More Early Bronze Age Seal Impressions from Chogha Maran, Western Central Zagros

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper studies the glyptic origins of the seals impressed on the clay sealings Early Bronze Age trash deposits at Chogha Maran in the western Central Zagros and correlates the origins with the functions of these clay objects in order to analyse the role of the seals and sealings in the Chogha Maran administration. The examination suggests that the clay sealings were used at Chogha Maran mostly by local groups of people for managing the local economy. However, some of the sealings might have appeared at Chogha Maran as a result of long distance cultural and possibly commercial interactions. The results emphasise the significance of the administrative evidence of Chogha Maran as it represents the only known case of employing administrative mechanisms in the Central Zagros during the first half of the third millennium BCE. The evidence attests to increasing complexity in the socioeconomical organisation of western Central Zagros societies as reflected in applying administrative technology in an indigenous communally organised storage system. The nature of the Chogha Maran administration and its connections with Susa and Trans-Tigridian centres reflects a reorganisation of the socioeconomic system of the western Central Zagros societies in response to the cultural and environmental events that occurred around 3000 BCE.