É. Apor (ed.): Stein, Aurel: Old Routes of Western Iran. (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 2.)

INTRODUCTION ix mounds of ancient Susiana, the biblical Elam. The painted pottery brought to light attested close connexion between the prehistoric culture of this region in the fourth millennium B.C

. and that traced on previous explorations by abundant finds of similar type from British Balüchistän right through to Färs. The survey of a series of great bridges, imposing still in their ruins, served to show how important was the trade and traffic which from Sasanian down to early Islamic times, and no doubt before also, had moved from the fertile irrigated plains of Susiana up to the plateaus of central Persia. In the Bakhtiäri hills, once passed through by such trade routes, but long closed by tribal disorder, a fortunate discovery allowed me to recover remains of interesting bronze sculptures and other antiques from a destroyed shrine of Parthian times. Quite Hellenistic in type they strikingly illustrated how widely Greek art, culture and worship had influenced Iran after Alexander's conquest. Close examination of hitherto very imperfectly known rock sculptures in the gorge of Tang-i-Sarwak threw light on that reaction of Iranian taste, which was to assert itself later in the sculptural monuments of Sasanian rulers. From the wide alluvial plain of Khüzistän my route, after a visit to the great site of Susa, took me up into the hill tracts of Lüristän. 'There the valley of the Saimareh (or Karkheh) river and the succession of plateaus northward which its tributaries higher up drain offered ample scope for archaeological exploration during the spring. Where the rugged high Kabír-köh range sends down streams to the fertile alluvial ground along the Saimareh, Sasanian town sites were visited. There and also on the plateaus