Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Archaeologists dig Jiroft for more inscriptions

A team of archaeologists led by Yusef Majidzadeh returned to Jiroft yesterday in order to renew digs of the 5000-year-old site in the hope of finding further artifacts bearing inscriptions.

The team was accompanied for this excavation season by several French and Italian archaeologists along with a number of Iranian students.

During the past five phases of excavation Majidzadeh’s previous team had discovered four brick inscriptions which they unearthed in one of the present-day villager’s homes. Majidzadeh hopes to find another collection of brick inscriptions at the site.

Located next to the Halil-Rud River in the southern Iranian province of Kerman, Jiroft came into the spotlight nearly six years ago when reports surfaced of extensive illegal excavations being carried out by local people who went on to plunder priceless historical items.