T HE PER S IAN E X PEDITION

THE achievements of the first season of the Joint Expedition to Rayy of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the University Museum merit more extended consideration than the brief accounts which have appeared from time to time in the Bulletin. It is with pleasure, therefore, that we present the following article by Dr. Erich F. Schmidt, the field director of the expedition.

U NDER the guidance of Reza Shah Pahlevi and his efficient govern-mental forces Persia is rising again to the level worthy of a nation that once ruled the ancient world. Motor cars are slowly displacing the camel and the donkey, the age-old means of transportation in the countries of the East. A few years hence a railroad will connect the Persian Gulf with the ports of the Caspian Sea. Modern buildings are rising in Teheran while cultured people preserve the beautiful constructions of the past. The well-trained army and the reorganized gendarme and police corps cleaned the country of bandits and unruly tribesmen. The nomadic people of the western mountains are being pacified and settled, and religious chauvinism is giving way to a more tolerant philosophy.

The Persian highland is a paradise in spring when flowers and the tender green of poplars and weeping willows give a beautiful setting for the turquoise and cobalt b lue of mosques and minarets. In summer parching heat waves vibrate from the Kavir, the great Salt Desert which spreads like a concave mirror across the heart of the country. In winter an impressive panorama of snowy mountains girdles the plateau. Such is the setting for the work of the Rayy Expedition.

T he Ruins of R ayy

Although an archaeologist, in a matter-of -fact way, studies, exca-vates, records and publishes the remains of bygone people, he is always stirred by the majesty of ancient cities turned into lifeless mounds. Rayy, the principal aim of the expedition, is one of the most impressive ancient sites. Situated about six kilometers southeast of Teheran, the ruins extend for many square miles across the plain. The imposing acropolis or fortress crowns a rocky spur of the Elburz Mountains. Smaller mounds and girdle walls of the city defense extend far into the plain, covered with bricks and millions of pot

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PLATE V

RA YY POTTERY "Minai" Bowl dating from the Seljuk Dynasty, about Twelfth Century

RAYY POTTERY Seljuk Bowl of Dark Olive Green and Turquoise

fragments . The sanctuary of Shah-Abdul-Azim, villages and manors are scattered over the present surface of the Rayy plain which has been the hunting ground for treasure diggers for more than six hundred years. But Rayy is large. The gold diggers have only scratched its wealth.

Our aim at Rayy is the determination of the cultural development at this spot. By linking up our information with the results of the completed work at Tepe Hissar, two hundred and fifty miles to the east, we expect to gain consid!erable knowledge of the development in the northern part of Persia from the beginning of the metal age to our own era. Rayy, furthermore, has always been famous for its Islamic ceramics, which have been dug up haphazardly by dealers and natives. Our excavations in the Islamic stratum of the city aim at establishing a delicate chronology of these ceramics and at deter-mining which types had actually been manufactured on the spot.

The Excavations

At this point we want to express our sincerest appreciation of the courteous cooperation of the Persian government. Without the aid and advice of H. H. Mohammed! Ali Khan Fouroughi, H. E. Ali Asgher Khan Hekmat, Mr. Andre Godard and the officials of the Ministry of Educatio'1, the expedition might have been forced to quit Rayy and its fascinating problems. We are no less mindful of the debt which we owe to our friends at home: Mrs. William Boyce Thompson, the principal patroness and enthusiastic friend of the expedition; Mrs. Christian Holmes, who, through the American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology, contributed funds for work in the mountains of Luristan; and Mrs. James B. Murphy, who has also given generous support to the expedition.

Considering the fact that the minimum volume of the nucleus of Rayy consists of about sixty-five million cubic yards of culture deposit, the task of excavating it does not appear easy. However, we could never think of uncovering the city in its entire extent. Individual excavations distributed over the ruin territory at certain distances have to give information concerning the remains which are contained in the quarters of the buried town. After these tests have determined a particularly interesting spot, the digging forces are combined in one intensive excavation.

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PLATE VI - THE RAJ i:" EXPEDITION Above: Exhibit of Rayy Expedition Fin

In this manner the first, and necessarily most difficult season, has already shown highly satisfactory results. In the mound of Cheshmeh Ali, at the base of which the expedition quarters are situated, we determined a succession of prehistoric occupations ranging in time from about 5000 until 3000 B. C. On top of the prehistoric deposit the Parthians built a temple, dated by coins of the first century B. C. and the first century A. D. The rest, and principal part, of the excava-tions tested the extensive Islamic deposits in various sections of the ruin area.

