Archaeological Excavation at Tepe Mardabad, Karaj

Urban expansion in recent decades, especially in the peripheral areas of Tehran and Karaj, has led to the expansion of areas that were villages surrounded by gardens on the outskirts of Karaj before the revolution. Mardabad/Mahdasht, which became a city in the not-so-distant past (1991), has expanded rapidly and the gardens and historical monuments around it, like many other cities in Alborz province, have been destroyed or exposed to destruction. Tepe Mardabad is located in Mahdasht town, eleven kilometers southwest of Karaj in Alborz province. The site has been registered as number 2252 in the list of national monuments of Iran in 1998. Mardabad is located in the northwestern of Mahdasht town, exactly on the border of residential houses and agricultural lands, residential constructions in recent years have severely threatened, destroyed and encroached the southern and to some extent eastern parts of the site. In spring of 2016 archaeological excavation curried out in the site to recognized core and buffer zone. Tepe Mardabad is one of the highest ancient mound in Alborz province, there are evidences of the cultural sequence from the 6th millennium BC to the Middle Islamic era in this area. certainly, conducting scientific and more extensive excavtions in this site will lead to obtaining much more accurate archaeological information. However, according to surface pottery evidence, the site has a long chronological sequence: Late Neolithic period (Sialk I / 6th millennium BC), Transitional Chalcolithic / Cheshmeh Ali (Sialk II / late 6th / early of the fifth millennium BC), Iron Age I (the end of the second millennium BC), the historical period and the Islamic era.