گزارش کوتاهی از پژوهش بر روی مومیایی های طبیعی شناسایی شده در دیواره های ارگ بم
ارگ بم ، بزرگترین بنای خشتی جهان ثبت شده در فهرست میراث فرهنگی یونسکو ، توسط زمین لرزه ۶.۸ ریشتری در ۵ دی ماه ۱۳۸۲ به شدت تخریب شد. بیش از ۴۰،۰۰۰ نفر در میان دیوار های فروریخته شهر بم مدفون شدند. اگرچه ارگ بیش از ۹۵ ٪ آسیب دیده بود
نوشته‌های مرتبط
گزارش کوتاهی از پژوهش بر روی مومیایی های طبیعی شناسایی شده در دیواره های ارگ بم
ارگ بم ، بزرگترین بنای خشتی جهان ثبت شده در فهرست میراث فرهنگی یونسکو ، توسط زمین لرزه ۶.۸ ریشتری در ۵ دی ماه ۱۳۸۲ به شدت تخریب شد. بیش از ۴۰،۰۰۰ نفر در میان دیوار های فروریخته شهر بم مدفون شدند. اگرچه ارگ بیش از ۹۵ ٪ آسیب دیده بود، اما تخریب و بیرون ریزی ساختارهای آن اطلاعات باستان شناختی را بازیابی کرد.از جمله این اطلاعات مومیایی های طبیعی مومیایی مربوط به نوزادان بود که در دیوارهای خارجی ارگ شناسایی شدند.
این نوزادان در میان آجر و خشت قرار گرفته بودند . باستان شناسی نجات بخشی به تدریج از ۱۳۸۲ تا ۱۳۸۶ بر روی داده های انسانی انجام شد. گروه قوم باستان شناسی و باستان شناسی معاصر بم نوزادان شناسایی شده را در تابستان ۱۳۸۷ مورد بازنگری قرار داد. این گزارش کوتاه نتیجه بازنگری یاد شده و مطالعات ژنتیکی است که در دانشگاه شهرکرد انجام یافته است. مطالعاتی که به نظر می رسد ما را به تدریج به پرسش پاسخ بنیادین در مورد این کودکان نزدیک کرده است: آنها چرا درگذشته اند؟.
در زیر گزارش را به زبان انگلیسی می خوانید:
Why these kiddies are dead?
A short report of recognized human remains in Bam Citadel, Southeastern Iran
Leila Papoli Yazdi
Introduction
Bam citadel , the largest adobe monument of the world registered in UNESCO heritage list, was dramatically destroyed by an earthquake measuring 6.8 M.W in 26th December 2003. More than 40000 people died among the rubbles of Bam modern city.
However, the citadel was damaged more than 95% but it made a lot of data to be recovered, too. Among these, there were natural mummified human remains mostly belonged to the infants which were found due to the loss of Bam Citadel external walls.
These infants were buried among the bricks which were excavated archaeologically according to savage archaeology from 2003 till 2007 by Bam research foundation archaeologists. The infants were reinvestigated by us in summer 2008.
This short report will only describe the context and conditions of these remains besides the genetic samples results which make us to find out new hypothesizes about us. The hypothesizes which correctness or irregularity will be tested in future investigations.
Archaeological context
Bam city
Bam is a historical city located in the border of Lut Desert and on the Kerman-Zahedan highway, Southeastern Iran . By virtue of the primeval mud-constructed citadel (Arg e Bam), the city has acquired a world-wide name and fame (Negaresh and Khosravi 2008) . The Bam district is a typical desert oasis with an average annual rainfall of about 60 mm.
The city’s plain slopes from the southwest towards the northeast with a gradient of about 1.2%. Bam covers an area of 19,374 km2 and is situated at 1076 m. Winds often blow from the northwest to the southeast. The average annual temperature is 238C maximum: 448C, minimum: _28C) (Gafoory and Hoseini 2007).
Pre-earthquake Bam county population has been 242,438 persons. The religion of most people is Shiite Muslim. Small number of people in Bam are Sunni Muslims inhabited in eastern areas of Bam. In general, Muslims are included of 99/8% and Zoroasterians 0/3 % of the population.
Around 70% of the people living in Bam and the surrounding villages are directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture (Salih and Salamat 2008). It seems that Bam residents subsistence is a kind of adaptation with the natural context. Bam county centers and large villages in the sections with sufficient natural sources are sedentary and their subsistence is based on agriculture, gardening, livestock farming and governmental jobs and trade. This deployment also seems to relate to the stability of the long-term processes. Small villages are located in the valley Foothills and valleys of the desert border areas. Communication problems due to natural barriers on the one hand and environmental capacity constraints and the environmental instability on the other hand prevents these area development.
At 5:27AM on 26 December, 2003, a powerful earthquake shook the city of Bam, Iran, to the point of near total destruction. The traditional mud brick and clay houses put up little resistance to the violent shaking. Walls and roofs crumbled and collapsed, leaving thousands of victims trapped beneath the rubble (Lateef 2004; Stoltman and Dechano 2004). The intense shaking caused the complete collapse of about 70% of the buildings in the city center (Fielding et al. 2005; Atsumi and Okano 2004; Bouchon et al. 2006) which killed about 43,000 people (Monroe and Witconder 2005: 198). Approximately 30,000 people were injured and another 100,000 were left homeless.
Bam earthquake made a dramatic change in Bam perspective and actually attracted a lot of specialists to consider to Bam.
