The Arjan tomb: a late Neo-Elamite elite burial near Behbahan

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

The discovery

The entry "ARJĀN TOMB" in Encyclopaedia Iranica (Javier Alvarez-Mon, 2015) describes a late Neo-Elamite elite burial near Behbahan in southwestern Iran, which the entry places near the ruins of ancient Arrajān. According to the entry, in 1982 a bulldozer levelling the ground for the construction of a road leading to a dam on the river Marun cut through a stone-walled funerary chamber. Inside was a U-shaped, "bathtub-style" bronze coffin measuring 1.32 × 0.60 × 0.60 m, containing the skeletal remains of a single individual; its lid carries three registers of incised buds and lotus flowers. Except for the skeletal remains, all objects were packed and transferred to the National Museum of Iran in Tehran. Source 1.

Whose tomb

Four objects from the burial, the bronze bowl, the candelabrum, the golden "ring" and a silver vessel, are engraved with a Neo-Elamite inscription reading "Kidin-Hutran son of Kurluš". The entry says nothing about the man beyond his name. François Vallat dated the inscription to around 650-525 BCE, and Marie-Joseph Stève to about 605-539 BCE. Source 1.

The objects

A bronze bowl 43.5 cm in diameter and 8.5 cm deep carries on its inner surface four engraved registers arranged concentrically around a central rosette; according to the entry they are inhabited by 112 human figures and 66 animals of 33 species. A gold "ring" weighing 237 grams, with disc-shaped finials, shows two lion-headed griffins on either side of a palmette tree. A stand the entry calls a candelabrum, 75 cm high, is supported by three Atlas-type figures and six lions. A straight dagger 31 cm long has an iron blade and a guard wrapped in gold foil. Twelve pieces of fabric were identified by analysis as cotton, and the entry calls this the earliest known physical attestation of cotton textiles found in the ancient Near East; the claim is the author's. Source 1.

A date within the period

The author dates the burial and the related material to between 630 and 550 BCE and calls it, in the entry's opening, "the late Neo-Elamite elite burial (ca. 630-550 BCE)". The whole range falls inside the site's Neo-Elamite row, which the Met's timeline dates to about 1000-539 BCE, and inside Iranica's Neo-Elamite II (ca. 725/700-520). The "ELAM ii" entry in the same encyclopaedia places the tomb 10 km north of Behbahan, lists it among the material of Neo-Elamite II and adds that its date is disputed, the late 8th century or 640-525 BCE; the two datings of the inscription, Vallat's and Stève's, do differ, and this page gives all the proposals without deciding between them. Sources 1, 2, 3.

What can and cannot be said

The tomb is the second documented item of the Neo-Elamite period on this site, after Susa, and it is a single burial, not a settlement or a layer. The entry does not say who Kidin-Hutran was beyond his name and his father's, does not state where the objects were made, and gives no inventory numbers. The date 630-550 is the author's "in this study", and this page presents it as such. Source 1.

Scope of reading: the Encyclopaedia Iranica entry "ARJĀN TOMB" (Javier Alvarez-Mon; published 3 December 2015, updated 11 January 2016) was read on 24 October 2026, together with the entry "ELAM ii" and the Met's timeline page for Iran, 1000 BCE-1 CE. The excavation reports, the publications of Vallat and Stève and the National Museum of Iran's own record were not read, so this page gives no further measurements, no inventory numbers and no information on how the objects are displayed today.