Page 298 - Museo Orientale "Umbero Scerrato" - Catalogo

sia temporale, sia disciplinare, sia geografico, sia
cronologico), un’enorme mole di dati, per la maggior
parte ancora inediti.
In particolare spiccano i dati relativi all’edificio di
carattere religioso, il QN3, che tante suggestioni aprì
all’epoca della sua scoperta e che ancor’oggi offre un
contributo molto particolare alla storia religiosa
dell’Iran antico.
La scoperta di quell’edificio, che viene in questo
Museo riprodotto (Fig. 5), assieme alla maggior parte
della città, grazie al lavoro prezioso e preciso del Dr
Romolo Loreto che qui si ringrazia sentitamente,
rappresenta uno dei risultati più significativi degli
scavi condotti a Dāhān-e Ghūlāmān. Si tratta infatti di
uno dei pochi edifici religiosi noti di periodo
achemenide e, da questo punto di vista, presenta
caratteristiche di assoluta unicità, come espressione di
contorni religiosi locali, non ancora ben definiti, la cui
centralità rituale doveva tuttavia ruotare attorno a
momenti di culto relativi a una liturgia del fuoco e del
sacrificio di animali (Scerrato 1979). L’edificio
presenta una pianta quasi perfettamente quadrata, che
misura 53.20×54.30 m. (Figg. 4, 5), un unico accesso,
di piccola dimensione, posto al centro del lato. Al
centro si trova un ampio cortile (28.9×27.8 m.) su cui
presence of a large quadrangular enclosure, partly
double-wall (IsMEO Activities 1977: 467). The
structure, measuring 184×182.5 m, initially identified
by the aid of aerial photography, was interpreted in a
purely theoretical way, as a military fortress (Fig. 7)
coeval with the main village (Genito 1986; 1987;
1990; 2001; 2010a; 2010b).
The four excavation campaigns of 1962-65 and the
three campaigns of the Mission of Restoration of
1975-77 produced, of course, given the considerable
extension of the activities carried out (in terms of both
temporal and disciplinary, geographical, and
chronological grounds), an enormous amount of data,
for the most part still unpublished.
In particular, stand out the data to the building QN3,
of a religious nature that opened at the time of its
discovery many suggestions and that even today offers
a very special contribution to the religious history of
ancient Iran.
The discovery of that building, which is reproduced in
this museum (Fig. 5), along with most of the city, thanks
to the valuable and precise work of Dr Romolo Loreto
whom here very gratefully I acknowledge, represents
one of the most significant results of the excavations
conducted in Dāhān-e Ghūlāmān. It is, in fact, one of
the few religious buildings known in the Achaemenid
period and, from this point of view, it has characteristics
of absolute uniqueness, as an expression of religious
local contours, not yet well defined, whose central
ritual, however, rotated around times relative to a liturgy
of worship of fire and sacrifice of animals (Scerrato
1979). The building presents an almost perfectly square
plan, measuring 53.20×54.30 m (Figs. 4, 5), a single
small-size access, placed at the centre of the side. At its
centre is a large courtyard (28.9×27.8 m) on which open
four porches, two of which at the corners of the square
plan contained, among other things, stairs to climb to
Museo Orientale ‘Umberto Scerrato’ 298
Fig. 7. Il recinto QN28 a sud (da Google Earth 2012).
Fig. 7. Enclosure QN28 to the south (from Google Earth 2012).