Shahr-i Sokhta

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Shahr-e Sokhte (also transliterated Shahr-i Sokhta), Persian for Burnt City, is a Bronze Age urban settlement in the southeast of Iran in Sistan. The Burnt City is located on the bank of the Helmand along the Zahedan-Zabol road.

Covering an area of 151 hectares, Burnt City was one of the world’s largest cities at the dawn of the urban era. It was built around 3200 BCE and abandoned nearly a millennium later, in 2100 BCE. The city had four stages of civilization and was burnt down three times. It is called "Burnt City" because it was not rebuilt after the last conflagration.

The oldest known backgammon, dice and caraway seeds, together with numerous metallurgical finds (e.g. slag and crucible pieces), are among the finds which have been unearthed by archaeological excavations from this site. ^[1]

Other objects found at the site include a human skull which indicated the practice of brain surgery at the site.

In December 2006, archaeologists discovered the world's earliest artificial eyeball. ^[2] It has a hemispherical form and a diameter of just over 2.5 cm (1 inch). It consists of very light material, probably bitumen paste. The surface of the artificial eye is covered with a thin layer of gold, engraved with a central circle (representing the iris) and gol lines patterned like sun rays. On both sides of the eye are drilled tiny holes, through which a golden thread could hold the eyeball in place. Since microscopic research has shown that the eye socket showed clear imprints of the golden thread, the eyeball must have been worn during her lifetime. The woman with the artificial eye was 1.82 m tall (6 feet), much taller than the ordinary women of her time. She was aged between 25 and 30 and had a dark, exotic skin. Her Afri-canoid cranial structure point to an origin in the Arabian Peninsula. With her shiny golden eye, she must have been a striking figure, perhaps a soothsayer or oracle. ^[3]

Burnt City has been continually excavated since the 1970s by Iranian and Italian archaeological teams; new discoveries continue to be reported through the present date. ^[4]