Bam Citadel
Bam citadel is the greatest and oldest mud-brick construction of the world which is registered in UNESCO. It is a semi square monument, includes three parts of residential, military and citadel with covering an area of sq.ms 200,000 (Mohajeri 2005) which was heavily damaged in the 2003 earthquake (langebach 2005).
Archaeologically, the oldest known settlements in Bam district are related to Pre-pottery Neolithic, more than 70 prehistoric sites have been recognized in 30 km far from Bam in Darestan, the sites have been dated preliminary from PPN to Iron age (Garazhian 2009) while the oldest known data of the citadel is the evidence found 8 meters below the contemporary level related to Neolithic. Furthermore a site is recognized in the northern part of citadel which data can be attributed to Bronze Age according to surface survey .
Citadel monument is a multi period building which seems to be constructed gradually from Partian period (2th century B.C.) and continued in Islamic period. Although there are different hypotheses as to founding date of this citadel , sometime during the Achaemenian and Partian dynasties (550B.C.-224 A.D) most of the buildings that existed before the earthquake seemed to be belonged to Teimorid to Qajar period (1381-1921) (Ono et al. 2007).
It has been under use approximately till 1850 which abandonment begins gradually afterwards. It seems that Bam Citadel residents begun to live in the surrounded areas of citadel and gradually formed the modern city of Bam.
Bam citadel was destroyed heavily in the 2003 earthquake. According to field reports, up to 95% of buildings collapsed within the ancient Bam citadel (Adams et al. ).
The recognized data
Destroying the external wall of the citadel, the ancient human remains were observed accidentally. Sixty two human remains were recognized on the external wall of citadel, especially its eastern and western part. Fifty nine of these remains were belonged to babies (1month- 2 years old) and the other three cases to teenagers (8-12 years old), except two cases (both babies), all the other are covered with cloth coffins (Ahmadi ). The baby bodies are conserved as natural mummies; the skin is dried and stuck to the bones. The internal organs are damage in most cases, but in at least three cases, eyes, hair and internal organs can be observed. Larvas have been observed in one case. Some of the cases have fallen from the wall under the affect of the earthquake and natural parameters as sun and humidity and wild animals have caused new damages on the bodies.
Most of the cases are buried according to Islamic direction on their right side but it is not a general low as five cases were buried in different directions, two of them, the teenagers.
According to burial form these human remains can be divided into these general groups:
۱- Three cases of the bodies were completely located in the mud bricks. It seems likely that they were buried when the brick has been still wet and then they are covered exactly with mud. All these cases are very little babies, less than 5 months old. Excavating these cases in approximately impossible because of the combination of the body and the mud.
۲- Most cases are buried among the bricks. It seems that the bricks have been picked up from the top, made a hole in the wall and located the baby body among the bricks. Two of the teenagers are buried in this situation, too, in one case, only the skull is recovered.
۳- Four cases are found on the bumps of the citadel walls. It should be noted that the citadel walls have normally bumped and these infants have been located on them.
The archaeological observation of the data represents that:
۱- The bodies have been buried very precisely. They are all covered in a coffin which is painted in some cases, a piece of cotton has been put in the coffin and the coffin has been closed by small pieces of strings afterwards. It can be hypothesized that the mourners have enough time to do these works and then carry the body on the top of the Citadel and bury.
۲- It cannot be explored that all the bodies have been buried in the walls in a same time or a span of time, today. But according to point 1, it can be hypothesized that the burials have not been conducted in an emergency condition.
۳- According to Islam, burying the corpses among the wall bricks is not normal. One of the most important questions about these natural mummies is the place of their burying. Why they have not been buried in the Citadel graveyard which is located in the western part of the monument?
Historically, it is claimed that the last reconstruction of Bam citadel walls have been conducted in the Qajar period. Although, it is difficult to suggest an exact chronology for the bodies but according to their location in the wall , they can be related to a time span between the end of Safavid period to the end of Qajar era.
Genetics results
In the summer, 2008 all the remained data were reinvestigated, 12 of the cases were sampled among which three cases were tested genetically. The explored DNA is included of general and material (mt) DNAs. Actually, two factors of sex and race were tested.
In the first type the haplo type of father group was used as the criteria of the race. In all three cases the R1a1 Haplo type was observed. According to this fact, we can be assured that the samples are related to Indo-Iranians which can hypothesize to be similar to the contemporary residents of Bam, furthermore, they are in a same race as the other tested samples from the other parts of Iran as Damavand Partian samples of Valiran.
Sexually, all three cases (one from eastern wall, a skull of baby (less than 6 months old), a lower jaw of an infant (less than 1 year) from eastern wall and a lower jaw (more than 1 year old) from eastern wall) were belonged to males, three other cases organs were observed scientifically (all from western wall) and they were are males, too, besides the teenagers.
Discussion
The preliminary archaeological excavations of Bam natural mummies encounter us with a lot of unanswered questions: Why these kiddies are dead? Why are they buried in such an abnormal place? Why they were not buried in the Citadel graveyard? Were they selected by their sex or this is only an accident? Can we hypothesize that they are political/ritual victims? Then why there is no historical evidence in the texts? Can we hypothesized that they have been selected by their sex or the tested samples are not enough to find such a result?
Their race represents that they cannot be belonged to special religious minorities originated from outside Bam which are mostly Muslim Indo-Iranians. Besides, it cannot be hypothesized that they have been buried in the case of an epidemiology, an epidemiology makes emergency in most cases and the infants have been buried meekly and preciously.
This is a project supported by “Bam citadel research foundation”.
