Echoes of Regional Traditions plus Western Typological Influences: Some Notes about the Post-Achaemenid Pottery Assemblage from the Italian Excavations at Qal‛a-ye Sam (Iran, Sistan)

In the frame of the archaeological researches carried out between the 60’s and the 70’s of the past century in Iranian Sistan by an Italian team of IsMEO (Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente) directed by Prof. Umberto Scerrato, some trial trenches were excavated at Qal‛a-ye Sam to obtain data to be compared with the information which the same team was retrieving at the nearby Achaemenian site of Dahana-ye Gholaman. Since then, the pottery recovered during those excavations was just hinted at in some preliminary reports regarding the main field activities at Dahana-ye Gholaman. The present reappraisal of the pottery assemblage from Qal‛a-ye Sam (in the frame of the WebGIS project “Archaeo.Pro.Di.Mu.S: Archaeological Project Digital Multimedia Sistan”, based at UNO) is centred on the study of over one hundred fragments stored in Italy (previously in Rome at IsMEO/IsIAO and nowadays in Naples at UNO) on the basis of an agreement between IsMEO and the former Imperial Service for the Antiquities of Iran. From the analysis of this unpublished assemblage, interesting details emerge regarding a pottery production which, despite evident Hellenistic morphological influences, still holds strong ties with the ceramic tradition attested in the region during the Achaemenid period