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.
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.
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.
(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
