Name
Tepe Mil تپه میل
Location:
Historical Period:
Sasanian (224-651 A.D.)
History and Description:
Tepe Mil is an archaeological site consisting of a large mound on top of which are the ruins of an imposing edifice in burnt bricks. The site has been registered on the National List of Cultural Remains under the number 407 (Meshkati, A List of Historical Sites and Ancient Monuments of Iran, p. 205). The ancient name of the site is unknown but medieval sources refer to a major fire temple in Rey without naming Tepe Mil. Mas’ūdi in his Morūj al-Zahab writes that there was a fire temple with statues in Rey; Khosrow Anushiravān destroyed the statues (bōts) and relocated the fire temple to a place called Berkeh, a locality that Hossein Kariman identifies with Tepe Mil (Kariman, Rey-e Bāstān, vol. 1, pp. 37, 113; vol. 2, p. 343).
The earliest account of the ruins appears in Alexander Chodzko, the Russian consul in Iran, in 1835 (Chodzko, “Une excursion de Téhéran aux Pyles caspiennes,” pp. 287-288). Ten years later, Edward Eastwick, British diplomat and Orientalist, visited Tepe Mil and left a short description of the ruined monument as follows (Eastwick, Journal of a Diplomat’s Three Years’ Residence in Persia, vol. 1, pp. 282-283):
Next morning I galloped across some rough ground about a mile and a half to Asiābād, where is a vast artificial mound, on which are the remains of a world-old fire-temple. There are many such mounds all over Virāmin, and the side aisles 8 feet. Each buttress is 10 feet thick. The extreme breadth of the building is 79 feet, and the greatest height of the wall now remaining 37 feet. From the summit of the mound, which is very steep, is a view over some forty miles of the plain. The earth is very friable and there is a white efflorescence, the token of saltpetre. The walls of the temple are of layers of bricks or tiles, each about three inches thick, one foot long, and ten inches broad, and so hard that it is most difficult to break them. These layers alternate with sandstone, pudding-stone, and pumice, joined with a white flint cement which has hardened the whole mass into a rock. The building runs from north-west to south-east. It is impossible now to trace the plan, but the temple must have been a noble object in a plain so vast and so level.
The main mound measures 70 x 35 m and rises to the height of 15 m above the surrounding plain (fig. 1, fig. 2). The most prominent structure is a ruined vaulted hall in burnt bricks rising to the height of 7 m , of which only two arched segments have survived (fig.3, fig. 4). A subterranean corridor, built under the vaulted hall, goes across the mound and ends in a semi-subterranean square courtyard (fig. 5, fig. 6). The main mound is part of a larger settlement. A cluster of mounds, now largely destroyed because of farming activities, can be seen on Erich Schmidt’s aerial photograph taken in 1935 (fig. 7). It seems that the site continued to be occupied throughout the early Islamic period until the thirteenth century as scattered potsherds in the whereabouts of the main mound show (Kleiss, “Čal Tarkhan südöstlich von Rey,” pp. 314-317, and figs. 10-13).
Fig. 1. General view of the main mound from the southwest with remains of the vaulted hall in 1977 (photo: Mahmoud Mousavi)
Fig. 2. General view of the main mound from the southwest in 2011 (photo: Kaisu Raasakka)
Fig. 3. Tepe Mil. The surviving eastern façade of the vaulted hall in 1977. The holes and protruding beams were originally part of the ceiling structure (photo: Mahmoud Mousavi)
Fig. 4. Tepe Mil. The surviving eastern façade of the vaulted hall in 2018 (photo: DI Darius Foroutan)
Fig. 5. Plan of the vaulted hall and the semi-subterranean courtyard (redrawn after Meghdadian, “Mohavate-ye tārikhi-ye Tappeh Mil,” Asar Nos. 40-41, 2006, p. 262)
Fig. 6. Reconstructed views of the main hall and the semi-subterranean courtyard (above), and the eastern portico of the main hall (below) (after Meghdadian, “Mohavate-ye tārikhi-ye Tappeh Mil,” Asar Nos. 40-41, 2006, p. 266)
Fig. 7. Erich Schmidt’s aerial view of Tepe Mil (AE 553) and its environs in 1936 (photo: Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago). The site once covered a much larger area as indicated by scattered mounds marked in dotted lines.
