Search at Xabis

In the shadow of Iran's Zagros Mountains stands a forbidding wasteland known as Dasht-i-Lut (Great Sand Desert). There, for thousands of years, howling sandstorms have been shifting the dunes and wearing the rocks into fantastical shapes. Convinced that no civilization could have risen and thrived under these inhospitable conditions, archaeologists long bypassed the area.

As a result of several dramatic discoveries in recent years, they are now flocking to the scorched region. In 1967, during some routine surveying near the town of Shahdad at the edge of the great desert, scientists from Teheran University's Geographical Institute stumbled upon several ancient clay vessels. Excited by the find, the Iranian Archaeological Service promptly sent the first of several expeditions into the desert. Digging steadily for six years under the leadership of Dr. Ali Hakemi, former director of Iran Bastan Museum, the archaeologists have uncovered no fewer than 2,000 artifacts. Even more important, the diggers are now certain that they have unearthed the remains of a town that may have flourished near the dawn of civilization.

Dating of the objects shows that a settlement existed in the area as early as 4000 B.C. That would make it almost 1,000 years older than any city previously known to have existed in Central Iran. The desert settlement was thus apparently contemporary with the Mesopotamian kingdoms of Elam and Sumer, which were located in the Fertile Crescent region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and have long been considered the first civilized cultures. Equally intriguing, some of the artifacts found near Shahdad are so similar to those from Elam that archaeologists suspect that trade flowed regularly between the two communities. Despite the bleak surroundings, the newly discovered settlement was well situated for a mercantile role. Built on a plain known since ancient days as Xabis, it sits astride the principal trade routes between northern Iran and the Persian Gulf.

So far the archaeologists have not discovered any traces of original buildings at the three sites already excavated. The only architectural hint has come from a carved stone box found in one of the tombs; it seems to be a model of a cube-shaped building with a large entrance in one wall and triangular-shaped windows in the other. But there is no doubt about the level of craftsmanship among the people of Xabis. They made vessels of clay, stone and copper, wove cloth and mats from palm leaves and fashioned other copper objects, including axes, nails and pins. Some of the work is highly ornamental. Two metal plates, for instance, are engraved with images of fish and deer. A 9-in.-sq. metal flag, attached to a yard-long staff adorned by an eagle, is decorated with two seated lions and a bull. The flag also depicts a goddess and several other women, perhaps her attendants, which suggests that it may once have been displayed in a temple.

The diggers found images of many more goddesses. All of them are bare-breasted and several resemble Elamite deities. One figure, seated under a tree and framed by sheaves of wheat, apparently represents the goddess of grain; another, surrounded by beasts and sprouting horns, seems to be the patron of animals. In fact, the presence of so many goddesses suggests that the society was a matriarchy.

The most important find of all may well be the symbols scratched on the sides, rims and bottoms of pottery. At first, the archaeologists dismissed the scratchings as simply the identifying marks of the potters. But as more and more symbols were catalogued--some 700 different ones at last count--scientists realized that they were characters used in pictography, a primitive writing system that uses pictures to convey ideas. That find could radically revise prevailing theories. Scholars have long held that the first true writing was invented in Mesopotamia by the Sumerians and the Elamites. On the basis of the undecoded Xabis pictograms, Archaeologist Roman Ghirshman, the dean of Iranologists, speculates that writing may have originated in Iran and moved westward to Mesopotamia, instead of vice versa.

Like the modern Iranians who still dwell at the edge of the desert, the people of Xabis managed to survive by tapping the annual spring runoff of water from the nearby, 13,000-ft.-high snow-covered peaks to grow their crops. Then as now, nature was not always kind. Flash floods periodically ravaged the area, uprooting the people and forcing them to rebuild their homes elsewhere on the plain. From the layers of sediment atop the tombs, the archaeologists have determined that one great flood spread disaster just before the fourth millennium B.C. A few centuries later, tragedy struck again. But this time, the rampaging floodwaters completely destroyed the settlements, apparently leaving only the tombs untouched.

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