Shahr-e Sukhteh (Burnt City) is the name of a series of interconnected mounds, ranging between 12 and 18 meters in height, covering a vast area of land 56 kilometers along the Zabol-to-Zahedan road. Since this city experienced at least three major conflagrations during its history, its surface is scorched and traces of ash and burning are visible throughout, which is perhaps why it has been called by this name by the local people. The abandonment of Shahr-e Sukhteh may also have been due to the shifting course of the Helmand River and its water-storage lakes, which is not far-fetched given the sandy riverbed and the constant blowing of powerful winds 120 days a year. Just as in common local parlance a dried-up tree is also called a "burnt tree," this desiccation may have turned the city into an abandoned city and, by extension, a "burnt city." There is, however, another local account that says the city's name was originally Shahr-e Suteh, meaning the great and mighty city, which over time became corrupted to Shahr-e Sukhteh. Before the excavations at Shahr-e Sukhteh, archaeologists believed that the most important centers of civilization were located in western Iran, primarily around Mesopotamia in the country's southwest. The initial surveys of Sir Aurel Stein, the Hungarian-born British archaeologist, at the ancient sites of eastern Iran laid the groundwork for the discovery and interpretation of many population centers in these areas, of which Shahr-e Sukhteh is one. The arrival of Italian archaeologists affiliated with the Italian Institute for the Middle and Far East, known by the abbreviation IsMEO, in the 1960s
provided the basis for acquiring and processing new information about the settlements of eastern Iran in the third millennium BCE and beyond, of which Shahr-e Sukhteh is perhaps the most important. If the civilizations of the Indus—Harappa and Mohenjo-daro—owe their existence to the Indus River, and the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt are indebted to the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile, then Shahr-e Sukhteh and the satellite settlements of this third-millennium eastern Iranian civilization must be considered the offspring of the Helmand River. The extensive discoveries at this eastern Iranian archaeological site have elevated it from an ordinary Bronze Age site to the most important center of settlement and, in fact, the social, political, economic, and cultural center of the entire region during the third and second millennia BCE. Archaeological activities indicate that at least 40 other ancient sites exist around this main site whose pottery resembles that of Shahr-e Sukhteh, and they can be identified as satellite civilizations of Shahr-e Sukhteh—settlements in the transition between the third and second millennia BCE. The people of Shahr-e Sukhteh, utilizing the special position of this city which afforded access to mineral and natural resources and their production and distribution throughout the Sistan plain and surrounding areas, were able to develop the city, expanding it from a small 15-hectare settlement to a 151-hectare city at the peak of its prosperity, thereby making it one of the largest Bronze Age cities in the Middle East—comparable to a limited number of cities such as Anshan in Fars, Ur in Mesopotamia, and Mohenjo-daro in the Indus plain. From about five thousand years ago, Shahr-e Sukhteh maintained excellent commercial relations with eastern and northern civilizations such as Amri-Nal in present-day Pakistan, Mundigak
Shahr-e Sukhteh, the City of Interconnected Rooms
Plan of the excavated area of the monumental building and the walls uncovered from beneath the soil.
in present-day Afghanistan, and Namazga in present-day Turkmenistan. Considering mortality rates and migrations, Shahr-e Sukhteh at the height of its prosperity had a population of between 5,000 and 8,000 people and was among the most populous cities of its time. The majority of this ancient city's population was engaged in productive and industrial activities such as stone-carving, pottery, weaving, fishing, agriculture, and trade. In addition to the great number of ceramic vessels, various small figurines of humans and animals made of clay, occasionally ceramic and stone, as well as wooden and wicker objects, weaving tools, fabric, and rope were produced in this city. Among the stone objects, particular mention can be made of alabaster vessels, stone handles, and millstones. Ornamental objects were mostly made with semi-precious stones, especially lapis lazuli, turquoise, and agate, which were imported from distant mines. These semi-precious stones, upon arrival in Shahr-e Sukhteh, were cut and shaped by the city's craftsmen into ornamental objects and then sent to exchange stations located between distant lands across the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia for export. Various seals and seal impressions of different materials have been found in Shahr-e Sukhteh that had administrative and official uses. One of the most important objects is a small clay tablet bearing a short inscription in the Proto-Elamite script, apparently a series of numbers and figures. This small tablet clearly attests to the existence of a link between this settlement center in eastern Iran and the major population centers in the west of the Iranian Plateau. According to available evidence, four periods of settlement in Shahr-e Sukhteh can be identified: the first period dates from approximately 3200 BCE to about 2750 BCE, the second period from 2700 to 2600 BCE, the third period from 2500 to 2200 BCE, and the fourth period spans some time between 2200 and 1800 BCE. In other words, this great center of human settlement on the eastern expanse of Iran was inhabited from approximately 5,200 years ago to about 3,800 years ago and has claimed for itself brilliant civilizational characteristics among the settlements of the ancient world. One of the most important achievements of Shahr-e Sukhteh, which is also grounded in the geographical advantage of the Iranian Plateau, is its extensive network of commodity exchange, which was unique in scale for the ancient world of its time. Another distinguished civilizational feature of this settlement is the near-total absence of any object or implement