Abstract:
A chlorite “hand-bag” belonging to the once-called “intercultural style” production, currently on exhibit in the National Archaeological Museum, Tehran, is described focusing attention, for the first time, to the peculiar wear traces clearly visible on the handle and along its contour. The strong wear suggests that the hand-bag was suspended for a long time on a cord; and that in this setting it was gradually polished while rubbing against a soft surface, most probably a vertical one,
covered with cloth. While this inference is based on a single object, and therefore is far from being granted, we propose that wear traces can provide a useful key for understanding the function of these peculiar objects. At a later stage of its life-cycle, the hand-bag was broken and restored with iron fittings and nails. As the edges of the great Iranian deserts are a favorable location for the recovery of iron-rich meteorites, we propose that the iron parts of the Tehran hand-bag should
be analyzed to test the possible presence of rare metals like nikel, niobium and others, more abundant in meteorites than in terrestrial iron.
Machine summary:
The Function of a Chlorite Hand-Bag of the Halil Rud Civilization as Inferred from its Wear Traces Massimo Vidale1,* and Roberto Micheli2 1Department of Cultural Heritage : Archaeology, History of Art, of Music and Cinema, University of Padua, Italy 2Archaeological Superintendency of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, Italy (Received: 25/ 04/ 2012 ; Received in Revised form: 27/ 05/ 2012; Accepted: 23/ 07/ 2012) A chlorite “hand-bag” belonging to the once-called “intercultural style” production, currently on exhibit in the National Archaeological Museum, Tehran, is described focusing attention, for the first time, to the peculiar wear traces clearly visible on the handle and along its contour.
In first place, the broken handle and the two faces of the hand-bag bear distinctive wear patterns, suggesting that the object was hanged for a long time by the means of cloth ties or cords, probably in the fashion of a flat weight.
The fine hand-bags carved in the Halil Rud style are not represented in the Hissar collections, but were certainly manufactured in specialized manufacturing areas in south-eastern Iranian settlements like that excavated at Tepe Yahya, Period IVB (Lamberg-Karlovsky 1970; 1988).
The new drawing, besides IRANIAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES 2: 2 (2012) The Function of a Chlorite 4 (View the image of this page) Fig. 1:The new drawing of Tehran 675 made by the authors, emphasizing the wear features and the metal strips applied for restoring the handle.