Study of Yanik Tepe’s Bone Object in the National Museum of Iran

Maziar, Sepideh; Mashkour, Marjan; Manca, Laura; Fathi, Homa; Nokandeh, Jebrael; Khazaeli, Roya

doi:10.22034/jinm.2023.1983154.1069

Study of Yanik Tepe’s Bone Object in the National Museum of Iran

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Sepideh Maziar ¹

Marjan Mashkour ²

Laura Manca ³

Homa Fathi ⁴

Jebrael Nokandeh ⁵

Roya Khazaeli ⁴

¹ Associate researcher, Goethe University Frankfurt,, Germany

² Deputy Director of UMR 7209- AASPE (Archaoeozoology/Archaoebotany) , French National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris, France

³ Archaeozoology, Archaeobotany: Societies, Practices and Environments, AASPE (UMR 7209), National Museum of Natural History, CNRS, Paris, France

⁴ Bioarchaeology Laboratory, Central Laboratory, University of Tehran, Iran

⁵ National Museum of Iran, Tehran, Iran

10.22034/jinm.2023.1983154.1069

Abstract

During the excavation in 1962 in Yanik Tepe in eastern Azerbaijan, Iran, a small bone object from the Neolithic deposits was found. In his brief report, Charles Burney identified this object as a pendant. The similarity of this object with today’s glasses has caused some misinterpretation about the function of this object in recent years. In this article, with a detailed microscopic study of this object from an interdisciplinary perspective (archaeology and paleozoology) and comparing it with other known examples in other parts of the world, a more detailed examination of this object is carried out. Furthermore, we proposed possible functions of this object based on our comparisons and the characteristics of the object itself. The results of this research demonstrate that this bone object probably had a decorative function.

Keywords

Bone object

Yanik Tepe

Neolithic period

pseudoscience

Subjects