Project Gallery Bampur 14: a late fourth- to early-second millennium BC cemetery in south-eastern Iran Yazdan Saeidpour 1 , Sajjad Alibaigi 1, * & Mehdi Rahbar 2 1 Department of Archaeology, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran 2 Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research, Tehran, Iran *Author for correspondence ✉ Sadjadalibaigi@gmail.com South-eastern Iran flourished during the Bronze Age and several important settlements from this period have been excavated. Few contemporaneous cemeteries, however, have been investigated. Excavations at Bampur 14 have revealed 10 graves dating from the late fourth to early second millennium BC. Finds include a copper- bronze seal and a stone column, demonstrating connections with north-eastern Iran and Central Asia. Keywords: Iran, Baluchistan, Bampur Valley, Bronze Age, cemetery Introduction In the third millennium BC, large cities and settlements emerged in south-eastern Iran, such as Shahr-i Sokhta, Shahdad, Tepe Yahya and Konar Sandal (Lamberg-Karlovsky 1970; Tosi 1983; Hakemi 1997; Sajjadi 2003; Madjidzadeh & Pittman 2008). Evidence for both metallurgy and the processing of semi-precious stones, such as lapis lazuli and chlorite, demonstrates the region’s key role in exchange between the Bronze Age cultures of Western Asia. Despite its importance, however, this area has seen few excavations. Iranian Baluchistan, including Bampur Valley, is poorly documented archaeologically. Until the investigations reported here, archaeological work in the region was limited to soundings at Khurab and Damin (Stein 1937), and excavations at Tepe Bampur (de Cardi 1970; Sajjadi 2005). Recent surveys, however, have increased archaeological knowledge of the region. Bampur Valley was surveyed in 2002 by Rahbar (Rahbar 2003) and later by Mortazavi (Mortazavi & Mosapour Negari 2010); excavations were conducted at Bampur 14 in 2003 by Rahbar (Figures 1 & 2), with further survey by Moradi in 2010 (Moradi et al. 2014; Mutin et al. 2017a). This article reports results of the 2003 excavations at Bampur 14. Bampur 14 Bampur 14 cemetery sits on a low ridge on the southern bank of the Bampur River, near the village of Saidabad (27°09´40 ′′ N, 60°23´19 ′′ E; 498m asl). It extends 100 × 50m and prob- ably had around 150 graves. The site has, unfortunately, suffered illegal looting. In 2003, three 10 × 10m trenches and one 2 × 2m test trench were opened, marking the first large-scale excavation of a prehistoric cemetery in Bampur Valley. Fifteen graves were discovered, of which 10 (Graves 1–4, 7, 9–11, 14 & 15) had intact grave goods (Figure 2; Table 1). Received: 6 February 2021; Revised: 26 December 2021; Accepted: 2 January 2022 © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Antiquity Publications Ltd. Antiquity 2022 page 1 of 10 https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2022.27 1