A selection of objects on exhibit
Check out the link above, a lot of neat artifacts. The way it's set up, I can't paste the pictures, but there are some real beauties.
Posted on 10/02/2005 3:17:15 PM PDT by FairOpinion
LONDON: Much of Ancient Persia's history is known to us only through the sophisticated literary culture of the Greeks. They often represented Persians as the barbarian "other," an image formed in the wake of the Greek defeats during the wars of 490 to 480 B.C. Later, the Greek picture of Ancient Persia and its history is drawn from the perspective of the conqueror, following Alexander's capture of Persepolis in 330 BC.
The West inherited that Greek narrative as the Persians themselves seem to have been too busy living and creating an empire to write self-consciously about their own history or theory of statecraft.
The British Museum's new exhibition, "The Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia," aims to change that or at least represent history from the point of view of the eastern "other."
Ancient Persia, ruled by the Achaemenid kings from 550 BC - 330 BC, was "forgotten" by the West we are told, but not by the Persians, who felt a continuity with the Achaemenid Empire even after the Greeks' 100-year-rule.
The exhibition incorporates the eastern perspective by referring to "Alexander of Macedon" rather than "Alexander the Great," whose invasion of Persia culminated in the destruction of Persepolis. It also explores the Persians' influence on Greece and the West, including their role in spreading westward the achievements of the Babylonian and Assyrian Empires, and their status as promoters of religious and racial tolerance.
At such a sensitive time, this cultural collaboration may be seen to represent a thaw in relations between Britain and Iran. The British Museum's director, Neil MacGregor, and the exhibition curator John Curtis started negotiating for the loan of many of the objects on display from the National Museum of Iran in Tehran and the Persepolis Museum.
While there are several objects from the Louvre in Paris and from the British Museum itself, most come from Tehran and Persepolis, and have never been seen anywhere else.
These include some of the most splendid and iconic objects of Achaemenid Persia, once the largest and wealthiest Middle Eastern empire encompassing all or part of what is now Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Turkey, Cyprus, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Greece. This makes it comparable in size to the Roman and Chinese Han Empires. It lasted 220 years and absorbed the great Babylonian, Assyrian, Lydian and Egyptian Empires.
Though small, the exhibition rooms are crammed with artifacts and explanatory panels to read. There are fragments of monumental architectural features from the central Persian cities of Persepolis, Pasargadae and Susa, such as bull's head capitals, glazed brick reliefs, and stone reliefs.
In 1892, explorer Herbert Weld-Blundell and craftsman Lorenzo Guintini made casts of the stone reliefs at Persepolis (in south-west Iran). The British Museum houses the only complete set of casts, which are now in better condition than the originals, and some are on display.
The detailed reliefs on the walls of King Darius's palace and the Apadana, a great hall with 100 20-meter high stone columns, provide an awe-inspiring view of Ancient Persia's splendor. The Apadana reliefs depict 23 delegations from all corners of the empire, bearing gifts for the Persian king. The men of each delegation are represented in detail, wearing the clothes and accessories of their countries, their tight curls symmetrically carved out.
Among them are Lydians, Cappadocians, Ionians, Parthians, Assyrians and Indians.
The reliefs, like the palaces, would originally have been brightly painted.
A three-minute film that digitally reconstructs Persepolis provides imaginative escape from the crowded exhibition rooms, and permits us to gage the real scale and glory of the city, with its decorated royal palaces, administrative buildings, treasuries, and the Apadana.
The exhibition is divided into several sections, such as the Royal Table, Administration, Jewellery, Burial Customs, Religion, Coins, Horses and Chariots, all of which neatly reveal the sophistication of the Achaemenid Empire.
We find displayed, for instance, luxury tablewares for the highly developed Persian cuisine: bowls, jugs, plates, strainers, and rhytons (horn-shaped drinking vessels) made of gold, silver, pottery or bronze. One of the most eye-catching and exquisite objects is a gilded silver and bronze amphora handle in the shape of a leaping winged ibex.
Jewelry is equally luxurious, the Ancient Persians having a particular fondness for bracelets and torcs with animal head terminals, intricately worked gold, circular earrings, and necklaces of semi-precious stones.
Perhaps most interesting are the sections that tell us something of the administration of the Achaemenids, who, after all, managed to control a vast area that covered highly developed, wealthy countries as well as less sophisticated areas where coinage was unknown, and enormous variety of languages and religions.
While the Athenians often defined their own democratic system in opposition to Persian monarchy and autocracy, recent scholarship has acknowledged the highly tolerant and adaptable nature of the Ancient Persians. The Achaemenid king had the title of "king of kings" as well as "king of lands," revealing the flexible nature of his rule: while the different corners of the empire were mostly ruled by satraps (governors) from the central Persian royal family or nobility in order to preserve loyalty, local kings frequently retained their thrones and countries were permitted to function as they wished, as long as the Achaemenid king received his financial dues. In return for the reaping of wealth from around the empire, the Achaemenids promised security and protection, and to back such promises they had formidable military power.
