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Selected case studies and useful reading questions: what was found, how was it studied and what follows from the evidence?
The articles and guides here connect case studies with methods: layers and dating, critical reading, pottery, coins, inscriptions and raw materials. Choose a question, then follow the sources and related reading. Checking an abstract is never presented as reviewing an entire paper.
Below the inscription of Darius I, Bisotun has a reclining Heracles with a dated Greek inscription, 148 BCE, and Parthian reliefs, among them one of Mithridates II. Encyclopaedia Iranica describes them; UNESCO's page, which this site follows for Darius' inscription, does not mention them.
A Greek inscription found by chance in 1943 started the search for a temple at Nahavand in western Iran. What the finds from one spot show, and what they leave as a likelihood.
3 min read, approximately
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