BABA KAMAR: NEWLY FOUND PAINTED ROCKSHELTERS IN THE UPPER ATRAK VALLEY, NORTHEASTERN IRAN

The recently documented painted rock shelters of Baba Kamar in the upper Atrak Valley, northeastern Iran, represent one of the largest and most compositionally diverse assemblages of painted rock art presently known on the eastern Iranian Plateau. The site consists of at least seventeen shallow cavities and overhangs distributed across the northern and northwestern slopes of Kuh-e Baba Kamar, executed primarily in red ochre. The pictograms include numerous anthropomorphous, zoomorphic, geometric and ‘abstract’ motifs. Human representations dominate (min. 80 figures), frequently arranged in processional and dynamic compositions, sometimes associated with caprines, canids, equids, groups of dots and compartmentalized rectilinear signs. A distinctive feature of the site is the close integration of painted imagery with tafoni-bearing rock surfaces, including also natural grooves, pits, fissures and honeycomb weathering formations. The site shares key features with other painted shelters in the Atrak River Valley (Takke, Zeynekānlu, Mardkānlu, Bāsh Mahalle, Aq Kamar), confirming a regional tradition associated with upland pastoral landscapes. Although direct chronological evidence is lacking, ceramic scatters from the mountain slopes suggest pre-Islamic activity in the vicinity. The Baba Kamar rock art substantially expands the known corpus of northeastern Iranian pictograms and highlights the need for systematic documentation, conservation, and further archaeometric studies.