Review of Abbas Alizadeh, 'Chogha Mish, Volume 2: The Development of a Prehistoric Regional Center in Lowland Susiana, Southwestern Iran. Final Report on the Last Six Seasons of Excavations, 1972-1978'. Oriental Institute Publications 130 (Chicago 2008). Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago 395 Seiten mit Abbildungen; geb.; ISBN-13: 9781885923523 ISBN: 188592352X

Abstract

This volume is the second and final monograph on the University of Chicago Oriental Institute excavations at the important multi-period site of Chogha Mish in the eastern Susiana Plain, Khuzestan, Iran. The first volume (henceforth CM Vol I) was authored by the excavators of the site, Pinhas Delougaz and Helene Kantor, although as the volume appeared after their deaths, Abbas Alizadeh played an important role as editor. CM Vol I appeared in 1996, and covered the first five seasons of excavations from 1961 - 1971. The second volume (henceforth CM Vol II) covers the last six seasons of excavations, from 1972-1978. CM Vol II is authored, rather than edited, by Abbas Alizadeh, and he is owed a debt of gratitude by all archaeologists interested in prehistoric Iran and Mesopotamia for bringing this material to print. As outlined in the Preface, the author and his collaborators faced numerous challenges in bringing this material to publication, and as Alizadeh noles with regret, the deaths of Oelougaz and Kantor represented not only a personal loss but also the loss of much information about the excavations themselves. Moreover, critical excavation documents including notebooks from the 10th and 11th seasons and all section drawings from the 6th-11th seasons were lost when the project dig house was destroyed. Finally, the chipped stone assemblage from the site has been lost and is therefore not reported on in the volume, and there is no chapter on the faunal remains, although the raw data on some 40,000 bones studied by Jane Wheeler Pires-Ferreira is presented in an appendix.