In describing the finds of the season we will proceed chronologi-cally, starting with the earliest remains. As a rule, the ceramics of ancient times comprise the most important finds of an excavation. An archaeologist defines his culture strata usually by means of cer-tain types of vessels. While digging down he watches their changes, and when studying the results of his site he is mainly guided by their forms and patterns in tracing his cultures to other areas.

The Prehistoric Strata At Rayy, too, the ceramics were our guide. On bedrock, below

the mound of Cheshmeh Ali, we found the earliest wares. The crude, handmade vessels and fragments painted with simple geometrical patterns, are almost identical with a certain type of pottery found by Pumpelly in the lowest layer of Anau beyond the northeastern border mountains of Persia. We cannot yet answer the question whether during those remote times, when copper began to displace stone, Iran or the Turkoman steppe was the center of diffusion. At another point of the mound there occurred also many fragments resembling the ceramics of the third layer of Anau, while the prin-cipal prehistoric deposit of the site was found on top of the "alien" wares.

The red pottery of the main stratum of Cheshmeh Ali is extremely interesting. Its black decoration far surpasses, in beauty and skill of execution, the ornaments of the other prehistoric ceramics of northern Persia. There are elegant, delightfully conventionalized designs of ibexes, moufflons or gazelles, fleeing or charging, kicking up the dust of the steppe. Long-legged herons or cranes are shown, rippling the water in which they are standing. Neatly drawn geo-metrical patterns of great variety ornament other vessels. It is regret-table that most burials of this period are apparently outside the

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settlement. While graves of the corresponding, though less advanced stratum of Tepe Hissar gave us additional information, only a few poorly equipped burials occurred in the Rayy deposit of this time.

The subsequent occupation of Cheshmeh Ali saw the introduction of the potter's wheel in Iran. We assume this happened sometime in the fourth millennium. The pottery of this time has lighter, brown shades. Rows of conventionalized animals, birds and humans encircle the margins of some vessels; but the guide pattern is a floral scroll or palmette with several branches. Again we are able to interlock the sites of Rayy and Tepe Hissar. Identical vessels occurred at the latter site in the second sub-layer from the bottom; but, while the occu-pation of Tepe Hissar continues and rises to an advanced stage in a third sub-layer of the era of painted pottery, at Cheshmeh Ali the prehistoric epoch suddenly ends. During the second season we shall test the deepest deposit of Rayy, the citadel mound, in order to determine whether further prehistoric settlements are present.

The Parthians After a lapse of roughly three thousand years the Cheshmeh Ali

mound was reinhabited by the Parthians. In the remains of their temple construction, standing on the hill which was formed by the long forgotten people of the Copper Age, we found some vessels, simple, undecorated, but practical. Still, a further step in the advance-ment of ceramics was marked by the occurrence of sherds and a pitcher with bluish-green glaze. Mesopotamia had given to Iran the art of glazing. In a deep well five hundred copper coins had been hoarded by the Parthians. We found them at a depth of thirty-seven feet below the orifice of the pit.

We did not find any traces of a Sasanian settlement in the extensive areas tested during the season. It seems the town of this period was outside, to the east of the ruins called Rayy. Tepe Mil, some miles eastward is crowned by a Sasanian construction, partly excavated some time ago by a French expedition.

The Is lamic City After the wave of Islam had swept over Persia in the seventh century

of our era, Rayy soon became one of the mightiest cities of its time. Poets and merchants praised it alike.

Two climaxes are indicated by the results of our tests. The first fell into the time of the Abbasid Kalifs during the eighth and ninth

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centuries, while the second coincides with the Seljuq rule of the eleventh until the beginning of the thirteenth century. The invasion of the Mongols under Jengis Khan, ended, in 1220, the splendor of Rayy.

An excavation in Islamic Rayy is puzzling and amusing, at the same time, for anybody accustomed to the digging methods applied at deposits of earlier epochs. Burials won't furnish any information, except bones and pieces of iron from the coffins. The excavated houses are mostly empty, ·either cleaned out by the former occupants or rifled by invaders. Subterranean storerooms are better. Hoards of vessels and other objects are apt to occur. But the only spots which are always reliable and certain to give information and objects to the excavator are the ancient wells, sewers and trash holes in general! Thus, shortly after an excavation has started in Islamic deposits all the good diggers of the crew disappear in the numerous pits which perforate the successive strata of the city from top to bottom. Soon the excavation proper stops because its bottom is pierced with tubular holes from which baskets and buckets with dirt and objects periodically emerge. The pits play the principal r6le from every viewpoint. As a rule, one finds objects discarded by their former owners, together with coins thrown into the sewers with the sweep-ings or hoarded there, perhaps once kept in a bag and suspended with a string . Often wells and other pits are connected by passages, opening into large chambers. They were presumably subterranean storage rooms and, at the same time, places of refuge, the forerunners of the modern dug-outs.

