Ultan Qalası: A Fortified Site in the Sasanian Borderlands (Mughan Steppe, Iranian Azerbaijan)

Abstract

Our knowledge of Sasanian imperial strategy continues to grow as a result of a range of projects investigating the frontiers of the Sasanian Empire. Understanding of the north-western fringe of the Empire in particular is being increased by the Mughan Steppe Archaeological Project. Surveys have shown that the fortified settlement of Ultan Qalasi is the largest of a series of fortified sites that lie adjacent to irrigation canals that stretch across the steppe, and excavations have provided relative and absolute dating evidence for the establishment of the settlement during the Sasanian period. This paper introduces the Mughan Steppe Archaeological Project and presents the stratigraphy of Ultan Qalasi, It also situates this site within the broader socio-political context of the southern Caucasus in the first millennium AD, and the wider world of the Sasanian Empire.