The Marlik cemetery: rich tombs without a known settlement

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

What the sources say

In the Met's timeline for Iran, 2000-1000 BCE, under "ca. late 2nd-early 1st millennium B.C.", the text reads: "The cemetery of Marlik, in northern Iran near the Caspian Sea, yields rich tombs with precious metal vessels, glass objects, and distinctive ceramics in the shape of humped bulls." The entry itself names no period. Source 1.

Tombs without a settlement

Encyclopaedia Iranica mentions Marlik in another context. Forms of the Early Western Grey Ware horizon, the original name for Hasanlu V, are also found at sites "farther to the east, south of the Caspian and close to Tehran": at Marlik, Khurvin, Gheytaryeh and Darrus. Unlike the Urmia sites, which are settlements and cemeteries, these are "cemetery sites, their settlements still unrecorded". Iranica gives no date for Marlik. Source 2.

A range wider than the period

The Met's range, "late 2nd-early 1st millennium", is wider than the Iron Age I page, which follows the same timeline's about 1450-1250 BCE. It extends into the 1st millennium BCE, beyond the end of Iron Age I and into the time of the Met's Iron Age II, about 1250-800 BCE, and the source does not say where in the range the tombs fall. The article is placed on the Iron Age I page because Iranica links Marlik with the pottery forms of the horizon it labels Iron Age I at Hasanlu. This is a placement for navigation, not a date for the tombs: neither source says which tombs belong to which part of the range. Sources 1, 2.

What rich tombs can and cannot show

Precious metal vessels and glass objects in tombs show what was deposited with the dead. On their own they do not say where the objects were made, and without a recorded settlement there are no houses or workshops to compare them with. The Met calls the humped-bull vessels "distinctive"; the pages read do not say where they were produced, how many tombs there were or who was buried in them. Source 1.

Scope of reading: the Met timeline page for Iran, 2000-1000 BCE, and the Encyclopaedia Iranica article "Iron Age" were read on 24 October 2026. The excavation reports of Marlik were not read, so this page gives no number of tombs, no plans and no inventory of the finds.