Iran: From the Earliest Times to the Islamic Conquest

Though translated from a French version (L'Iran des origines a l'Islam, Paris, I95 i), the original idea for such a book was implanted in the author's mind by Professor Mallowan. As the latter points out in his foreword, M. Ghirshman's incomparable knowledge of the land and people of Iran and his intimate association with most of the major excavations carried out in that country for the past three decades, eminently qualify him for the formidable task of compressing within three hundred and fifty pages the history and archaeology of Iran from prehistoric times to the fall of the Sassanian dynasty in the seventh century A.D. The historical sequence constitutes the framework of this book. The first division, entitled "Prehistory," leads the reader from cave-man to the first settlers in the plain of Siyalk near Kashan (a site excavated by Ghirshman), through the prehistoric civilization of Iran in the fourth and the third millennium, to the historical age of the second.