An Archaeological Attitude on the Burial Structures of Khānqah-E Gilvan Cemetery, Khalkhal

Khānqah-E Gilvan cemetery is located on the western skirt of the MT. Talesh approximately 60 km southeast Khalkhal. The cemetery lies between the villages of Gilvan and Khānqah, and is part of the administrative district of Khalkhal in Ardabil province.The cemetery was discovered in 2006 during the road construction project in village of Khānqah. It has been in use from Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age I, II and Parthian Period after a centuries of gap; it is not still clear whether the cemetery was used during the Late Bronze Age or not, but the funerary practices in the Iron Age I, II were continued. Pottery similarities with ceramics from the Middle Bronze Age allows us to suggest that the initial using phase of the cemetery can be attributed back to the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC(Zabanband et al., 2021: forthcoming) In this research, our focus is mainly on the graves related to initial phase of cemetery. During the Middle Bronze Age of Khānqah-e Gilvan, a variety of funerary practices along with types of tombs such as kurgan, pit grave, etc. unknown in other Iranian northwestern sites such as Geoy Tepe, Dinkhah Tepe, can be seen. The funerary practices of the tombs discovered in the cemetery are more or less homogeneous. It is probable to reconstruct funerary behavior of these populations.The diameter of the 7 kurgans excavated at the Gilavan burial site varies roughly 2 to 5 m. circle stone alignment is a common feature these burials, that is carefully laid out, heaps of stone (pebble/slab…)covered the pit burials. In addition to a detailed description of the graves, we will also try to point out some of the hierarchical features of the cemetery according to structure and grave association of the tombs,