TEHRAN—Photo exhibitions dedicated to archeological achievements in Burnt City will be held in Iran and Italy, a senior Iranian archaeologist has said.

Exhibitions of photographs and posters depicting a decade of joint archaeological achievements in Burnt City will be held in Tehran, Zahedan, Zabol, and Lecce, ILNA quoted archaeologist Seyyed-Mansour Seyyed-Sajjadi as saying on Tuesday.

Called “Shahr-e Sukhteh” or “Shahr-i Sokhta” in Persian, the UNESCO-designated Burnt City is associated with four rounds of civilization, all burnt down by catastrophic sets of fire.

“In close collaboration with the University of Salento and the National Museum of Iran, preparation works of these exhibitions are currently underway, and we hope to launch them by the end of this [Iranian calendar] year (March 20, 2023),” the archaeologist explained.

There will be about 80 photos of the discovered objects, such as those related to ancient skull surgery, the reconstruction of an artificial eye and an accounting tablet, the archaeologist added.

“Also, the event will be showcasing images and posters depicting excavation workshops and spaces unearthed by archaeologists.”

“Since everyone can't visit the works discovered in Burnt City, we decided to hold the photo exhibition to make it possible to get to know and see these works,” the archaeologist added.

“Burnt City yielded more than 10,000 objects during archaeological excavations conducted in the past couple of years.”

Founded around 3200 BC, Burnt City was populated during four main periods up to 1800 BC. Previous rounds of excavations showed that its residents had great skills in weaving, and creating fine arts such as decorative objects, stone carving, and pottery painting.

According to the UN cultural body, changes in watercourses and climate change led to the eventual abandonment of the city in the early second millennium. The structures, burial grounds and large number of significant artifacts unearthed there and their well-preserved state due to the dry desert climate make this site a rich source of information regarding the emergence of complex societies and contacts between them in the third millennium BC.

Burnt City is situated in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, which was once a junction of Bronze-Age trade routes crossing the Iranian plateau.

AM