1931 Fara, Tepe Hissar: Dig Unveiled

This 1931 silent film, 1931 Fara, Tepe Hissar, shot in black-and-white 16mm by Erich Schmidt’s Penn Museum team, documents excavations at Tell Fara, Iraq, and Tepe Hissar near Dāmḡān, Iran. Local men wield long-handled shovels, women haul rubble in baskets, revealing skeletal remains, sherds, and foundations from prehistoric strata. A seaport scene transitions to boys marching toward Tepe Hissar’s dusty mounds, capturing the journey from Fara to Dāmḡān via Baghdad. A pre-war glimpse of pioneering archaeology, it blends labor, discovery, and the ancient past across two Near Eastern sites.