Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (19.2007(2010))

KHONE-YE DIV

IRAN

KHONE-YE DIV
PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE FIRST SEASON
OF IRANO-POLISH EXCAVATIONS

Barbara Kaim and Hassan Hashemi

Preliminary investigations of a stone structure in the form of a ‘chahar taq located on
a remote mountaintop constituted the main objective of investigations by an Irano-Polish
archaeological team in its first season in Iran.1 The work at a site knoivn to the localpeople
as Khone-ye Div (House of the Demon) in North Khorasan yielded evidence of additional
features, including a water reservoir, but failed to establish a reliable founding date for the
complex. Its abandonment has been placed in the 9th-10th century AD on the grounds
of the pottery evidence. It is also suggested based on the results of this short season that the
building was a fire temple, but the identification requires further fieldwork to be
confirmed.
Khone-ye Div2 lies in the mountain chain ofRevand (also spelt Rivand), on a rock
spur in the Revand River gorge [Fig. 1 ] (N 36° 16Ί 79; E 56°44’594), about 5 km north
of the village ofFoshtong (also different spellings, including Foshtanq, for example) and
40 km northwest of the city ofSabzewar. The gorge, running north east-southwest in this
stretch, connects the ruins with the village of Revand, ivhich lies 12 km away. There are
no remains of any ancient settlements in the immediate vicinity of the site. The ruins are
little known not only to the general public, but also to archaeologists, mainly due to the
localization in the mountains, relatively farfrom any roads.
1 The mission, which took place on October 8-28, 2007, and which was organized in cooperation between the University
of Warsaw (PCMA) and the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research, was headed by Dr. Barbara Kaim and Hassan
Hashemi, and included Maja Kornacka and Marcin Wagner, archaeologists, as well as a group of archaeology students from
Azad University of Noshahr and Chaloos.
2 Other names, such as Khune-ye Div, can be found in the literature and on the Internet, but these are merely different
spellings of the same Iranian place-name.

Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 19, Reports 2007

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