Prehistoric Rocks Discovered in Southern Iran

The rocks lying on top of one another were found in the “Tall Chegah-e Sofla” village near the city of Behbahan in Khuzestan province. The village was discovered by an archeological team led by Hans Nielsen of the University of Chicago. Later, Reinhard Dietmann demonstrated habitat patterns in the region’s local deserts.

Dittmann mentions the Tall Chegah-e Sofla as one of the key hubs of habitation in the late 5th millennium BC. In 2009, Tall Chegah-e Sofla was registered on Iran’s List of National Heritage Sites.

In 2015, operations conducted to demarcate the archaeological site of Tall Chegah-e Sofla, one of Khuzestan’s largest prehistoric sites, led to the discovery of tombs dating back 7,000 years. That triggered a 5-year project of archaeological excavations at the site, which has now resulted in the discovery of these conical rocks.

The head of the archaeological team says the rocks were dug during archaeological excavations. “We can say that the pieces of rocks were deliberately put on top of one another,” he says. “The rocks are laid in two rows in the shape of a rectangle.

The ones in the upper row are less damaged than those in the lower row,” he says. “Most of the rocks in the lower row are broken as they were not only under much pressure but were made of sandstone,” the lead archaeologist adds.

“There is the mortar between the rocks,” he says. The rocks cut out to look like cones bear carvings including images of goats, oval and circular eyes, different marks containing crisscross lines, circles reminiscent of human eyes, and images of humans.

Of course, some of the rocks have no carvings on them. No similar stones have been found in any other rural archaeological site in Iran. There are also signs of prehistoric wall engravings near the tombs discovered there.