On the territory of modern Iran, 5000 years BC, a highly developed country lived and flourished, about which we did not know anything until recently. The prosperity of this state was based on the extraction of copper ore and the copper-smelting production set on a grand scale. Casting masters with such a high level of technical knowledge worked there that they left far behind their contemporaries in the famous ancient civilizations - Mesopotamia and Egypt.
The search for ancient copper mines led archaeologists to a sparsely populated region of Iran - to the steep, rocky spurs of the Kuhrud mountain range cut by gorges. This area lies far from the sites of famous ancient cultures and has never been explored by archaeologists before. Iranian and German scientists, led by Hermann Parzinger, set themselves the goal of discovering traces of an unknown "copper kingdom" that supplied the neighboring countries with copper. If the mines and smelters were located on the Iranian plateau, it means that copper products and ingots were transported to Mesopotamia and India on donkeys and camels along caravan routes. The oldest caravan routes led from Tehran to the south, and archaeologists decided to start working in this direction.
Ancient mines.
The Iranian geologist Morteza Momenzadeh has studied the mountain area near the village of Veshnovekh for 30 years of work. He had long noticed the traces of very old mines in the area. In the thickness of the mountain there are still adits up to 20 meters long. In these abandoned underground tunnels and caves, for several millennia, no human has set foot. In the light of lanterns, green spots are clearly visible in some places: these are pieces of malachite - a sure sign of the presence of copper ore. Archaeologists have found a lot of caves, obviously not natural, but artificial. These were the development of copper ore.
But, in addition to copper mines, it was necessary to find traces of copper smelting production and processing workshops. On the arid plateau, ancient caravanserais, which stood on the route of caravans with cargo, have been well preserved. The capital of the "copper kingdom" was also supposed to be somewhere nearby, near the caravan trail, and always near the water source … Archaeologists continued their search and paid special attention to Tepe-Sialk - a high hill near the city of Kashan. Hidden under the hill are the multi-layered ruins of a city abandoned several millennia ago. But the capital of the mysterious "copper kingdom" was still not there.
100 kilometers from the Tepe-Sialk hill is the Arisman area, where a local teacher collected a whole mass of ancient shards in fields strewn with slag pieces. It was necessary to clarify the location of the melting furnaces and workshops. Archaeologists excitedly entered the rocky, unexplored land of Arisman. Before them lay a huge area covered with slag … Arisman had never been excavated before. Preliminary exploration with tools used in the search for minerals has identified several places where you need to dig first. Archaeologists soon came across sintered black pieces of slag. Scientists subjected each piece to a thorough analysis and this time triumphed: the age of the slag was at least 6,000 years old, which means that they found the first melting furnaces. There are many finds in Arisman:the remains of the walls of the ancient city, a large number of various ceramic pots and bowls with beautiful paintings, in which shepherd's motives prevail, and most importantly - copper jewelry and weapons. Among the ruins of the buildings of the capital of the "copper kingdom", scientists also found a table with letters [what ??]. This is a clear sign of a highly developed civilization, about which, until recently, we did not have the slightest idea.
The name of the people who reached a high level of copper production technology seven thousand years ago has not yet been found out. Geophysicists with the help of their instruments made a detailed plan of the ancient city. Historians are missing only a few more fragments to compose a clearer picture of the mysterious "kingdom of the lords of copper" in the arid and deserted Iranian plateau.
Apparently, Iran was the main supplier of copper in ancient times, starting with the Eneolithic. No wonder its north was called Media - the country of copper.
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And, perhaps, the collapse of the Bronze Age came after the collapse of this civilization, controlled by the Kassites, and earlier by the Kutia. Perhaps the reason was the defeat of the Kassite Babylonia by the Elamites.
