National Museum of Iran

🕰️When was it built?

The Museum of Ancient Iran opened in 1937. The Islamic Era building was put up from the 1940s, but finishing its interior and preparing it took years, and it finally opened in 1996. So the two buildings did not start work at the same time.

🏛️What was it built for?

The museum exists to keep, display and study Iran's archaeological finds, which come from excavations all over the country. Its research departments are organised by historical period, so it is far more than a set of display halls.

👀What you will see

• Stone tools from Kashafrud and sites in Gilan are among the traces of human life in the Palaeolithic.
• A mud brick from Ganj Dareh and clay figurines from Tepe Sarab belong to the age of the first villages and differ from the tools of earlier times.
• Painted pottery from Ismailabad and Cheshmeh Ali shows simplified animals such as the wild goat.
• Stone vessels from Jiroft and Shahdad, carved with animal, plant and geometric designs, are among the prehistoric pieces.
• Finds from Chogha Zanbil, including an inscribed bull figure, inscribed bricks and glass tubes, are kept in the Ancient Iran collection.

💡Something interesting

Before the present building existed, the national museum began in 1916 in one large room of the Ministry of Education. The first objects were collected by staff of the antiquities office or donated by the public, and the collection was later moved to the Masoudieh mansion.