The Halaf period in western Iran: New insights into the Late Neolithic-Early Chalcolithic J ware of the Mahidasht 1975-78 survey project
Keywords:
Halaf, J ware, Mahidasht, Petrography, Early chalcolithicAbstract
Between 1975 and 1978, a joint team from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and the Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research conducted an archaeological survey in the Mahidasht region of western Iran. They identified over 60 sites from the late 6th millennium BCE featuring Halaf-type pottery, known as ‘J ware.’ These ceramics are considered a local Iranian variant of the late Mesopotamian Halaf ware, with which they share stylistic features. After the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79, the fieldwork of the Mahidasht survey project was concluded, leaving the data, and particularly the ‘J ware,’ unpublished.
Forty years later, studies on this pottery related to the Halaf period have been resumed here. In addition to the primary classification and documentation of J ware, now housed at the National Museum of Iran, further work, including petrographic analyses and comparative studies, has been conducted to better understand J ware and determine its actual relationship to the Halaf period in northern Mesopotamia. The initial results of this study demonstrate that the late Neolithic and early Chalcolithic J ware of western Iran is fully integrated with the late Halaf period of northern Mesopotamia from the second half of the 6th millennium BCE.
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