Ochre and other pigments from the 7th millennium BC: Evidence from painted objects excavated at Tol-e Sangi and Hormangan archaeological sites in southern Iran ☆ Parviz Holakooei a,* , Morteza Khanipour b , Amir-Hossein Karimy a a Department of Objects Conservation and Archaeometry, Art University of Isfahan, Iran b “Silk Road” International University of Tourism and Cultural Heritage, Samarkand, Uzbekistan ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Red ochre Chromite Manganese oxide Hormangan Tol-e Sangi Neolithic ABSTRACT Red, black and white pigments on approximately 70 painted objects including grinding tools, potteries and wall paintings from two Neolithic archaeological sites in southern Iran, namely Tol-e Sangi and Hormangan, dated back to the 7th millennium BC, respectively, were investigated by fibre optics reflectance spectroscopy (FORS), polarised light microscopy (PLM), scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spec- trometry (SEM-EDS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), micro-Raman spectroscopy (µ-Raman) and micro-X-ray fluorescence (µ-XRF). It is demonstrated that red ochre together with calcium carbonate are used as red and white pigments, respectively, while the black pigments include different manganese oxides and black chromite. We therefore document the first occurrence of chromite used as pigment in decorating archaeological pottery. It is also shown that the red ochre occurred on the objects from Hormangan contains considerable amounts of arsenic in contrast with those found at Tol-e Sangi pointing to different sources used for decorating the painted objects from these archaeological sites. 1. Introduction The occurrence of ochre has been documented from different archaeological contexts in Iran. Red ochre has been reported to cover the human remains from Tappeh Ali Kosh dated to ca. 7500 BCE (Darabi, 2018), Yan Tappeh from the 6th millennium BC (Madjidzadeh, 2003, 33) and Tappeh Sialk from the Late Neolithic period (Hole et al., 1969, 36; Soltysiak and Fazeli Nashli, 2016) located in the central Iranian plateau. Traces of red ochre have also been found on a skull found in the early Neolithic Sheikh-e Abad located at the western part of the Zagros Mountains (Matthews et al., 2013). Moreover, remains of paints inside the grinding implements and as lumps of raw materials have been found in the prehistoric Khuzestan (Hole et al., 1969). In addition to this evi- dence, red painted materials at Tappeh Hissar (the IA period, dated from the 2nd half of the 5th millennium to 3700 BCE) (Schmidt, 1937, 361) and handstones and grinding stones with stains of red pigment exca- vated at the Neolithic site of Chogha Golan in western Iran (Conard and Zeidi, 2013) represent other examples of the use of red ochre in pre- historic Iran. One of the oldest occurrences of red ochre in Iran is reported from the so-called ‘painted room’ of Tappeh Abdul Hosein dated to a period from the early to the mid-7th millennium BC (Pullar, 1990). Also, the use of red ochre on wall has been reported from Tappeh Ali Kosh (Hole et al., 1969, 46) and Maral Tappeh from the 5th mil- lennium BC (Madjidzadeh, 2003). Red ochre has also been reported to occur in the prehistoric wall paintings from Tappeh Malyan (now pre- served in the Iran National Museum and dated to 3200 BCE), Tappeh Zagheh (dated to the 5th millennium BC) and Shahdad (from the 4th and 3rd millennium BC) (Bahadori et al., 2012). The following content is supposed to shed a technical light on the red painted materials exca- vated at two Neolithic archaeological sites, namely Hormangan and Tol- e Sangi, which represent one of the earliest occurrences of red ochre in Iran. 1.1. Archaeological background Prehistoric Iran comprises various cultural zones including the southern region which is known as the Fars cultural zone (Khanipour and Azizi Kharanaghi, 2024). Over more than nine decades, extensive ☆ This article is part of a special issue entitled: ‘Worldwide Archaeological Science of Ochre’ published in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. * Corresponding author at: Department of Objects Conservation and Archaeometry, Art University of Isfahan, Hakin Nezami St., Isfahan P.O. Box: 1744, Iran. E-mail addresses: p.holakouie@aui.ac.ir, holakooeiparviz@gmail.com (P. Holakooei). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2025.105041 Received 31 October 2024; Received in revised form 16 January 2025; Accepted 9 February 2025 Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 62 (2025) 105041 Available online 16 February 2025 2352-409X/© 2025 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.