ثریا افشاری

Archaeological inquiries into the Islamic period show both in quantity and quality that targeted and wide-ranging studies aiming to identify the pertinent monuments and sites have obvious limitations, and for this very reason our understanding of this time period is mainly limited to the information deriving from textual evidence. Accordingly, with the aim of identifying and studying the Ilkhanid sites on the banks of the Aras, a season of reconnaissance survey was carried out in 2019. Focusing on the Sham Valley region of Jolfa County on the border of the two Iranian provinces of East and West Azerbaijans, the fieldwork recorded 53 monuments and sites (Afshari,2019). Given the region’s strategic, geopolitical position in the vicinity of such regions of Caucasia, Turkey and Central Asia as well as its obvious location on major regional lines of communication, several different cultures flourished there spanning in date the second millennium BC to the latest periods. In other words, the foremost factor responsible for the formation of settlements was the region’s location on trade routes and its easy intra- and extra-regional communications, especially during the Ilkhanid period, which played a conspicuous part in the cultural evolution of the Sham Valley. Concurrently, given the region’s religious importance under the Ilkhanid rulers which echoes their religious clemency as part of their foreign policies, revealing data were obtained regarding the local social and religious structures in different periods, especially the era in question. In other words, the correspondence between the field survey’s findings and the historical texts make it clear that the Ilkhanids’s lack of religious prejudice, termed as religious toleration, was an upshot of a series of apparent and latent factors, which in general stemmed from the political orientations they adopted towards religious convictions (Morgan,2004؛ Torkamani Azar,1992). Recruitment of Christian females in the court (Bayani, 2011), employing Christian advisors and agents, maintaining contacts with Christian businessmen, missionaries and priests, and the particular attentions paid to the affairs of the Christian populations in Iran were all driven by the prerequisites underpinning their internal and external relations as it is evidenced by the fact that the changes in such relationships in the later Ilkhanid period would be associated with changes in the religious approaches due to political developments

Eastern Anatolian pottery of the Achaemenid Period is quite different from its predecessor Urartian pottery - in techniques and forms. With the collapse of the Urartian Kingdom and the spread of Achaemenids in Anatolia, we can speak of a newly developing pottery culture. The monochrome, glossy red slipped pottery of Urartu were replaced by monochrome and polychrome painted pottery in miscellaneous forms. After the collapse of Urartian Kingdom, the culture of Eastern Anatolia was gradually changed and over time, the old culture, developed by the official state, had disappeared. This process did not occur instantaneously. Rather, it appears that a couple of centuries was needed for such a reshaping. Historically, Urartian influence still exists in the early phase of the Late Iron Age, which coincides with the Median dominance period. This phase is considered to be associated with a Post-Urartian/Median period, which can be placed among the painted wares of Urartu and the Late Iron Age. Within the scope of this study, we succeeded to come to certain conclusions with respect to ceramic finds, which were obtained from the excavation sites in the region where architecture could not have been sufficiently examined. In the post-Urartian/Median phase, manufacturing with red coloured paste, influenced by Urartu, continues. While certain continuity also persists among the shapes, the prototype examples of double-handled metal vases, developed in Achaemenid period, appears as a novelty. Firstly, our current study considers the pottery of the Achaemenid Period, which was discovered by archaeologists in the excavations and surface surveys of the Northeastern Anatolia haemenidRegion. Secondly, This study will generally analyse the painted pottery of the Achaemenid period that is preserved at Kars Museum, taking on account the excavation and surface surveys of the Northeastern Anatolia Region