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The catalogue
4 places to sift through. Narrow by kind, country, period or how firmly each one is established — contested and pseudoarchaeological claims are labelled here, never hidden.
🇮🇷 Iran · Rock-cut
Hellenistic–Parthian (Seleucid to Mithridates I) · Seleucid Greek–Iranian magus syncretism (Heracles–Verethragna)
Zagros cave 4 triple chambers with koine 'Heracles rests here' inscription 3rd–1st BCE and spring cistern.
🇮🇷 Iran · Temple complex
Sassanian Empire (224–651 CE), late Sassanian zenith · Sassanian Zoroastrian (Ahura Mazda, Anahita, Mithra) court art
Sassanian Zagros spring iwans: Shapur II/III small and Khosrow II great with boar hunt and armored cavalry.
🇮🇷 Iran · Tomb
Late Bronze Age I–II (c.1500–1000 BCE; peak 1300–1100 BCE) · Caspian highland Amarlou/Gilan local — Amardian? (pre-Median); strongly Iranian plateau but northern forest littoral
53-tomb Gilan gold necropolis with winged-bull rhyta and Marlik Gold Cup — Mycenae of the Caspian.
🇮🇷 Iran · Tell
Neolithic to Iron Age II (c.6000–800 BCE; continuum sample) · Iranian Plateau local → Proto-Elamite → Old Elamite (?) → Iron Age Median-affinity
Iran's longest tell with two ziggurats — carbon-painted Sialk ware and Median horse burials.
