Qualla: Tureng Tepe

Tureng Tepe: Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ZxxZxxZ, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1841, gold vessels dug from a mound on Iran's Gorgan Plain were sent to Shah Mohammad Shah Qajar. The find, which became known as the Asterabad treasure, caught the attention of European scholars, but it would be nearly a century before anyone came to properly excavate. Tureng Tepe, the Hill of the Pheasants, had been quietly accumulating layers of human habitation for over five thousand years. Today it rises from the plain as a cluster of mounds covering 35 hectares, with a steep central hill soaring more than 30 meters above the surrounding farmland. A small village sits at its base. A modern cemetery covers its northern mound. History here is literally underfoot.

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Image: ZxxZxxZ | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tureng Tepe: Five Millennia in Layers

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Uwe Dedering, CC BY-SA 3.0. The oldest remains at Tureng Tepe reach back to the Neolithic period, though those deepest layers are assumed to lie below the current water table and remain largely unexplored. Pottery sherds resembling Djeitun-culture wares have been found incorporated into bricks from later pe...

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Image: Uwe Dedering | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tureng Tepe: A Terrace That Changed Everything

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Uwe Dedering, CC BY-SA 3.0. Between roughly 2600 and 2100 BC, the inhabitants of Tureng Tepe constructed something remarkable: an enormous mudbrick terrace in the center of their settlement. Radiocarbon dating places its construction between 2550 and 2185 BC, and it may represent the earliest example of mon...

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Image: Uwe Dedering | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tureng Tepe: Figurines That Traveled Far

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Uwe Dedering, CC BY-SA 3.0. The stone figurines found at Tureng Tepe share clear similarities with those from nearby sites like Shah Tepe, Tepe Hissar, and Gohar Tappeh. But the terracotta figurines tell a different story. These baked clay figures have no parallels at neighboring sites. Instead, their close...

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Image: Uwe Dedering | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tureng Tepe: Digging Through Revolution

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Uwe Dedering, CC BY-SA 3.0. Frederick Wulsin conducted the first modern excavation in 1931, sponsored by the Atkins Museum of Fine Arts. He dug a pit 17 meters deep into the top of the central mound and tunneled into its northern and eastern sides. On Mound C, he uncovered 75 Bronze Age graves with associat...

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Image: Uwe Dedering | CC BY-SA 3.0