THE FOURTH TERRACE OF ELYMAIS. PRELIMINARY SURVEY AT QALʽE-YE BARDI OF THE IRANIAN-ITALIAN JOINT EXPEDITION IN KHUZESTAN

Monumental cult terraces appear to have been characteristic of Parthian Elymais. Two famous terraced sanctuaries were excavated by the Délégation Archéologique Française en Iran at Masjed-e Solaymān and Bard-e Nešānda. Terraces also characterise the sanctuary and cemetery recently investigated by the Iranian-Italian Joint Expedition in Khuzestan at Qalʽe-ye Chandar, in the valley of Šāmi. A survey carried out at Qalʽe-ye Bardi, a site in the same area of the previous one, allowed the members of the latter expedition to spot one more terraced site. The results of this survey are here addressed preliminarily: information acquired is far from being exhaustive, but what was possible to recognise, although very rapidly, allow the author to put forward the identification of this terrace – the fourth so far discovered – as a religious building, because its typology appears the same of that defined at the sites mentioned above.