On display are the tools of the empire's administration: gold and silver coins bearing the heads of the Persian kings or their local satraps, and finely etched stamp and cylinder seals for governmental and business documents. These were written in three languages - Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian - in cuneiform script, or in Aramaic in the western empire.
Interest in the Achaemenid Empire was renewed in 19th century Iran, and was used during the reign of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1971 to reawaken nationalism when the 2,500th anniversary of the foundation of the Persian Empire by King Cyrus the Great was celebrated. Thanks to his appearance in the Old Testament, Cyrus I has been hailed in the Western world as an upholder of religious tolerance and human rights. When he conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., he reinstated religious tolerance and allowed various exiled peoples, including the Jews, to return to their homes.
The Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in 1879, on which is carved Cyrus's statement on entering Babylon, has become, perhaps simplistically, an icon of human rights. There is even a replica at the United Nations in New York. The Cylinder forms the final stage of the exhibition, suggesting that it symbolizes Ancient Persia's principal legacy. However, it is evident from the earlier displays that we can learn more today from the tolerance, flexibility and adaptability that were central to the Achaemenid Empire's administration than from an official royal statement.
"Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia" runs until January 8 2006. For more info go to http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/persia/index.html.
A selection of objects on exhibit
Check out the link above, a lot of neat artifacts. The way it's set up, I can't paste the pictures, but there are some real beauties.
GGG Ping
Thanks for the post and links.
The Brits need to return everything they confiscated overseas in the name of the Commonwealth.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1495381/posts
Got a video here!
Great! Thanks.
Iran ping
Why is that? The stuff would likely not have been preserved had it not been for the intervention of the Brits...
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Amrit Archaeological Site
AMRIT, SYRIA
http://www.wmf.org/html/programs/resources/sitepages/syria_amrit_archaeological_site.html
Founded in the early second millennium B.C., the ancient religious center of Amrit is the site of the only remaining Phoenician temple in the Near East. The site’s remains, though fragmentary, reflect an architectural style heavily influenced by the Achaemenid Persians. For most of its life as a settlement, Amrit was under the domination of Arwad, a powerful island nation located three kilometers off the coast. In the third century B.C., under the Seleucids, Amrit made an unsuccessful attempt to free itself of the Arwadian domination. In retaliation, the Arwadians completely annihilated the town of Amrit, leaving behind only ruins. Among the more visible remains of this once prosperous center are two towers—one pyramidal in shape and the other phallic in nature—under which are burial vaults cut into the stone. These monumental structures are surrounded by an array of different tombs and other ruins of Amrit, including later remains such as Roman tombs and a Byzantine church.
Bam
BAM, IRAN
http://www.wmf.org/html/programs/resources/sitepages/iran_bam.html
Thought to have been founded as a Parthian military outpost in the Dasht’e Desert sometime in the third to second centuries B.C., the Arg-e-Bam, or citadel of Bam, is the largest extant mud-brick complex in the world. It was built and rebuilt several times during its turbulent history, particularly during the Sassanian (A.D. 224–637) and Safavid periods (1502–1736) when Bam flourished as a trading hub and pilgrimage center.
No agenda there.
BTTT
Excellent pictures, thanks.
[singing] "It was down in Louisiana, just about a mile out of Ecbatana..."
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=10/2/2005&Cat=10&Num=2
Excavation work resumes at Ecbatana
Tehran Times Culture Desk
TEHRAN -- A team of Iranian archaeologists are excavating a stratum of the ancient site of Ecbatana which they believe dates back to the Sassanid or Parthian era.
Covering an area of 35 hectares, the site of Ecbatana is located in the northern section of the western Iranian city of Hamedan. Ruins from various historical periods have been unearthed during previous excavations at the site which indicate that the ancient inhabitants practiced progressive urban planning.
“The new phase of the excavations aims to shed light on the lifestyles during various periods. Thus we don’t expect to unearth important artifacts,” archaeological team director Masud Azarnush told the Persian service of the Cultural Heritage News (CHN) agency on Saturday.
Ecbatana was the capital of ancient Media and later the summer residence of Achaemenid and Parthian dynasty kings. It is beautifully situated at the foot of Mount Alvand, northeast of Bisotun. In 549 B.C., it was captured by Cyrus the Great. It had a royal treasury which was plundered in turn by Alexander, Seleucus, and Antiochus III.
Also called Hegmatana, the site has never been thoroughly excavated since it is mostly covered by the modern city of Hamedan.
The Hamedan Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department announced last February that it was planning to build the largest Iranian museum at the site of Ecbatana. Ten billion rials was allocated by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei to purchase the site of the proposed museum.
Parts of the site are privately owned. A number of ruins and artifacts have been unearthed during the private owners’ construction projects to build houses and shops.
The Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (CHTO) has recently announced that it will allocate funds to purchase the land.
"They often represented Persians as the barbarian "other," an image formed in the wake of the Greek defeats during the wars of 490 to 480 B.C."
Can't she be bothered to do some research, even to a basic level, on her given topic?
Andrew
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