The Seals and Seal Impressions of Tapeh Kheibar, Ravansar- Kermanshah

Seals and seal impressions are important evidence for the economic, political, and social relationships of societies in the ancient world. By studying them, we can obtain specific information about the level and extent of the relationships between the ancient inhabitants of the site or region with its surrounding world. Previous discoveries in the region of central Zagros and especially in Kermanshah province indicate that seals have a long history. For example, in Tapeh Giyan, it goes back at least to the old chalcolithic and Bronze periods. Despite the importance of the findings of Chogha Maran, Dehsavar, and Tapeh Tyalineh, the number of known sites in the west of central Zagros which have a collection of seals and seal impressions are very small, and there still is not a clear view about the level of complexity of the ancient sites in the region, especially regarding the use of seals and seal impressions, nor are the technology and style of seal cutting in this region understood. In this article, the authors have tried to introduce the seals and seal impressions of Tapeh Kheibar of Ravansar, showing the importance of this site among the other sites of the region, and provide some evidence of several thousand years of using property tools in this place. The current collection of Tapeh Kheibar includes six stamp seals, four cylinder seals, and one seal impression, which are range from the chalcolithic to the Parthian period. The most important of these is a Kassite seal with a cuneiform inscription in the Sumerian language, which may have belonged to a high-ranking person in the Tapeh Kheibar in the Kassite period (second millennium BCE).