جواد علایی مقدم

Kuh-e Khajeh in Sistan, a mesa 120m height in respect of Sistan plain flat, is located 20 Km south-west of Zabol. This is one of most important historical area in Sistan. In account of its religious and political importance, a series remarkable of structures were built on its flat surface and eastern slight slopes since very ancient times. Despite of the studies of archaeologists and scholars, there have been provided no certain chronology about it and a few studies which have been done are merely based on the architecture of this site. In this research, based on the pottery data it is tried to make a relative chronology on palace of Kuh-e Khajeh. In doing so, the required data was gathered under systematic survey method in the castle’s area. Considering that the recognizing the potteries’ specifications is an important task in the archaeological studies, therefore, the study of potteries’ specifications was given a specific priority. And in doing so, the collected remarkable potteries from the site were classified and typologically studied, accordingly. According to the results obtained from the typology of potteries, Kuh-e Khajeh palace has had three different settlement phases: the first was Parthians, the second was Sassanids and the third was known to be the Islamic phase (6-8 AH centuries), respectively.

In the early 21 st century, during an excavating of a village on Farahan plain, some remains of an important monument including part of a large brick column and several walls were discovered. For a decade, despite national registration, no scientific and comprehensive study was performed on these remains until the time when the remains captured the attention of the authors of this paper during their archaeological study of the Farahan plain. Therefore, considering two main objectives, the chronology of the discovered pieces and determining their real identity, initially, a comprehensive archaeological survey was carried out on the Fardaghan region and samples were collected from different areas of this plain; afterwards, the cultural data were typologically compared. At the next stage, historical evidence was sought in written sources using a historical approach in order to determine the identity of the site. The results indicate that the current building belonged to the Sassanid period that has been also used during the Islamic era after a functional change. It is highly probable that this building is the one mentioned in some written sources such as Ibn Yaghoubi’s Mokhtaser Alboldan . In early Islamic centuries, this fire temple was changed into a fortified castle.

Sistan, situated between southeastern Iran and western Afghanistan, mainly falls within Afghanistan’s present province of Nimroz. Iranian Sistan, or Western Sistan, lies in the northern part of Sistan and Baluchistan province, characterized by its flat terrain formed by Hirmand River sediments. Historical and archaeological studies reveal different cities throughout Sistan's history. Zaranka, Proftazia, and Ram Shahristan served as hubs in the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian periods, respectively. In Islamic times (7th to 18th century), Zarang, Shahr-e Sistan, and Shahr-e Nou Sistan emerged as significant centers. Except for Zahedan-e Kohneh, which preserves the remnants of Shahr-e Sistan, the second capital of Sistan in the Islamic era, little information is available about the location of other central cities from this period. Zahedan-e Kohneh has earned the moniker "London of the East" due to its grand ruins, showcasing meticulous craftsmanship. The aim of this article is to study the architectural features and urban structure of the historical city of Zahedan-e Kohneh, which was the second capital (Dar alHukuma) of Sistan during the Islamic era (5th to 9th centuries AH). The results of studies show that engineers from Sistan a thousand years ago were very successful in designing and building this city, and in order to build a good and flawless city, they applied various sciences such as geometry, geography, geology, climatology, and ecology