Teppe Hasanlu

Teppe Hasanlu is an archaeological mound in the Solduz valley, near the town of Naqadeh, south of Lake Urmia. People lived here for thousands of years, but it is famous for a single day of catastrophe: around 800 BCE the citadel was stormed, burned and destroyed, and its collapsing buildings sealed everything inside them, including the bodies of many of its people.

The site was excavated from 1956 to 1974 by a joint expedition led by Robert H. Dyson Jr of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, working with Iranian archaeologists. Beneath the burnt layer they found columned halls, gateways and storerooms of an Iron Age town, with weapons, ivories, horse harness and pottery. The site has since become one of the key reference points for the archaeology of the Iron Age in north-western Iran.

The most famous find came in 1958: a gold bowl decorated with scenes of gods, heroes and monsters, found beside the remains of men who had died in the destruction, perhaps while trying to carry it away. Scholars still debate who they were and what the scenes mean. The Hasanlu gold bowl is now one of the treasures of the National Museum of Iran in Tehran.

Who destroyed the citadel is also uncertain; the powerful kingdom of Urartu, centred around Lake Van, is often suggested. Some decades later the Urartians built a fortress on the abandoned mound. Today the site is a grassy hill with the outlines of excavated walls, a place for imagining rather than seeing.