Waagenophyllum coral limestones and their processing at Shahdad: another trade link between Mesopotamia and Middle Asia in the 4th-3rd millennium BCE.

A distinctive type of dark grey limestone with white fossil inclusions identified as Waagenophyllum corals (a late Permian Rugosa tetracorallum or “horn coral”) was used on the Iranian plateau since the neolithic period. In the 3rd millennium BCE, this peculiar stone was used for making vessels, mace heads, miniature columns and beads. At Lagash, in Mesopotamia, around 2100 BCE the same stone was used by local sculptors for making highly refined figurated vessels with dedicatory inscriptions. We discuss the possible source areas of this stone, the typology and general distribution of artefacts made with it, and present the recent discovery, on the surface of Shahdad, of two important workshop areas with abundant craft debitage of the same material.