Could there be any connection between these two far regions more than 5,000 years ago?
Yeri, Khiav, Iran
TEHRAN, July 19 (MNA) -- Over 500 stone steles bearing images of faces of men and women with no mouths were recently discovered at Shahr Yeri in Ardebil Province, the director of the team of archaeologists working at the site announced on Tuesday.
Alireza Hojabri Nuri added that the steles are arranged one after another in the form of a wall and date back to the Iron Age.
Shahr Yeri is located near Pirazmeyan village, 32 kilometers off of Meshkin Shahr in Ardebil Province.
“The discovered steles enjoy unique characteristics, and the remains of earthenware and rare stones on the stone platforms beneath the steles indicate that the place used to be a temple where the inhabitants made offerings.
“The temple floor was made of stone, although no sign of its ceiling has been found yet. The steles vary in height from 35 centimeters to 230 centimeters.
“It seems that the temple was very important in the time before the Urartians invaded the region, but then the temple lost its prominence. The Urartians were famous for attacking the beliefs of the inhabitants of every region they occupied in their invasions,” he explained.
And
A similar statue from Montpellier in southern France:
http://lithos-perigord.org/spip.php?article797
http://www.jrank.org/history/pages/6535/Statue-menhirs.html
The identity of these mysterious personages is unclear. Of the three regional groups on the French mainland, only one, the Languedoc group, shows any association with settlement site or burial monuments. The others, especially the Rouergue group, are located far from contemporary settlement sites in relatively remote areas of upland. This has led to the suggestion that they represent deities. Breasts on a few examples indicate that some of the statue-menhirs are female; others are considered male from the presence of weapons, though it is quite possible that these were also used by women at this time. The universal absence of a mouth is a feature that may indicate the ritual or belief associated with the monuments.
The south French and Alpine statue-menhirs are dated to the late Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods (ca. 3500–2500 B.C.). This is shown both by the objects depicted on the stones and by the occasional discovery of a statue-menhir in a sealed archaeological context. At Euzet, Gravas and Montferrand statue-menhirs have been found among the remains of prehistoric farming villages dated to this period.
Another statue from southern France:
http://www.loupic.com/Exposition-Des-pierres-qui-nous.html
There is certainly a long distance but I think there could be a connection, don't you think so?