Hundreds of thousands of pot fragments were gathered in the pits and general excavations. Three expert restorers assembled the sherds of the same vessels, their task facilitated by the separation of the fragments according to their findspots . In this manner many vessels were preserved, their relation to other vessel types deter-mined by their common findspot and their date tentatively fixed by the associated coins.

Particularly the vessels of the Early Islamic period (that is mainly the time of the Abbasids) show decided Chinese influence. As a matter of fact, Chinese fragments of T'ang and Sung times, corre-sponding to the Early and Middle Islamic periods, were found in our excavations. The native Rayy products, imitations of Chinese ware, consists of deep plates with white, yellow, light green or poly-

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chrome glazes. There are others with mottled patterns in purplish brown on cream. Kufic inscriptions are ornamentally used on many vessels. Green glazed jars, plain pots with deeply incised and applied patterns and pitchers with faint indentations are also typical for this time, during which the famous gold lustre first appears in Persia.

The loveliest creations of the Iranian pot-makers belong to the Middle Islamic period, mainly the time of the Seljuqs. There appear the elegant "Minai" vessels with polychrome patterns on white or turquoise ground, showing "Steeds of Paradise," princes with dancers and musicians, hunte rs with falcons, and so forth. Gold lustre is frequent on vessels and tiles. Lovely turquoise and cobalt bowls have delicately incised and filigree patterns on their walls. About a hundred and forty gold coins, found in hoards and in pits show the wealth of Seljuq Rayy. Attractive stucco plaques (cf. Bulle.tin, January, 1935) ornamented the walls of the more elaborate houses. Glass vessels are frequent in the Early and Middle Islamic strata.

Architecturally, the most important work was the clearing of a tomb tower of Buwaihid or Seljuq royalty at the outskirts of Rayy. Although the graves had been rifled, many hundreds of fragments of silk, wool and cotton, and some of brocade, were found in the debris.

Toward the end of the season a reconnaissance to southern Luristan showed the wealth of ancient sites in · the valley of Rumishgan, and the expedition received permission from the Persian government to start the first organized excavations ever undertaken in this puzzling part of the ancient world.

ESKIMO DUG-OUTS THE expedition of the University Museum and the Danish National Museum to Prince William Sound, Alaska, In 1933, acquired three interesting specimens, which are described in the following article by Dr. Frederica de Laguna, co-leader with Dr. Kaj Birket-Smith of the expedition.

A UNIQUE discovery was made in the course of our archaeological work in Prince William Sound. This consists of small dug-out canoes, remarkable not for their shape or method of construction, but because they are the first wooden canoes known to have been made by the Eskimo.

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While we were excavating an ancient Eskimo village site, Palugvik, "Where the People Are Sad," an old Eskimo chief told us the following story: There were formerly two villages at Palugvik, one on the east point and one on the west point, separated by a tiny bay, not more than a quarter of a mile wide. Two old ladies of noble birth started out from the east point to dance for the young girls of the west point. They wore ear ornaments, nose-pins, and labrets, and to look comical had propped open their eye-lids with little sticks. They were paddling a wooden canoe, and when half-way across, the wind blew up sud-denly and upset them. Next morning the people found their bodies on the shore. After that, people used to wait for the low tide and walk around by the beach, and every year on the day that the old women had drowned the inhabitants of all the neighboring villages would hold a remembrance feast in their honor. In telling this story, the old chief used the Eyak Indian word for dug-out, and described the canoe as a hollowed log. We did not then realize that this canoe was probably of Eskimo manufacture.

Later we were told that the Eskimo living in the northern part of the Sound used to make wooden canoes, some big enough to carry nine men, and that they would take them in preference to their skin boats when going up the ice-filled fjords to the salmon streams. It was not until we actually found wooden canoes in an Eskimo burial cave that we could fully credit these reports.

Long before we visited this cave we had heard of it from both natives and whites. It is called Palutat, "The Lost" or "Hidden People," because the bodies found in it were supposed to be those of people who had hidden there from enemies, or according to another story, had been storm-bound, and so starved to death. The cave is also mentioned in the following Eskimo legend, which offers still another explanation of the bodies in it.

A man had five nephews, twelve sons, and a wife. When he was dying he gave his fine spear with throwing-board to his youngest nephew. Then he died.

The nephews and sons went into one house and began to divide up the dead man's things among themselves. The nephews quarreled over the hunting spear. The oldest son said that his father had wanted to give it to the youngest nephew, but the oldest nephew said that it had been given to him. They began to fight. The oldest son grabbed the spear and threw it into the fire.

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