National Museum of Iran is a collection of artifacts from prehistoric and historical times of Iran. Located at the heart of Iranian capital, Tehran, this museum houses many valuable objects. Also, the museum has an Islamic section with diverse objects from that period. The building of ancient Iran museum opened in 1937 and the Islamic Section in 1996. The oldest object in this museum is from eight hundred thousand years ago.
History
After the idea of preserving ancient artifacts became important to Iranian officials, they tried to gather them in a particular place. So they prepared a hall in Dar-ol-Fonon the first modern school in Iran. They transferred some of these objects to this hall. Including bronze, ceramic, glass and some coins and weapons. Then Iran gave the privilege of excavations at Susa to French Archaeologists. Since they found several other valuable artefacts, the government decided to open a national museum and library. They also gave this job to the French. In 1929, Andre Godard, the French architect, started his work on National Museum.
Artifacts and objects
The tour of the museum starts with stone objects from the Paleolithic era. Among these objects are basic stone tools like axes and stones to hunt and kill animals. Also, there are clay statutes and early ceramics from Neolithic times. You can see interesting artifacts belonging to the Bronze age - for instance, some famous objects of Luristan bronze. Although, the oldest civilisation of Iran, everyone knows about is Achaemenids. But in the National Museum of Iran, you can also see many unusual objects from more ancient civilisations of the central plateau, such as Jiroft and Elam civilisations. The classical mythical motives on the objects show just a part of Iranian culture and history. The ancient section ends with glorious statue and objects from Achaemenid, Persepolis and Sassanid empires.
The Islamic section also has significant artifacts from early Islamic periods. These objects vary from old texts, textiles, ceramics, astrolabes, calligraphy and paintings to more recent ones.