History of Greater Iran |
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List of Iranian artifacts abroad is a list of Iranian and Persian antiquities outside Iran, especially in museums. [1] [2] [3] Most of these were found outside modern Iran, in parts of the former Persian Empire, or places influenced by it.
The artifacts were part of a hoard of 2,500 objects seized in a dozen raids between 2012 and 2014 from Subhash Kapoor, a disgraced Manhattan art dealer currently jailed in India on smuggling and theft charges.
Xerxes I inscription at Van [5] is a trilingual cuneiform inscription of the Achaemenid King Xerxes I (r. 486–465 BC). [6] [7] is located on the southern slope of a mountain adjacent to the Van Fortress, near Lake Van in present-day Turkey. [7] When inscribed it was located in the Achaemenid province of Armenia. [6] The inscription is inscribed on a smoothed section of the rock face near the fortress, approximately 20 metres (70 feet) above the ground. The niche was originally carved out by Xerxes' father, King Darius (r. 522–486 BC), but he left the surface blank. [8] [7]
Atashgah’. It means ‘place of fire’ and its use is usually associated with Zoroastrian fire temples. The history of the Atashgah in the capital city of Tbilisi goes back to the 5th or 6th century, when Persia was ruled by the Sasanian dynasty, of which Georgia was a part. Also Treasure of Persian Manuscripts at Dagestan Scientific Centre.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art displays ancient Persian artifacts. Among the oldest items on display are dozens of clay bowls, jugs and engraved coins dating back 3,500 years and formerly housed in the University of Chicago's famed Oriental Institute. [9]
The Cyrus Cylinder is an ancient clay cylinder, now broken into several pieces, on which is written a declaration in Akkadian cuneiform script in the name of Persia's Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great. [10] [8] It dates from the 6th century BC and was discovered in the ruins of Babylon in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) in 1879. [10] It was created and used as a foundation deposit following the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire was invaded by Cyrus and incorporated into his own empire. It is currently in the possession of the British Museum, which sponsored the expedition that discovered the cylinder.
The museum contains exhibits from Sumer and the city of Akkad, with monuments such as the Prince of Lagash's Stele of the Vultures from 2450 BC and the stele erected by Naram-Sin, King of Akkad, to celebrate a victory over barbarians in the Zagros Mountains. The 2.25-metre (7.38 ft) Code of Hammurabi, discovered in 1901, displays Babylonian Laws prominently, so that no man could plead their ignorance. The 18th-century BC mural of the Investiture of Zimrilim and the 25th-century BC Statue of Ebih-Il found in the ancient city-state of Mari are also on display at the museum.[ citation needed ] The Persian portion of Louvre contains work from the archaic period, like the Funerary Head and the Persian Archers of Darius I. [11] [13] The section also contains rare objects from Persepolis which were lent to the British Museum for its Ancient Persia exhibition in 2005. [3]
The Oxus treasure (Persian: گنجینه آمودریا) is a collection of about 180 surviving pieces of metalwork in gold and silver, the majority rather small, plus perhaps about 200 coins, all from the Achaemenid Persian period. The collection was found by the Oxus River sometime between 1877 and 1880. [14] The exact place of the find remains unclear but is often proposed as being near Kobadiyan, Tajikistan. [15] It is likely that many other pieces from the hoard were melted down for bullion; early reports suggest there were originally some 1500 coins and mention types of metalwork that are not among the surviving pieces. The metalwork is believed to date from the sixth to fourth centuries BC, but the coins show a greater range, with some of those believed to belong to the treasure coming from around 200 BC. [16] The most likely origin for the treasure is that it belonged to a temple, where votive offerings were deposited over a long period. How it came to be deposited is unknown. [17]
The British Museum now has nearly all the surviving metalwork, with one of the pair of griffin-headed bracelets on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum, and displays them in Room 52. The group arrived at the museum by different routes, with many items bequeathed to the nation by Augustus Wollaston Franks. The coins are more widely dispersed, and more difficult to firmly connect with the treasure. A group believed to come from it is in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, and other collections have examples. [18]
The Miho Museum houses Mihoko Koyama's private collection of Asian Achaemenid, Sassanid and Western antiques bought on the world market by the Shumei organization in the years before the museum was opened in 1997. There are over two thousand pieces in the permanent collection, of which approximately 250 are displayed at any one time. [19] Among the objects in the collection are more than 1,200 objects that appear to have been produced in Achaemenid Central Asia. [20] Some scholars have claimed these objects are part of the Oxus Treasure, lost shortly after its discovery in 1877 and rediscovered in Afghanistan in 1993. [21] The presence of a unique findspot for both the Miho acquisitions and the British Museum's material, however, has been challenged. [22]
The Tokyo National Museum preserves a variety of Iranian antiquities and works of art, including pottery, paintings, calligraphy, metalwork, sculpture, inlaid pottery and textiles. .
Xerxes I, commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC. He was the son of Darius the Great and Atossa, a daughter of Cyrus the Great. In Western history, Xerxes is best known for his invasion of Greece in 480 BC, which ended in Persian defeat. Xerxes was designated successor by Darius over his elder brother Artobazan and inherited a large, multi-ethnic empire upon his father's death. He consolidated his power by crushing revolts in Egypt and Babylon, and renewed his father's campaign to subjugate Greece and punish Athens and its allies for their interference in the Ionian Revolt. In 480 BC, Xerxes personally led a large army and crossed the Hellespont into Europe. He achieved victories at Thermopylae and Artemisium before capturing and razing Athens. His forces gained control of mainland Greece north of the Isthmus of Corinth until their defeat at the Battle of Salamis. Fearing that the Greeks might trap him in Europe, Xerxes retreated with the greater part of his army back to Asia, leaving behind Mardonius to continue his campaign. Mardonius was defeated at Plataea the following year, effectively ending the Persian invasion.
