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Pottery and Ceramics– Professor Pope states in the Masterpieces of Iranian Art: “In light of the data recently discovered it has been proved that agriculture and perhaps the crafts attached to it i.e. pottery making and weaving originated in Iranian plateau. From several essential points, the civilization in this area began 500 years before Egypt, 1,000 years before India and 7,000 years before China.”
Professor Girshman corroborates this theory by stating that between 15,000 and 10,000 B.C. prehistoric men lived on the Iranian plateau. He mentions that in 1949 traces of human remains were found in the Bakhtiyari mountains. These men used a coarse, poorly baked pottery.
Textile Industry– Textile in Iran can be traced back to the beginning of the Neolithic times. Professor Pope believes that textile industry originated in Iranian plateau. Excavations in the early 1950’s in a cave near the Caspian Sea produced evidence of woven sheep’s wool and goat hair, dated by the carbon 14 method to about 6,500 B.C.
From 4th or possibly 5th millennium B.C. traces of skillful fine plain linen cloth and signs of tablet weaving at the end of the 4th or early in the 3d millennium B.C. were recovered by the French Mission at Susa (Shoosh). Pierre Amiet in his book Elam, states that tablet weaving in the Susian civilization is proved by the discovery of a miniature weaving tablet in the foundation deposits of one of the Susa temples. Also, a sealed tablet belonging to the second half of the 4th millennium B.C. shows a weaving loom.
*Excerpts from “Iran & America: Rekindling a Love Lost” by Badi Badiozamani