At Hasanlu, two periods of one culture were named Iron Age I and II in 1965; the first ended centuries before iron objects are known in Iran. What the labels mean, and how their dates sit against the Met's timeline.
PERIOD GUIDE · Iran (Persia)
Iron Age I in Iran: a label before iron
The Met's timeline dates Iron Age I about 1450-1250 BCE; Encyclopaedia Iranica gives no fixed range, and in Luristan scholars disagree on when it begins. It runs at the same time as the Middle Elamite period of the southwest, not after it.
Approximately 1450-1250 BCEMove through the periods
Its place in the Iran (Persia) scheme
The whole scheme with this period marked; the periods before and after are its neighbours in the row. Boundaries follow the sources and are not to scale.
- The Neolithic in Iran8,000-5,000 BCE
- The Chalcolithic in Iran5,000-3,500 BCE
- The Early Bronze Age in Iran3,500-2,000 BCE
- The Middle Bronze Age and Old Elamite period in Iran2,000-1,500 BCE
- Elam1,500-539 BCE
- The Iron Age in northern and western Iran1,450-550 BCE
- Achaemenid Iran559-330 BCE
- Seleucid Iran323-247 BCE
- Parthian Iran247 BCE - 224 CE
- Sasanian Iran224-651 CE
- Early Islamic Iran651-1,040 CE
- Seljuq and Khwarazmshah Iran1,040-1,221 CE
- Mongol and Ilkhanid Iran1,221-1,353 CE
- Iran from the Muzaffarids to the Timurids and Turkmen1,340-1,508 CE
The frame
The Met's timeline for Iran in 2000-1000 BCE lists "Iron Age I, ca. 1450-1250 B.C." This site uses that range for navigation. Encyclopaedia Iranica writes that the terms Iron Age I and II originally related specifically to cultures in northwestern Iran; at Hasanlu, an Urmia site, Period V was labeled Iron Age I in 1965. The period also covers the south of the Caspian, where Iranica lists cemetery sites with the same pottery forms. Sources 1, 2.
Boundaries and overlaps
Iranica gives no fixed range for Iron Age I. In Luristan, which has its own distinct culture, the issue is whether sites dated about 1400-1350 BCE and later, or only those dated after about 1200, should be labeled Iron Age I; in the second case, the Late Bronze Age in Luristan would be chronologically equivalent to Iron Age I in Urmia, and Iron Age I in Luristan to Iron Age II in Urmia, a view the article attributes to Overlaet (2003), with a reference to Schmidt and colleagues (1989) for comparison. The same name can thus denote different centuries in different regions. Iron artifacts, Iranica adds, were unknown in Iran until the 9th century BCE, so "Iron Age I" is a cultural label, not a technology. Source 2.
A parallel track, not a sequence
Iron Age I runs at the same time as the Middle Elamite period of southwestern Iran, which the same Met page dates about 1500-1000 BCE. These are two separate tracks of one region, not one sequence: Iron Age I does not come after Elam, and it begins about fifty years after the start of the Met's Middle Elamite period. Source 1.
On this site
Two articles are placed here. "Hasanlu V-IV: the Iron Age as a cultural label" follows Period V, which Iranica labels Iron Age I although its dates, around 1200, are later than the Met's end of the period; the same article also appears on the Iron Age II page for Period IV. "The Marlik cemetery: rich tombs without a known settlement" is placed here because Iranica links Marlik with the pottery forms of the Iron Age I horizon, but the Met's range for it, the late 2nd-early 1st millennium BCE, is wider than this page. Sources 2, 1.
Source
Sources and further reading
The research and references behind this page. Rights to external content remain with their owners.
- 1
Iran, 2000-1000 B.C.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · 2000 · Checked
- 2
IRON AGE (Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. XIII, Fasc. 6, pp. 605-609)
Oscar White Muscarella · 2006 · Checked