Archaeological Exploration:
Tepe Mil was the object of excavations by a French team led by Georges Bondoux and Georges Pézard, members of the French Archaeological Delegation in Persia in 1909 (Pézard and Bondoux, “Mission de Téhéran,”; Nasiri-Moghaddam, L’archéologie française en Perse, p. 182). The excavations, although prematurely ended, yielded the plan of an important structure of the Sasanian period. The excavations revealed that the arched segments were part of a large complex decorated with stuccos (fig. 8, fig. 9, fig. 10), which the excavators dated to the late Sasanian period (“Mission de Téhéran,” p. 34). In 1912, Henry Viollet, French architect and art historian, visited the ruins and made a sketch plan of the architectural vestiges and took photographs (fig. 11, fig. 12, fig.13). Viollet’s plan and photographs have so far been largely unknown (Fromanger, Le Fonds Henry Viollet (1880-1955): documents d’archives et photographies, vol. 1, p. 248; Meghdadian, “Mohavate-ye tārikhi-ye Tapeh Mil,” pp. 262-263, where he gives Viollet’s plan and photograph). In 1936, Erich F. Schmidt during his aerial reconnaissance of the plain of Rey took photographs of Tepe Mil but did not publish them (fig. 7). However, in his very brief report on Rey, he suggests that the location of Sasanian Rey is to be sought further east where there are ruins such as Tepe Mil (Schmidt, “The Persian Expedition,” p. 47). Between 1952 and 1955, Ali Hakemi undertook excavations and restoration work at Tepe Mil on behalf of the Iranian Department of Archaeology. Aside from a two-page report, he did not publish the full results of his work at the site. It seems that he uncovered a large square hall at the foot of the main mound in the main axis of the vaulted structure (Hakemi, “Kashf-e yek banā-ye sasāni nazdik-e Rey,”). Based on the sketch plan of the main building, Rudolf Naumann, comparing it with the pillared hall of the west complex at Takht-e Sōleymān (fig. 14), writes that the monument at Tepe Mil is a palace and not a fire temple (Naumann, “Tepe Mill, ein Sassanidischer Palast,” pp. 76-77). Klaus Schippmann, writing on the location of the Tabarak Fortress, considers Tepe Mil to be a fire temple (Schippmann, Die Iranischen Feuerheiligtümer, p. 401). In 1978, Zarintaj Sheybani carried out investigations at Tepe Mil in 1978 on behalf of the Iranian Office of Restoration and Conservation of Historical Monuments, (Sheybani, “Tappeh Mil,” unpublished report, 1978; “Tappeh Mil,”). Later, between 2002 and 2009, she conducted three seasons of excavations at the site, the report of which remains unpublished. Twelve inscribed potsherds or ostraca (fig. 15, fig.16) were discovered during the third excavation season and were published by Rasoul Bashash Kanzaq (Bashash Kanzaq, “Khordeh sofālhā-ye katibedār-e Tappeh Mil, Varāmin,”).
