TEHRAN – Siraf Port in the southwestern province of Bushehr will establish a data bank on fragments of historical ceramics and pottery discovered through excavations, CHTN reported.

The findings, which were collected by British archaeologist David Whitehouse and his Iranian colleagues in six seasons of excavation during the 1970s, are currently preserved in the province’s cultural heritage department and will be organized after about 50 years, Mehdi Azarian, the director of Siraf national heritage site, said on Saturday. 

He also noted that most of the ceramics date back to the Sassanid era (224–651) and the early Islamic centuries.

With about 1,100 years of history, the historical port of Siraf in the Persian Gulf has been inscribed on the National Heritage list. 

At one time, the port had been one of the major centers for marketing pearls and silk in the region, but it was gradually submerged over the centuries.

According to some historians, Siraf had a population of about 300,000 during the early Islamic era and this fact shows that it was a large city. However, today, just about 7,000 people live in Siraf in a small area. 

ABU/MG