Qualla: Baba Jan Tepe

Baba Jan Tepe: Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BabelStone, CC BY-SA 3.0. The fire that destroyed the Painted Chamber at Baba Jan Tepe sometime near the end of the 8th century BC preserved it. Walls that had been decorated in red paint on white plaster, a ceiling made of painted tiles, a columned hall that opened onto an enclosed courtyard -- all of it collapsed and carbonized in a single catastrophic event. When British archaeologist Clare Goff excavated the site between 1966 and 1969, she found the ruins exactly as the flames had left them, sealed beneath centuries of later occupation on the southern edge of the Delfan plain in Iran's Lorestan Province.

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Image: BabelStone | CC BY-SA 3.0

Baba Jan Tepe: Two Mounds, Four Millennia

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NearEMPTiness, CC BY-SA 4.0. Baba Jan Tepe consists of two mounds joined by a saddle of earth, roughly 10 kilometers from the town of Nurabad. The East Mound, 85 meters in diameter and 9 meters high, yielded a sequence of first-millennium BC buildings above earlier Bronze Age graves. The Central Mound, large...

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Image: NearEMPTiness | CC BY-SA 4.0

Baba Jan Tepe: The Painted Chamber

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NearEMPTiness, CC BY-SA 4.0. The most remarkable discovery at Baba Jan was the Painted Chamber on the East Mound. This ceremonial hall, measuring 10 by 12 meters, was attached to a larger fortified complex. Two columns supported its roof. A niche and a doorway with reveals -- recessed frames indicating caref...

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Image: NearEMPTiness | CC BY-SA 4.0

Baba Jan Tepe: The Pottery Called Genre Luristan

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NearEMPTiness, CC BY-SA 4.0. Baba Jan Tepe gave archaeologists a name for an entire ceramic tradition. The handmade, buff-colored pottery found in the Level III occupation, finished on a turntable and decorated with thick red-brown matte paint, became known as Genre Luristan ware. Its motifs were geometric: ...

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Image: NearEMPTiness | CC BY-SA 4.0

Baba Jan Tepe: Squatters in the Ruins

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NearEMPTiness, CC BY-SA 4.0. After fire destroyed the Fort and Painted Chamber, the site was not immediately abandoned. The walls of the ruined Fort remained standing for decades, and during what archaeologists call Level II, squatters briefly reoccupied its eastern rooms. Small structures were built in the ...

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Image: NearEMPTiness | CC BY-SA 4.0