Fig. 8. Tepe Mil. General view of the main mound in 1909 (after Pézard and Bondoux, “Mission de Téhéran,” Mémoire de la Délégation en Perse, vol. 12, 1911, p. 52, fig. 1)
Fig. 9. Tepe Mil. Plan and section of the remains (Pézard, G. and G. Bondoux, “Mission de Téhéran,” Mémoire de la Délégation en Perse, vol. 12, 1911, p. 53, fig. 2)
Fig. 10. Tepe Mil. Stucco fragments found in 1909 (Pézard, G. and G. Bondoux, “Mission de Téhéran,” Mémoire de la Délégation en Perse, vol. 12, 1911, p. 54, fig. 3)
Fig. 11. Tepe Mil. Henry Viollet’s sketch plan of the remains in 1912 (after Fromanger, Le Fonds Henry Viollet (1880-1955): documents d’archives et photographies, vol. 1, p. 248)
Fig. 12. Tepe Mil. Henry Viollet’s photograph (HV 701) of the eastern façade of the vaulted hall in 1912 (photo: Marine Fromanger, Le Fonds Henry Viollet (1880-1955): documents d’archives et photographies, vol. 1, p. 248)
Fig. 13. Tepe Mil. Henry Viollet’s photograph (HV 702) of the interior of the vaulted hall in 1912 (photo: Marine Fromanger, Le Fonds Henry Viollet (1880-1955): documents d’archives et photographies, vol. 1, p. 248)
Fig. 14. The plans of the vaulted hall at Tepe Mil and the Pillared Hall at Takht-e Sōleymān as compared by Rudolf Naumann (after Naumann, “Tepe Mill, Ein Sasanidischer Palast,” Baghdader Mitteilungen, vol. 3, 1964, pp. 76)
Fig. 15. Tepe Mil Ostracas (after Bashash Kanzaq, R., “Khordeh sofālhāy-e katibedār-e Tappeh Mil, Varāmin,” Nāme-ye Pazhuheshgāh-e Mirās-e Farhnagi, No. 6, 2002, p. 91)
Fig. 16. Tepe Mil Ostracas (after Bashash Kanzaq, R., “Khordeh sofālhāy-e katibedār-e Tappeh Mil, Varāmin,” Nāme-ye Pazhuheshgāh-e Mirās-e Farhnagi, No. 6, 2002, p. 92)
Finds:
Architectural vestiges in burnt bricks and rubble masonry typical of the Sasanian period (figs. 3-4).
Stucco fragments with floral and animal motifs (fig. 17, fig. 18, fig. 19, fig. 20)
Ostraca (figs. 15-16)
Fig. 17. Tepe Mil stucco fragments (photo: DI Darius Foroutan)
Fig. 18. Tepe Mil stucco fragments (photo: DI Darius Foroutan)
Fig. 19. Tepe Mil stucco fragments (photo: DI Darius Foroutan)
Fig. 20. Tepe Mil stucco fragments (photo: DI Darius Foroutan)
Bibliography:
Bashash Kanzaq, R., “Khordeh sofālhā-ye katibedār-e Tappeh Mil, Varāmin,” Nāme-ye Pazhuheshgāh-e Mirās-e Farhnagi, No. 6, 1383 H.S./2002, pp. 89-94.
Chodzko, A., “Une excursion de Téhéran aux Pyles caspiennes (1835),” Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, nouvelle série, v. 127, pt. 23, 1850, pp. 280-308.
Eastwick, E. B., Journal of a Diplomat’s Three Years’ Residence in Persia, vol. 1, London, 1864.
Fromanger, M., Le Fonds Henry Viollet (1880-1955): documents d’archives et photographies, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Aix-en-Provence University, 2004.
Kariman, H., Rey-ye Bāstān, 2 vols., Tehran, 1345 and 1349 H.S./1966 and 1970.
Kleiss, W., “Čal Tarkhan südöstlich von Rey,” Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran, vol. 20, 1987, pp. 309-318.
Meghdadian, H., “Mohavate-ye tārikhi-ye Tappeh Mil,” Asar, Nos. 40-41, 1385 H.S./2006, pp. 261-269.
Nasiri-Moghaddam, N., L’archéologie française en Perse et les antiquités nationales (1884-1914), Paris, 2004.
Meshkati, N., 1970, A List of Historical Sites and Ancient Monuments of Iran, Tehran.
Naumann, R., “Tepe Mill. Ein Sasanidischer Palast,” Baghdader Mitteilungen, vol. 3, 1964, pp. 75-77.
Pézard, G. and G. Bondoux, “Mission de Téhéran,” Mémoire de la Délégation en Perse, vol. 12, 1911, pp. 51-56.
Schippmann, K., Die Iranischen Feuerheiligtümer, Berlin, 1971.
Schmidt, E. F., “The Persian Expedition,” University Museum Bulletin, vol. 5, No. 5, March 1935, pp. 41-49.
Sheybani, Z., Tappeh Mil, unpublished report, the Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research, 1357 H.S./1978, 15 pages with 16 plates.
Sheybani, Z., “Tappeh Mil,” Agāhināmeh. Journal of the National Office of the Conservation of Iranian Historical Monuments, No. 36, 1357 H.S./1978
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