of conflict or war, which itself speaks to the peacefulness and prolonged tranquility of its people. In the residential areas and cemetery of this archaeological site, numerous figurines of cattle have been found, leading some archaeologists to speculate that the sanctity of the cow in this prehistoric civilization—similar to the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent—attests to a form of primitive religion among these people. However, since no other evidence of their religiosity has been found, and since figurines of other animals such as leopards and boars are also frequently seen among the small sculptures, one cannot speak with certainty about the specific religious beliefs of the people of this region. Yet an interesting point regarding the cattle figurines that may further attest to the importance of this animal and even its sacred aspect approaching divinity among these people is that nearly all recovered figurines were incomplete and broken, and this breakage was not solely due to the fragility or poor quality of their materials; rather, these symbols, in a god-like function, were broken and discarded after they had fulfilled their duty for their owners, especially when they failed to meet their needs, since perhaps their purpose had been served. Shahr-e Sukhteh, for all its vastness, lacks any temple, defensive wall, gate, or public building such as a town hall or public park analogous to what is found in other archaeological sites of this era, both eastern and western. The Shahr-e Sukhteh site is divided into four sections: the large central zone, the eastern residential zone,
the northwestern industrial zone, and the cemetery in the southwest. The most important architectural remains discovered are the complex of houses known as the "stepped houses," the "Burnt Palace," and the monumental buildings. The buildings in the residential section display a certain spatial order and organization in the division of buildings and residential units in Shahr-e Sukhteh. In the space between every few units, narrow access strips to these houses have created a form of early alleyway or street, which is interesting in its own right. The sewage collection system of the houses, constructed with a type of ceramic pipes, is unparalleled in ancient communities. The predominant building materials in Shahr-e Sukhteh's architecture are a reflection of the surrounding nature, consisting mainly of rammed earth, mud brick, wood, and matting. The architecture of houses in Shahr-e Sukhteh is formed by the connection of multiple rooms of one house to a similar unit within a dense fabric structure. Each building unit consists of six to ten rooms, equipped with doors, doorways, stairs, ceilings, and hearths, and usually has at least one rectangular section. The main construction material was raw mud bricks in dimensions of 40 by 10 by 10 or 20 by 10 by 10 centimeters. The first series of bricks were used for building the main piers, and the second series were mostly used beside doorways and windows. In the structure of the monumental buildings, bricks measuring 20 by 40 by 12 centimeters were also used, apparently due to the dimensions and height of these distinctive buildings. In the larger bricks, fibers and even plant stems were used to maintain the cohesion of the large clay pieces, and it is evident that these bricks were made using wooden molds, as their edges are perfectly smooth and their surfaces have also been smoothed with a tool such as a trowel. For the main walls of the rooms, foundation construction was deemed necessary, but some less important walls, such as partition walls separating interior spaces, were built directly on the ground. The depth of building foundations varies from thirty centimeters to one meter and consists of a combination of soil and pottery fragments that were well compacted to achieve the necessary hardness for bearing wall loads. The main walls of the rooms in these buildings, particularly in the monumental building zone, are generally massive and thick, ranging between 75 and 125 centimeters, while in less important walls and partitions the thickness decreases to approximately 50 centimeters. In some rooms, the floor was made by compacting the existing soil until smooth and usable, though traces of this type of flooring are not visible in many rooms of many houses, and apparently in these cases residents were content with the floor being compacted simply through foot traffic. The debris of collapsed ceilings in most rooms indicates a combination of clay-straw plaster, matting, and wood pieces as the materials used in ceiling construction, and from this it becomes clear that the composition of beam-supported ceilings with wooden battens and a final covering of
clay and straw plaster—still used today in many rural houses in the warm regions along the country's wetlands—has remained unchanged since the second and third millennia BCE. The plan and general form of buildings consists of a courtyard or large roofless room and one or more smaller roofed interior rooms. Study of the various architectural plans uncovered at Shahr-e Sukhteh shows that spatial divisions within this quadrilateral space were created in different ways according to the function of each space and the personal needs and tastes of the homeowner. The general building pattern is, in fact, a function of this condition. Generally speaking, the general form of a building in Shahr-e Sukhteh consists of: an entrance, generally positioned on the southern side of buildings—opposite to the direction of Sistan's prevailing winds; a courtyard that appears as the first spacious area after the main entrance; and then one or more square rooms and one or more storerooms usually located in the building's corners, connected to each other by doorways or passages. Inside some houses, one or two flights of stairs for rooftop access are situated in the corners and sides of the building's interior, and the space beneath the stairs has been used to create a storage room. The area of houses varies according to the diversity of types, which is in a way dependent on the form of room combinations, ranging from 110 square meters in the "pit house" type to approximately 170 square meters in the "foundation house" type and finally reaching 188 square meters in the "stepped house" type. The number of rooms in these types also varies from 8 to 10 and up to 14. The main elements of Shahr-e Sukhteh houses include doorways, courtyards, rooms, storerooms, hearths, stairs, skylights, niches, platforms, pens, and lavak (water channels). The main types of houses in Shahr-e Sukhteh, based on excavations conducted to date, are as follows: First type: the Pit House. This type has a rectangular plan with an 81-degree deviation toward the west and an area of approximately 110 square meters, of which the settlement portion is approximately 63 square meters. The room dimensions in the pit house
