Tappeh Sialk Kashan

On Amir Kabir Street which leads to the Bagh-e Shah {Fin) from Kashan is the mound of Tappeh Sialk the site of a prehistoric culture which was dated by Ghirshman who excavated the Tappeh in tne '30s and later, to the second half of the 15th millennium BC. Later discoveries showed that the Site is more than 7,000 years old. It is probably the richest archaeological site so far uncovered in central Iran, although the most interesting finds have been moved to various institutes and museums, including National Museum of Iran in Tehran and Louvre in Paris.
There are two mounds here, known as the Greater Sialk {25 m high, 260 * 190 m, to the south) and the Smaller Sialk {6-m high, 320 * 110 m, to the north, and containing older objects) with a distance of 600 m. Excavated by the French Archaeological Service in 1933-36 and 1937-38, the site {with the adjoining cemetery) revealed a large number and variety of bronze tools, painted pottery and domestic implements of clay {statuettes), glassware {vessels), stone and bone {ornamental objects), human and animal figures from as early as the 4th millennium BC, and is believed to have been first settled in the 5th millennium or earlier. It appears to have been sacked and deserted in about the 8th century BC. You can still see the outline of various mud-brick buildings and a large number of potsherds embedded throughout the two mounds.
Perhaps the most interesting finds are some inscribed clay tablets dating from the late 3rd and early 2nd millennia BC. The remains here give an interesting record of the waves of immigrants and conquerors who passed this way, and settled near the abundant water supply at the site of the present-day Bagh-e Fin. The most important discoveries of this area are the clay tablets of the Elamite origin, which reveal that there has existed a kind of writing in the Central Iran around 2000 BC.