TEHRAN (MNA) -- Four brick inscriptions discovered at the 3000-year-old site of Rabat Tepe 2 in northwestern Iran substantiate that the Assyrian king Sargon II invaded the region.

The 10 centimeter-thick and 34x34 centimeter-square bricks have been inscribed with white glazed cuneiform script.

The inscribed bricks were unearthed by a team of Iranian archaeologists during the second season of excavations at the site in October and December 2006.

"Two of the bricks carry the name of a Mannai king, Ata or Ada, and the name of his land, Shurdiro or Dira," team director Reza Heidari told the Persian service of CHN on Saturday.

The other two inscriptions contain the names of Bal and Nabo, two gods worshiped by the Assyrians, he added.

The inscriptions were deciphered for the first time by Rasul Bashshash Kanzak, an expert at Iran's Cultural Heritage Research Center, and later by a linguist of the British Museum. The translations of both experts matched.

Up until now, inscriptions using white glaze have only been discovered at the famous Gate of Babylon.

Ancient inscriptions previously discovered in the region have been written on cliffs or on steles, but these are the first brick inscriptions to be discovered in the area, which is located near the town of Sardasht in Iran's West Azarbaijan Province.

Archaeologists believe that Rabat Tepe was the capital of the Musasir state about 3000 years ago.

Musasir was a semi-independent buffer state bordering Mannai between Assyria and Urartu. It was a vassal state of Assyria yet Urartu had some claim over it.

They also surmise that it was an ancient city probably located near the upper Great Zab River between Lake Urmia in Iran and Lake Van, in present-day Turkey. Musasir was particularly important during the first half of the 1st millennium BC and is known primarily from bas-reliefs and inscriptions of the Assyrian king Sargon II, who captured it in 714.

According to the inscriptions, Sargon first plundered the palace and storerooms that belonged to Urzana, the king of Musasir, and then seized the even richer contents of the temple of Haldi, the god of the ancient kingdom of Urartu.