The Excavations at Yanik Tepe, Azerbaijan, 1961 Second Preliminary Report

Abstract

THE third and final season of excavations at Yanik Tepe, near Tabriz, was carried out from ioth August until 5th October, I962. The work was made possible by the following contributions, which are gratefully acknowledged: the University of Manchester (f6oo); the University Museum, Cambridge (?z5o); the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (?250); the Russell Trust (2zoo); the British Academy (fIso); the City MIuseum, Liverpool (,(ioo); the City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham (UP). This amounted to a total for the I962 season of Ci,6oo. The total sum of contributions for the three seasons of work at Yanik Tepe is ?3,35o. The staff during the I962 season comprised the following: the Director and his wife, who was responsible for the register of finds, the greater part of the object-drawing and the house-keeping; Mr. Edward Keall (Surveyor and Draughtsman); Messrs. David Biernoff, Mark Davie, Patrick Guthrie-Jones and Ian Todd (Archaeological Assistants). Mr. Biernoff also recorded the animal bones, and he and Mr. Keall repaired the pottery; Mr. Todd was responsible for the photography of the objects. Mr. Sarafaraz was appointed by the Director-General of the Archaeological Service of Iran as Inspector to accompany the expedition during the I962 season, and he also acted as an Archaeological Assistant. Thanks are due to the Archaeological Service of Iran, and especially to Dr. Ezatollah Negahban, for help and cooperation in the work of the expedition. Thanks are likewise due to the friends in Tabriz and Teheran whose help and hospitality facilitated our work: to Mr. and Mrs. Harold Popplestone (of the British Council, Tabriz); to Mr. and Mrs. W. Holloway (Point Four, Tabriz) and to others; to the British Institute of Persian Studies, for hospitality in Teheran. The expedition owes a special debt of gratitude to the Department of Education in Tabriz, for loan of equipment and provision of free accommodation during two seasons in the Ferdowsi School at Khosrowshah. Mr. Ahad Darbani, Director of the Tabriz Museum, gave unstintingly of his time and hospitality to help us at the end of the excavations. Among our visitors were Messrs. Robert Dyson and T. Cuyler Young Jnr., from the excavations at Hasanlu, whose hospitality enabled the whole expedition to visit Hasanlu in August I962. We were fortunate to be visited briefly each season by Mr. David Stronach, Director of the British Institute of Persian Studies. An archaeological expedition in the Near East, especially one based on England, requires help from several quarters,