DARRŪS

 

DARRŪS,district in northern Tehran east of Qol-hak and south of Qayṭarīya, all former suburbs of the city; it is located about 8 km from the center of the modern city.

i. City quarter.

ii. Archaeological artifacts.


i. CITY QUARTER

Darrūs appears to be an ancient settlement, probably originally known as Garrūs (Kasrawī, p. 12). Until the mid-1940s it was a village of about 500 people located 5 km north of Tehran. Wheat and barley were cultivated there, irrigated by two underground canals (qanāts). Before modern times most of its inhabitants were Armenian peasants who lived in a fortress in the middle of the village (Sotūda, pp. 413-15).

The village, with its walled gardens, was a favored summer resort for the notables of Tehran. Hājj Mīrzā Āqāsī, grand vizier under Moḥammad Shah (r. 1250-64/1834-48), owned a large summer house there. Mehdīqolī Moḵber-al-Salṭana Hedāyat purchased this house and lived in it, gradually buying up half the village in the first decades of the 20th century. He sequestered this property in a family trust (waqf), part of which was devoted to local welfare institutions, including a hospital (Bīmārestān-e Hedāyat), a mosque (Masjed-e Hedāyat), a school, and a public bathhouse (Hedāyat, 1363 Š./1984b, p. 503). He also allocated 12,000 m2 of land for the establishment of a second hospital, Bīmārestān-e Labbāfī-nežād. The village was incorporated into greater Tehran during the real-estate boom of the 1950s-1970s and is now a residential quarter. By 1335 Š./1956 the population had increased to 4,421, and it has continued to grow steadily.

 

Bibliography:

M. Hedāyat, Gozāreš-e Īrān, ed. M.-ʿA. Ṣawtī, Tehran, 1363 Š./1984a, pp. 8-9, 27-28.

Idem, Ḵāṭerāt wa ḵaṭarāt, Tehran, 1363 Š./1984b, pp. 94, 201, 386-87, 407, 449.

Ḥ. Karīmān, Tehrān dar goḏašta wa ḥāl, Tehran, 1355 Š./1976, p. 419.

Idem, Qaṣrān I, Tehran, 1356 Š./1977, pp. 57, 96-100, 511.

A. Kasrawī, Nāmhā-ye šahrhā wa dīhhā-ye Īrān, Tehran, 1308 Š./1929, pp. 11-12.

Dūst-ʿAlī Khan Moʿayyer-al-Mamālek, Waqāyeʿ al-zamān, ed. Ḵ. Neẓām Māfī, Tehran, 1361 Š./1982, p. 57. Razmārā, Farhang I, p. 88.

M. Sotūda, Jōḡrāfīā-ye tārīḵī-e Šemīrān I, Tehran, 1371 Š./1992, pp. 412-22.

(SAYYED ʿALĪ ĀL-E DĀWŪD)

 

ii. ARCHEOLOGICAL ARTIFACTS

In 1322 Š./1943 Iron Age pottery was discovered in Darrūs, on land belonging to Mehdīqolī Moḵber-al-Salṭana Hedāyat, who was prime minister from 1306-12 Š./1927-33 (Ṣamadī, 1334 Š./1955; idem, 1960; there are differences in the French and Persian texts, and both should be consulted). This material was not recovered in a properly controlled archeological excavation, so there is no certainty that it all belongs together or indeed that it is all necessarily authentic. A selection of ten pottery items was presented to the Iran Bastan Museum in 1331 Š./1952. The group included six vessels in gray ware: a jug with an open, trough-shaped spout and a vertical handle with a projection like a horn at the top; a strainer vessel with a conical base and a vertical handle; three bowls, each with a single horizontal looped handle; and a bulbous jar. This pottery apparently belongs to the Late Western Gray Ware tradition, or Iron II (ca. 1000-800 B.C.E.; Young; see CERAMICS x). There are close parallels with pottery from Necropolis B at Tepe Sīalk. In the cemetery in the adjoining district of Qayṭarīya graves with both Early and Late Western Grey Ware were excavated (Curtis). Also from Darrūs is a curious drinking cup made from yellow clay with a tripod base and an animal’s head near the bottom. There is incised geometric decoration on the upper part, and a handle projects from the rim.

 

Bibliography:

J. E. Curtis, “A Grave-Group from Qeytariyeh near Teheran (?),” in L. De Meyer and E. Haerinck, eds., Archaeologica Iranica et Orientalis. Miscellanea in Honorem Louis Vanden Berghe I, Ghent, 1989, pp. 323-33.

Ḥ. Ṣamadi, “Eṭṭelāʿāt-e ejmālī dar bāra-ye čand ẓarf-e makšūfa dar Darrūs-e Šamīrān,” Gozārešhā-ye bāstān-šenāsī III, 1334 Š./1955, pp. 137-46.

Idem, Les découvertes fortuites et l’état de la civilisation chez l’homme pre-médique, Tehran, 1960, pp. 7-12.

L. Vanden Berghe, Archéologie de l’Iran ancien, Leiden, 1959, pp. 124, 196, pl. 159a.

T. C. Young, “A Comparative Ceramic Chronology for Western Iran, 1500-500 B.C.,” Iran 3, 1965, pp. 53-85.

(JOHN CURTIS)

(Sayyed ʿAlī Āl-e Dāwūd, JOHN CURTIS)

Originally Published: December 15, 1994

Last Updated: November 17, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. VII, Fasc. 1, pp. 64-65