National Museum of Iran

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The National Museum of Iran (in Persian: موزه ایران باستان Muze-ye Irân-e Bâstân) is an archeological and historical museum located in Tehran. It preserves ancient Persian antiquities including pottery vessels, metal objects, books, coins etc. It was inaugurated in 1937.

The museum consists of two buildings. Building number one is dedicated to the pre-Islamic collection, while Building number two consists of post-Islamic artifacts.

Building number one consists of three halls. The three halls contain artifacts from lower, middle, and upper paleolithic, as well as neolithic, chalcolothic, early and late Bronze Ages, Iron Ages I-III, through the Median, Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, and Sassanid ages.

The main entrance of building-1 of the museum is built in the style of Persia's Sassanid vaults, particularly the iwan of Ctesiphon.

The building itself was designed by French architect Andre Goddard in the early 20th century. He also helped design the main campus of Tehran University.

The post-Islamic part of the museum was inaugurated in 1996 and consists of three floors as well. It contains various pieces of pottery, textiles, texts, artworks, astrolabes, and adobe calligraphy from 1400 years of Islamic history in Iran.

The original museum (building I) was designed by Andre Godard, a French architect. It is located in central Tehran.

Plans are underway for the construction of a new building, as the current one lacks the capacity and standards for preserving all of Iran's excavated treasures.

[edit] Collections

The oldest artifacts, in the museum are from Kashaf Rud and Ganj Par sites that date back to Lower Palaeolithic. There are also 9000 year old human and animal figurines from Teppe Sarab in Kermanshah Province among the many other ancient artifacts.

Many of the museum's permanent collections are routinely loaned to other notable museums such as the British Museum in London.

Parthian prince found in Susa, a key artifact in the National Museum of Iran.

The Achaemenid collection of the museum is in the 3rd hall.

The Elamite, and prehistoric collection is located in the first hall. A decorated bowl from the 4th Millennium BCE from Fars is seen in the foreground.