Mohammad Esmaeil ESMAEILI JELODAR1 | Mahsa VAHABI2
(1Depart of Archaeology Faculty of Letters and Humanities University of Tehran | 2Archaeology at Tehran University, Iran)

Keywords: Archaeology, urban rescue, Tehran, Iran

Abstract:
In the fall of 2014 when the piping operation was done in municipal sewage line near the historic market in Tehran, one of the most busy urban centers and economic center of Tehran, the cultural remaining materials of Islamic era, including fragments of pottery works, construction works and other cultural material were revealed. The same remaining was found by one of Tehran citizen who was archaeologist and second author of this article during the excavation of municipal sewage company and reported to cultural heritage organization, so the operation was stopped due to the Iranian law and emergency civil excavations metropolitan was performed in the same area.
It was an interesting experience in concurrency of civil development projects and archeology studies that were based on the documentation of the construction operation and also six trenches were excavated. Preliminary results have shown the signs of human presence in Tehran metropolitan area from the first millennium BC to the fifth millennium BC and even slightly older than this period. With this event, the archeological information of Tehran earlier attributed to the first millennium BC and exploration of the cemetery in Qeitarieh , northern part of Tehran, was changed back at least four thousand years before that date .
This excavation has considered as a sample with high potential in public archeology, urban rescue archeology and civil archeology in regard to the special economic and social conditions such as placing in the central of Iran economy and the presence of different classes of population. Due to rapid growth of this city, the opportunity of archaeological studies completed in accompany with urban archeological awareness of Tehran city. This article intends to offer the first report on urban archeology project and primary results of it, as well as mention its challenge in city and its reflection in mass media, the public and city officials at Tehran via an analytical and critical look to this matter.