Tepe Farukhabad


Tepe Farukhabad is an ancient Near Eastern archaeological site located in the Deh Luran Plain which is primarily in the southwest of modern-day Iran. In lies
in the Ilam province. It is 110 kilometers west-northwest of Andimeshk and 12 miles south of the
village of Deh Luran. On a visit to the site in 1997 military damage was found and due to erosion "big clumps of the mound have recently collapsed down the nearly vertical slope facing the river".

Archaeology

The site was first noted by a French mission led by Joseph Étienne Gautier and Georges Lampre in 1903. An examination of the site in 1968 found
5th millennium BC Susiana pottery sherds and 4th millennium BC beveled rim bowls. The site has
a small high mound and surrounding lower town and has been cut by a local river which has removed about 60%
of its original area to the south. The overall site extends 190 meters from northwest to southeast and 140 meters from northeast to southwest. The central high mound extends 150 meters from northwest to southeast, and 70 meters from northeast to southwest. and rises about 30 meters above the plain of which about 20 meters is occupational remains.
The site was worked for a single season over two months in 1968 by a team from the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology, with 30 workers, led by Henry Wright. Two 5 meter by 14 meter step trenches and one 1 meter by 17 meter trench were excavated. Bayat and Faukh phase finds included mainly pottery, lithics, one button seal, and bone tools. Uruk period finds included ceramic ring scrapers, 20 beveled rim bowls, clay stoppers, and conical cups, all diagnostic pottery for the Uruk culture, as well as a single wall cone. Five Middle Uruk burials were excavated. At Tepe Farukhabad BRB diameters ranged from 15 to 31 centimeters. The beveled rim bowls were associated with massive mudbrick building foundations. A silver wire and a fishhook were found in a Jemdat Nasr context.
Bitumen is available at Tepe Farukhabad and it has been suggested that the Uruk period development was driven by bitumen production and export. Bones of domestic cattle were found in Early, Middle, and Late Uruk periods.
The only epigraphic find at the site, in a Middle Uruk context, was a clay ball token envelope with three sealings and possibly some numerical signs.
There was a proposal that the site was the location of Urua though consensus is with that
being Tepe Musiyan, 12.5 kilometers to the east.

History

Tepe Farukhabad was occupied, with periods of abandonment, from the late 5th millennium BC until the late
2nd millennium BC.
A sounding in the lower town found several meters of Parthian and Sassanian remains. Structural remains on the summit, originally thought to be Islamic period, were on later analysis dated to the Parthian and Sassanian period.