Knowledge Bank

From 1971 through 1978 William M. Sumner, of the Ohio State University Department of Anthropology, conducted a five season preliminary excavation at Tal-e-Malyan, Iran. A result of his work was the discovery of a new phase of occupation, which is now known as the Banesh Phase (c. 3400-2600 B.C.). Two broad catagories of Banesh ware have been identified; one is a coarse, low fired straw tempered ware and the second is a hard grit tempered ware which occurs in several varieties, (Sumner 1980). Younger, Islamic wares (c. 800-1900 A.D.) are very similar in appearance to the older Banesh wares. Consequently the two different pottery wares can be confused. By conducting a mineral analysis on the two different wares it can now be shown that some distinguishing characteristics do exist. Twenty five Malyan sherds, ranging in size from one inch to two inches were donated for this study. In order to eliminate bias all information regarding the archaeological context of the sherds was withheld until the mineral analysis and catagorization of each sherd was completed. Only Mr. Sumner, knew that the sherds represented Banesh and Islamic pottery types. The purpose of this study was to see if textural mineral analysis of the sherds would permit catagorization. After the catagorizations were completed they were matched to Mr. Sumner's archaeological catagorizations. The results showed that the Islamic sherds characteristically contained micrite, carbonate grains, quartz, feldspar, and a low large percentage of iron oxides. The Banesh sherds contained, either large percentages of iron oxides, or else differed in composition from the characteristic Islamic sherd constituents. The polarizing microscope, Vreland Spectroscope, and x-ray analyzer were utilized in the analysis.