As we were heading towards the Archaeological Museum I took a few photographs both in the streets around the Museum and from inside the bus, in attempt to "capture" the atmosphere of Tehran, which we wouldn't be able to "really" visit, once we would be flying to Shiraz some time in the afternoon.
The Archaeological Museum of Tehran pertaining to the National Museum of Iran is a brick Sassanian revival building designed by the French archaeologist and architect André Godard, who happens to have been its first director.
The vaulted brick entrance, iwan like, was designed to recall the famous Sassanid audience Hall at Ctesiphon in Irak.
The vaulted brick entrance, iwan like, was designed to recall the famous Sassanid audience Hall at Ctesiphon in Irak.
The Museum gathers artefacts from the lower, middle and upper Palaeolithic, the early and late Bronze Age through to the Sassanid period. The first galleries displayed quite a few interesting unglazed zoomorphic vessels said to belong to the 1000 BCE Marlik settlement on the Caspian, which Philippe explained to us in detail.
In one part of these galleries we were shown some Lorestân (III-I mil) bronze vessels with rather peculiar and unique designs, as well as a "terre cuite" bull from the sacred village of the Elamites (XIV century), Choqâ Zambil.
In spite of it being very difficult to absorb all the imparted historical information regarding some of the artefacts it did make a huge difference having an archaeologist and professor of Art guiding us all the way through the Museum galleries.
(To be continued)
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