aforementioned spaces seem to belong to the same building because they all share walls. It is possible that the natural bedrock of the hill was used as a floor for the spaces. Stone supports were used in addition to all the main and internal load-bearing walls. The entrances were mainly created by not connecting two walls or by cutting off part of the length of a wall. Next to some walls, there are smaller annexed spaces as storage places, which were probably used to store daily necessities or food or fuel, and they lacked any entrance and were accessed from above. A pyrotechnical structure was found inside one of the spaces, about one-fifth of which remains. Since a very small part of it remains, it is difficult to distinguish its function as an oven or else. No evidence of a roof or debris was found during the excavation. Given the relatively small width of the spaces and the absence of columns, the roofs of the spaces were most likely created using parallel wooden poles and covered with mats or tree branches and mud. This reconstruction was carried out in comparison with the current situation in the village adjacent to the site. The reason for this comparison is the great similarity of the architecture obtained from the settlement spaces of the site with the architecture of the adjacent village.

Pottery
The 319 potsherds recovered from the excavation are divided into two major groups: plain and glazed. 265 sherds (83%) of the total are unglazed. Unglazed pottery can be divided into two groups: buff and red. The technology of pottery production is completely similar in terms of form, manufacturing technique, inclusion, firing, and decoration. Most of the sherds are wheel-made (96%). The inner and outer surfaces of the pottery are unpolished, and both sides of the vessels are smoothed by the wet hand method. Rarely, red wash was used to cover a handful of buff wares. The texture of buff ware is much more cohesive than that of red ware. Mineral materials such as fine to coarse sand were used as an inclusion in unglazed pottery; in one of the red potteries, the inclusion is a combination of organic and mineral materials. In general, the quality of buff-colored pottery is better than that of reds, and the number of buff sherds is much greater than that of reds. 236 sherds (74% of all pottery and 89% of unglazed pottery) are buff, and 29 sherds (9% of all pottery and 11% of unglazed pottery) are red. There are 10 sherds of pottery with incised decoration in the unglazed buff group.
54 pieces (17%) of the pottery are glazed. Except for two pieces with green glaze, the rest are turquoise blue. The pottery of this group is in the category of pottery with monochromatic glaze. Five pieces are also of the sgraffiato type with turquoise blue glaze. In terms of form, manufacturing technique, inclusion, firing, and color, these sherds are completely similar to the unglazed buff wares. The inclusion of all samples is mineral.
The reconstructed forms are the jar (44.5%), bowl (37%), and bowl (18.5%), respectively. The sherds date back to the 5th and 6th centuries AH and are dated to the Seljuk period (Karimi & Kiani, 1985; Towhidi, 2000; Kambakhshfard, 2001; Grube, 1994; Treptow, 2007).

Other Cultural Materials
In addition to pottery, other cultural materials recovered included animal remains, pounding stones, stone mortars, pivots, iron nails, iron knife, the bottom, rim, and body of transparent or opaque glass vessels in blue, yellow, and milky colors, as well as a few broken shells.

Conclusion
Kalantar 5 is a rural settlement site from the Middle Islamic period because considering the landscape of the region, the location of the site, the extent of the architectural remains, and the dispersion of cultural materials, it is unlikely that the settlement was urban. There is no connection between the sites of Kalantar 4 and 5 from a cultural and temporal perspective. An interesting point to note is the similarity of the architectural structures of this site with the architecture of Kalantar 4 and the modern village of Ab Zālū Arab and other nomadic villages and settlements in the region. With an ethnoarchaeological approach, this similarity can be considered a kind of cultural continuity in architecture. Perhaps the same environmental and subsistence conditions can be considered the reason for the construction of similar architecture over a long period.
The buildings were constructed using completely local materials, such as stone and mud. All the stones are limestone, ranging in size from small to large, and are uncut and unpolished but have a fairly regular shape, and many of the stones have been broken using chisels and hammers. It seems that the six identified spaces had both roofed and open sections. The three spaces 1, 3, and 4 were associated with activities that required separation from the residential areas; the three spaces 2, 5, and 6, which are part of the main residential complex, were probably places for resting and performing other daily activities. These three spaces are connected by some entrances.
All finds, from functional examples such as pottery, glass vessels, pounding stones, and mortars to decorative shells, indicate a normal settlement, and all of them are related to daily life activities.
The pottery of the Kalantar 5 bears no resemblance to the Kalantar 4 site. Many of them are Islamic glazed pottery, including monochrome green and turquoise blue glazes and some with incised patterns under the turquoise blue glaze. The pottery is not very diverse in terms of color, glaze, type, and theme of the patterns. These potteries date back to the fifth and sixth centuries AH and are dated to the Seljuk period. During this period, the glass industry in Iran was very prosperous (Shishehgar, 2003: 24), and glass fragments recovered from a rural settlement site confirm this.


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