A note on bit types at Hasanlu, Iran

Abstract

Hasanlu Tepe is a large mounded site in the Solduz Valley of western Azerbaijan dating from Islamic to Neolithic times. One of its main occupation levels belonged to the Iron II period (Fig. 1). This settlement was sacked and burned around 800/780 BC, preserving a large quantity of objects of daily living in the collapsed buildings (Dyson and Voigt 1989). One building (BB II) is thought to have been a temple (Dyson and Voigt 2003). Two others (BB IVE and BBV) appear, from the presence of urine stains and horse skeletons, to have been in use as stables at the time of the destruction, converted from an earlier function. They, as well as other areas, contained horse gear as well as skeletons of horses (de Schauensee and Dyson 1983; de Schauensee 1988: 47–9; 1989). Two types of bits for horses were found. Comparisons between them, combined with associated material, suggest that they had distinct, non-overlapping functions.