Teppe Hasanlu

Teppe Hasanlu or Tappeh Hassanlu is an archeological site of an ancient city located in northwest Iran, a short distance south of Lake Urmia. The nature of its destruction at the end of the 9th century BCE essentially froze one layer of the city in time, providing researchers with extremely well preserved buildings, artifacts, and skeletal remains from the victims and enemy combatants of the attack.

Hasanlu Tepe is the largest site in the Gadar River valley and dominates the small plain known as Solduz. The site consists of a 25-m-high central "citadel" mound, with massive fortifications and paved streets, surrounded by a low outer town, 8 m above the surrounding plain. The entire site, once much larger but reduced in size by local agricultural and building activities, now measures about 600 m across, with the citadel having a diameter of about 200 m.The site was inhabited fairly…