Lapis Lazuli a Commercial Product of the Ancient Time

Subject Areas : Prehistoric Archaeology

Hamidreza Valipour ¹ (Assistant Professor, Department of Archaeology, Islamic Azad University, Abhar Branch, Abhar, Iran.)

Received: 2023-08-01 Accepted : 2023-08-01 Published : 2005-08-23

Keywords: trade, Lapis Lazuli, Arata, Road of Great Khorasan, Beginning of Elam,

Abstract :

To discover a large quantity of Semi- precious stones, especially Lapis Lazuli, agate, turquoise, jasper, among the archaeological findings has induces the researches to identify its mines, and its function of commercial exchanges and its transportation roads among the past societies. Meanwhile, the Lapis Lazuli due to its unique peculiarities since the 4th millennium B.C has been under attention of developing societies in the Middle East. Geographers in the past centuries refer to different regions of Iran which contained Lapis Lazuli, but so far no evidence of these mines has been obtained. Mines of Badakhshan have been certainly the most important mine of this stone in the Middle East region. On the other hand, the developments of Iran in the late 4th and 3rd millennium B.C and have caused that the direction of passage of Lapis Lazuli – during these two millenniums – changes from its mines to its settlements on the eve of civilization of Iran and Mesopotamia. In this article I have tried to draw the main directions of exchanges of this important product concerning the mentioned development by surveying the proposed opinions about the trade of Lapis Lazuli.