TEHRAN -- The University of Pennsylvania is busy translating the articles submitted at the Jiroft International Seminar, the director of the archaeological team working at the ancient Jiroft site told the Persian service of CHN here Monday.

“The papers are published in Farsi and English separately,” Yusef Majidzadeh added.

The seminar was held in 2004 to introduce the recent archaeological discoveries made in the historical region.

He said the collection would draw the scholars’ attention to Jirof and Halil-Rud river areas.

Jiroft came into the spotlight nearly four years ago, when reports of extensive illegal excavations and plundering of the priceless historical items by local people surfaced.

Since 2002, two excavation seasons have been carried out at the Jiroft site under the supervision of Majidzadeh, leading to the discovery of a ziggurat made of more than four million mud bricks dating back to about 2200 BC.

Jiroft is one of the richest historical areas in the world, with ruins and artifacts dating back to the third millennium BC. Over 100 historical sites are located along the approximately 400 kilometers of the Halil-Rud riverbank.

Many Iranian and foreign experts see the findings in Jiroft as signs of a civilization as great as Sumer and ancient Mesopotamia.

To Majidzadeh, Jiroft is the ancient city of Aratta, which was described as a great civilization in a Sumerian clay inscription.