19 - TEPE NŪSH-I JĀN: THE MEDIAN SETTLEMENT

Summary

Recent field work in the central western Zagros has begun to shed valuable light on conditions in ancient Media prior to the Achaemenian conquest of c. 550 B.C. At the time of writing three sites in or near the Median heartland, Tepe Nūsh-i Jān, Baba Jan Tepe and Godin Tepe, have yielded substantial architectural remains which are to be placed in part within the second quarter of the first millennium B.C. In addition, a number of field surveys in the central Zagros region, notably those in the Kangāvar, Māhi Dasht, Malāyir, Arāk and Burūjird valleys have helped to document yet other aspects of local settlement in this same period. The present account offers a short survey of the excavated evidence of Median date from Tepe Nūsh-i Jān.

THE BUILDINGS

Excavations at the hill-top site of Tepe Nūsh-i Jān (pl. 38a), located 60 km south of Hamadān, ancient Ecbatana, have revealed the well preserved remains of four distinct monumental mud-brick buildings, the first of which may have been founded near 750 B.C. In the probable order in which they were built, these major buildings consist of the Central Temple, the Western Temple, the Fort and the Columned Hall. While the first three buildings, plus the oval circuit of the outer wall (fig. 1), may have been built in reasonably close succession, the Columned Hall (pl. 38b) appears to represent a relatively late addition to the overall plan.

The Central Temple occupies the summit of the site and is founded directly on bed-rock. Lozenge shaped in plan, the building has rhythmically stepped walls with buttressed corners (fig. 1). The internal plan includes a small antechamber, a spiral ramp (which provided access to a first floor room over the antechamber as well as to the roof), and a spacious, stepped triangular sanctuary, 11 × 7 m in area, which rose to the full height of the building (pl. 39a).