Qualla: Godin Tepe

Godin Tepe: Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dorieo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two ceramic jars, each 60 centimeters tall with a capacity of 30 liters, sat in a small room beside a necklace of 200 black and white beads. A small hole had been drilled 10 centimeters above the base of each jar. Chemical analysis revealed what the holes were for: these were vessels for making wine, dating to roughly 3100-2900 BCE. At Godin Tepe, in the Kangavar valley of western Iran, the residents were fermenting grapes and brewing beer five thousand years ago, and the archaeological record preserves not just their drinking habits but the entire arc of a civilization that lasted from 5200 BCE until an earthquake ended it.

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Image: Dorieo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Godin Tepe: The Crossroads of Trade

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Uwe Dedering, CC BY-SA 3.0. Godin Tepe rises 30 meters above the plain on the left bank of the Gamas Ab river, a 15-hectare mound in the Luristan region of Kermanshah Province. Its importance was geographic. The Kangavar valley sits along routes that connected Mesopotamia to the Iranian plateau, and Godin s...

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Image: Uwe Dedering | CC BY-SA 3.0

Godin Tepe: Seals, Tablets, and the Uruk Connection

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dorieo, CC BY-SA 4.0. At Level VI, dated roughly 3500-3200 BCE, Godin Tepe reveals its deepest connections to Mesopotamian civilization. Thirty-eight clay tablets of the numerical or impressed type were found, 27 preserved intact. They contained accounts, the ancient equivalent of bookkeeping, identic...

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Image: Dorieo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Godin Tepe: Peoples Come and Go

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Siren-Com, CC BY-SA 3.0. Around 3000 BCE, possibly after a gap in occupation, new people arrived. The pottery shifts abruptly to Transcaucasian styles associated with the Kura-Araxes culture, well known from sites near Lake Urmia to the north. Grey-black burnished surfaces, conical bowls with incised des...

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Image: Siren-Com | CC BY-SA 3.0

Godin Tepe: The Iron Age Revival

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dorieo, CC BY-SA 4.0. When people returned around 750 BCE, they built on a different scale. A fortification wall 120 meters by 50 meters and three meters thick went up, complete with arrow slits. Inside, a columned hall measuring 24 by 28 meters was supported by 30 wooden columns arranged in five rows...

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Image: Dorieo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Godin Tepe: Unearthing Seven Millennia

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daderot, CC0. T. Cuyler Young Jr. discovered Godin Tepe in 1961 during a regional survey sponsored by the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, and began excavation in 1965 under the auspices of the Royal Ontario Museum. Work continued through 1973 across the site's three zones:...

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Image: Daderot | CC0