A. M. MINTIER, Graduate Fellow at Michigan University, is representing the Museum at the excavations at Opis, which are maintained by the Toledo Museum and the University of Michigan, under the direction of Dr. Leroy Waterman.
Image Number: 299808
So far three different areas have been opened on the site, one east of the Ziggurat, the second across a clearly marked street or “sacred way” which is hounded by parallel walls thirty feet apart, leading north to the Ziggurat, the third in the central part of the mound, where airplane photographs revealed clearly marked rectangles about two hundred and fifty by four hundred feet in area, which are proving to be the house walls and streets of a Sasanian-Parthian town, indicated by coin finds of these periods.
The most spectacular find so far has been that of about five thousand coins most of which a heavy cloudburst in October brought to the surface all over the site. The staff is identifying them as fast as possible, and already the large number of hitherto unknown Sasanian and Parthian specimens leads Dr. Waterman to hope that it may be possible to revise and complete a catalogue of the coinage of these periods. The Expedition is thus assured at the very beginning of the season of at least one valuable and important result of this year’s excavations.