Iran's Pompeii: Astounding story of a massacre buried for millennia (original) (raw)

Humans

The ancient town of Hasanlu was under savage attack when a chance event meant every detail was frozen in time. Finally the story can be told, and the assailants unmasked

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Stop the clocks: a fire set during the sacking of Hasanlu preserved details of the gruesome attack

Penn Museum

THE Iron Age citadel of Hasanlu was grand, with paved streets and palatial homes that rose two, sometimes three, storeys high around columned courtyards. Its people were rich, and lived off fertile lands generously irrigated by Iran’s Lake Urmia. Then they were massacred.

The town was destroyed just before 800 BC in a brutal assault. Now, finally, the remarkable story of Hasanlu is being pieced together from artefacts gathered half a century ago. These are revealing a unique snapshot of history.…

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