Painted Bricks of Baba Jan: Stylistic Variation in Iron Age Iranian Decorative Brickwork

Four seasons of archaeological excavations at Baba Jan Tepe in Luristan resulted in the discovery of a largemud-brick structure dating back to Iron Age II. Within this structure, particularly in a room known as the PaintedChamber, a significant number of painted bricks featuring geometric motifs were unearthed. These bricks weretransferred to the storage of the National Museum of Iran following their discovery in the 1960s and 1970s, yet nospecific studies have been conducted on them until now. Using a descriptive-analytical approach, the present studyaims to describe and typologically classify the painted bricks from the Baba Jan Tepe, seeking to explore theirrelationship with other styles and traditions of decorative brick production during the Iranian Iron Age, includingthose from the Central Plateau and the Neo-Elamite and Mannaean glazed tiles. For this purpose, the required datawere collected through field and library studies. Field data were obtained through direct examination of the paintedbricks housed in the National Museum of Iran, supplemented by information drawn from archaeological reports.The results indicate that the bricks from Baba Jan Tepe represent one of the four decorative brick-making traditionsin Iron Age Iran, characterised by a distinctly local and independent style. Furthermore, the Baba Jan PaintedChamber was likely used as a temple, indicating that during the Iron Age in Iran, decorative bricks were primarilyused for embellishing religious spaces.