are approximately 5.3 by 2.4 meters with an area close to 12.72 square meters. Interior doorways opened toward the east and west walls, and beneath the stairs a storeroom was created for storing necessary supplies, with dimensions of approximately 3.8 by 0.7 meters. Second type: the Staircase House. In this house there are two flights of stairs, of which approximately five steps remain on the northern side and two steps in the eastern section. These two flights of stairs are heavily damaged, and their width ranges between 35 and 40 centimeters. The stairs led to a circular space, and the weight of the staircase was borne by a supporting mud-brick pier built on the exterior of the building. The under-stair storeroom is constructed similarly to that of the pit house. Third type: the Foundation House. The foundation house is situated adjacent to the staircase house, and logically one can say it was built contemporaneously with the staircase house and faces the pit house in a similar fashion. This house consists of a series of rooms with regular shapes and various dimensions. Many of the walls lack plaster and covering, and in all of
Types of residential houses of Shahr-e Sukhteh, Periods Two and Three, in the eastern residential zone
Excavated section of the monumental building of Shahr-e Sukhteh and reconstructed plan of the main construction phase in this section
them no doorways are visible. This building has two separate sections: the older section, located beneath the unplastered walls, which features the common structure of Shahr-e Sukhteh architecture such as doorways, plastered walls, and circular hearths. The newer section is the foundation house proper, which has walls without plaster and without doorways, with a structure resembling building foundations. Wall thickness ranges between 60 and 80 centimeters, and rooms are built along a northeast-southwest axis with rectangular plans. The area of this house is approximately 156 square meters, divided into 12 rooms with dimensions ranging from 1.75 by 2 to 2.30 by 4.10 meters. Fourth type: the XH House. The surviving walls of this building are approximately 20 to 40 centimeters in height and are contemporary with the buildings above the staircase house. The area of this building is approximately 210 square meters and consists of 14 rooms. In a section outside the building, a number of bricks were found placed on the ground, presumably for repairing worn sections of the wall during the period of occupation. The building appears to consist of two separate sections. Four rooms in the northern section are connected by a courtyard, and this courtyard has dimensions of approximately 5.8 by 3.8 meters. This house has a doorway with a width of 110 centimeters. In the southern section of the building, two rooms exist that were later divided into two smaller rooms by a wall. In one of the rooms, a brick floor has been observed. The northern section is also divided into two rooms with dimensions of 3.4 by 4.1 meters. This house bears many similarities to the "chief's house" at Altyn-Depe. As described in the spatial analysis of Shahr-e Sukhteh houses, the overall picture of the residential fabric in Shahr-e Sukhteh is a dense assemblage of rooms separated by narrow access strips, which in this respect resembles the urban fabric of Chatal Huyuk in Anatolia. Although in the latter case the density and continuity of rooms, in the absence of any alley-like access, was considered a defensive tactic for the city—in the event of an enemy attack and the destruction of part of the dense urban fabric's perimeter, the attacker could only gain one room and not
an entry into the city—in Shahr-e Sukhteh it appears that the density of the residential fabric, combined with the technique of building thick walls and providing narrow alley-like access, was intended to protect the inhabitants from the intense summer heat and the cold accompanied by winds such as the killing winter wind known as "Gavkosh." The remains discovered in the excavations of Shahr-e Sukhteh indicate that this society, in the middle of the third millennium BCE, experienced a political, economic, and social crisis that brought about its gradual decline and fall, such that by the end of the fourth settlement period both the population and the size of the city had diminished. The most authoritative theory regarding the abandonment of the city by its resident population is the same phenomenon that today compels the villagers and townspeople of Sistan to migrate to other regions of the country: the drought and the shifting of the Helmand River's delta and riverbed, which apparently drove the people to follow the water and relocate to other points and other ancient settlements. Nevertheless, what remains of Shahr-e Sukhteh is a still largely unknown composite of culture, economy, and society that, at the dawn of agricultural civilizations, laid the foundation for many characteristics of present-day human civilization. It constitutes a treasure in the heart of the current Lutak desert near the city of Zabol in Sistan, providing for young people, thinkers, architects, and urban planners a vast source of firsthand information about settlement systems on the Iranian Plateau, construction techniques, and residential organization.
Footnotes: 1- Sir Marc Aurel Stein 2- ISMEO 3- Harappa 4- Mohenjo-daro 5- Seyyed Mansour Seyyed Sajjadi, "Unknown Cultures of the Eastern Half of the Iranian Plateau," Archaeology and History of Baluchistan, Cultural Heritage Organization, Tehran, 1995. 6- Amri-Nal Culture
7- Mundigak 8- Seyyed Mansour Seyyed Sajjadi, "Shahr-e Sukhteh," Cultural Heritage Research Center, Tehran, 2002.