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Background

Tepe Sialk (Persian: تپه سیلک‎‎) is a large ancient archeological site (a tepe or Turkish tappeh, "hill" or "mound") in a suburb of the city of Kashan, Isfahan Province, in central Iran.

The Sialk ziggurat was built around 3000 BC. A joint study between Iran's Cultural Heritage Organization, the Louvre, and the Institut Francais de Recherche en Iran also verifies the oldest settlements in Sialk to date back to 5500–6000 BC.

Sialk, and the entire area around it, is thought to have originated as a result of the pristine large water sources nearby that still run today. The Cheshmeh ye Soleiman ("Solomon's Spring") has been bringing water to this area from nearby mountains for thousands of years. The Fin garden, built in its present form in the 17th century, is a popular tourist attraction. It is here that the kings of the Safavid dynasty would spend their vacations away from their capital cities. It is also here that Piruz Nahavandi (Abu-Lu'lu'ah), the Persian assassin of Caliph Umar, is buried. All these remains are located in the same location where Sialk is.

Tepe Sialk was excavated for three seasons (1933, 1934, and 1937) by a team headed by Roman Ghirshman. Studies related to the site were conducted by D.E. McCown, Y. Majidzadeh, and P. Amieh. Excavation was resumed for several seasons between 1999 and 2004 by a team from the University of Pennsylvania and Iran's Cultural Heritage Organization led by Sadegh Malek Shahmirzadi called the Sialk Reconsideration Project.

Artifacts from the original dig ended up mostly at the Louvre, while some can be found at the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the National Museum of Iran and in the hands of private collectors.

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