New Evidence of Sasanian Burials in the Seymareh Valley, Western Iran

Historical texts and geographic sources as well as archaeological studies place the Seymareh valley, located in present-day Ilam province of Iran, among the regions with great potential of producing outstanding archaeological evidence of the Sasanian period. Yet, the current state of archaeological scholarship in the region by no means reflects its high capacity. During the field surveys of areas between the Darreh Shahr and Badreh as well as the foothills of the Kabirkuh Mountain range, evidence of burials with rock-cut Astodans (niches) were identified at the villages of Zayed and Fazel-Abad. Judging from the recovered pottery and the comparison of burial spaces with those in other contemporaneous Iranian regions such as Khuzestan and Fars, this type of Sasanian burial spaces and the mountainous climate of the Seymareh valley seem to have played an important part in the adoption of such burial practices in the region.