TEHRAN– Iranian authorities have recently recovered pottery vessels estimated to date from the first millennium BC.

Police have recently found three earthenware objects during their regular inspections of cultural heritage properties in the Tarom county of Zanjan province, IRNA reported on Friday.

The appreciation and tradition of making potteries go back a long way in Zanjan and many other Iranian cities for millennia. Some say, the ancient city is an open-air museum of handicrafts where potteries can be just as special as fine art.

Zanjan is one of the cities founded by Sassanid King Ardashir I (180-242 CE). The province makes a base for wider explorations with the architectural wonder of Soltaniyeh, the subterranean delights of the Katale-Khor caves, colorful mountains, and the UNESCO-registered Takht-e Soleiman ruins nearby.

The first well-documented evidence of human habitation on the Iranian plateau is found in deposits from several excavated cave and rock-shelter sites in the Zagros Mountains, which dates back to Middle Paleolithic or Mousterian times (c. 100,000 BC).

AFM