Shahr-e Sukhteh

Shahr-e Sukhteh, “the burnt city”, is the site of a Bronze Age city in Sistan, near Iran's eastern border, on the edge of the delta of the Helmand river. It was founded around 3200 BCE and occupied for roughly a thousand years, during which it grew into one of the largest towns of the eastern Iranian plateau. Its name comes from layers of burning found in its ruins. It was inscribed by UNESCO in 2014.

The city sat at a crossroads of early trade between the Iranian plateau, Central Asia and the Indus valley. Its workshops processed lapis lazuli from the mountains of Badakhshan, turquoise and carnelian, and the excavated quarters show separate districts for houses, crafts and a large cemetery with many thousands of graves.

Some of the finds have become famous. One woman was buried with what appears to be an artificial eyeball, made of a light material and marked with fine lines, and an earthenware bowl painted with a sequence of images of a goat leaping towards a tree has been described as an early attempt at animation. Excavations, run by Iranian and Italian teams over several decades, continue. The visible ruins are low mud-brick walls in a bare landscape, and the museum on site helps visitors picture the busy town these walls once held.