 Ali Spring (Cheshmeh Ali), Ray A hill with a spring. In 1933-6 Cheshmeh Ali hill was excavated by archaeologists from the Boston Fine Arts Museum and the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania headed by Dr. Erich Schmidt, which resulted in the discovery of 7,000-year-old artifacts. Some of the discovered objects are displayed at museums in Iran, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The hill, which is now entirely leveled out and most artifacts unrecoverable due to real estate expansion in the 1980s and 1990s, was the home of Aryans about 6,000 years ago. Since Rayy was used as a recreation center due to its beautiful attractions under the reign of the Qajar dynasty, Fath Ali Shah often used to explore the city. In 1831 his portrait and that of some Qajar princes were engraved on a rock at Cheshmeh Ali hill and its surrounding was decorated with tablets covered by poetry.  Ali Spring (Cheshmeh Ali), Ray Cheshmeh Ali is a small Neolithic and Late Chalcolithic mound located in the suburbs of modern Tehran. The 7m high mound, 3.5 hectares in extent, sits adjacent to a small spring and abuts a rocky ridge at the edge of the Islamic city of Rayy. Intensive fieldwork was undertaken at prehistoric sites in the 1920s and 1930s across the Tehran, Qazvin and Kashan Plains of northern Iran by a number of scholars and their collective excavations documented a sequence of painted pottery traditions dating between 6200 and 3000 BC. Cheshmeh Ali was excavated by Erich Schmidt in 1934-1936 as a joint project between the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. This work proved Cheshmeh Ali to be one of the most important sites in the northern Iranian Neolithic/Chalcolithic sequence owing to the excellent preservation of architecture there and the rich material assemblage found by Schmidt. Schmidt died in a plane crash in 1964 and his goal of publishing the results of his excavations at Cheshmeh Ali was never realized. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, no archaeological fieldwork was conducted at the site for two decades. Starting in 1978 and continuing through the 1990s, the prehistoric site of Cheshmeh Ali was all-but-destroyed by the urban expansion of Tehran. In the 1980s, it became a landfill and much of it was bulldozed to make way for houses. Dr. Fazeli was instrumental in getting the area turned into a city park, so at least the high mound would be preserved. Many of the areas where Schmidt worked, however, are now destroyed, so it is not possible to re-examine in detail the excavations of the 1930s, other than through material now held in museum collections in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Tehran. In 1997, excavation was reopened in the surviving portions of Cheshmeh Ali after a sixty-one year hiatus through a collaborative effort by the Cultural Heritage Organisation of Iran, the Department of Archaeology of the University of Tehran and the Department of Archaeological Sciences of the University of Bradford.
 Ali Spring (Cheshmeh Ali), Ray Schmidt’s detailed records of the excavations are located at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. These records have been extensively examined by Matney during a post-doctoral fellowship in 1993-1994. A large collection of ceramics and other materials exported by Schmidt in the 1930s are also housed in Philadelphia and Chicago and have been partially inventoried by Matney and Fazeli. A computer database of ceramic vessels, sherds and small finds has been compiled, although it is not yet complete. This proposal seeks funds to complete the computer database and provide the resources necessary to complete a single-volume manuscript detailing the Schmidt Excavation, especially in light of the new discoveries being made at Cheshmeh Ali by the contemporary researchers. This volume would add significantly to our understanding of the prehistoric occupation of the Tehran Plain during the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. At a time when international relations between the United States and Iran are particularly tense, this project provides an excellent opportunity for scholarly exchange between these two countries. The proposed White-Levy publication project is an international collaborative effort with Iranian colleagues that we hope will forge relations through working together, learning and teaching, and setting an example for other scholars. Our volume will be published in both English and Persian. |