Darius I, commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of Western Asia, parts of the Balkans and the Caucasus, most of the Black Sea's coastal regions, Central Asia, the Indus Valley in the far east, and portions of North Africa and Northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya), eastern Libya, and coastal Sudan.
Susa was an ancient city in the lower Zagros Mountains about 250 km (160 mi) east of the Tigris, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers in Iran. One of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East, Susa served as the capital of Elam and the winter capital of the Achaemenid Empire, and remained a strategic centre during the Parthian and Sasanian periods.
Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire. It is situated in the plains of Marvdasht, encircled by the southern Zagros mountains, Fars province of Iran. It is one of the key Iranian cultural heritage sites and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979.
Arses, known by his regnal name Artaxerxes II, was King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 405/4 BC to 358 BC. He was the son and successor of Darius II and his mother was Parysatis.
Cyrus II of Persia, commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Median Empire and embracing all of the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanding vastly and eventually conquering most of West Asia and much of Central Asia to create what would soon become the largest polity in human history at the time. The Achaemenid Empire's largest territorial extent was achieved under Darius the Great, whose rule stretched from Southeast Europe in the west to the Indus River valley in the east.
Naqsh-e Rostam is an ancient archeological site and necropolis located about 13 km northwest of Persepolis, in Fars Province, Iran. A collection of ancient Iranian rock reliefs are cut into the face of the mountain and the mountain contains the final resting place of four Achaemenid kings, notably king Darius the Great and his son, Xerxes. This site is of great significance to the history of Iran and to Iranians, as it contains various archeological sites carved into the rock wall through time for more than a millennium from the Elamites and Achaemenids to Sassanians. It lies a few hundred meters from Naqsh-e Rajab, with a further four Sassanid rock reliefs, three celebrating kings and one a high priest.
The Cyrus Cylinder is an ancient clay cylinder, now broken into several pieces, on which is written an Achaemenid royal inscription in Akkadian cuneiform script in the name of the Persian king Cyrus the Great. It dates from the 6th century BC and was discovered in the ruins of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon in 1879. It is currently in the possession of the British Museum. It was created and used as a foundation deposit following the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire was invaded by Cyrus and incorporated into his Persian Empire.
The Nabonidus Chronicle is an ancient Babylonian text, part of a larger series of Babylonian Chronicles inscribed in cuneiform script on clay tablets. It deals primarily with the reign of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, covers the conquest of Babylon by the Persian king Cyrus the Great, and ends with the start of the reign of Cyrus's son Cambyses II, spanning a period from 556 BC to some time after 539 BC. It provides a rare contemporary account of Cyrus's rise to power and is the main source of information on this period; Amélie Kuhrt describes it as "the most reliable and sober [ancient] account of the fall of Babylon."
The Achaemenid dynasty was a royal house that ruled the Persian Empire, which eventually stretched from Egypt and Thrace in the west to Central Asia and the Indus Valley in the east.
The Oxus treasure is a collection of about 180 surviving pieces of metalwork in gold and silver, most relatively small, and around 200 coins, from the Achaemenid Persian period which were found by the Oxus river about 1877–1880. The exact place and date of the find remain unclear, but is often proposed as being near Kobadiyan. It is likely that many other pieces from the hoard were melted down for bullion; early reports suggest there were originally some 1500 coins, and mention types of metalwork that are not among the surviving pieces. The metalwork is believed to date from the sixth to fourth centuries BC, but the coins show a greater range, with some of those believed to belong to the treasure coming from around 200 BC. The most likely origin for the treasure is that it belonged to a temple, where votive offerings were deposited over a long period. How it came to be deposited is unknown.
The Battle of Opis was the last major military engagement between the Achaemenid Empire and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which took place in September 539 BC, during the Persian invasion of Mesopotamia. At the time, Babylonia was the last major power in Western Asia that was not yet under Persian control. The battle was fought in or near the strategic riverside city of Opis, located north of the capital city of Babylon in modern-day Iraq, and resulted in a decisive victory for Persia. Shortly afterwards, the Babylonian city of Sippar surrendered to Persian forces, who then supposedly entered Babylon without facing any further resistance. The Persian king Cyrus the Great was subsequently proclaimed as the king of Babylonia and its subject territories, thus ending its independence and incorporating the entirety of the fallen Neo-Babylonian Empire into the greater Achaemenid Empire.
Amélie Kuhrt was a British historian and specialist in the history of the ancient Near East.
The Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt, also known as the First Egyptian Satrapy, was a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire between 525 and 404 BC. It was founded by Cambyses II, the King of Persia, after the Battle of Pelusium and the Achaemenid conquest of Egypt, and his subsequent crowning as Pharaoh of Egypt. It was disestablished upon the rebellion and crowning of Amyrtaeus as Pharaoh. A second period of Achaemenid rule in Egypt occurred under the Thirty-first Dynasty of Egypt.
Cassandane or Cassandana was an Achaemenian queen and the wife of king Cyrus the Great, the mother of Cambyses II and Atossa and the grandmother of Xerxes I.
Arsames was an Achaemenid satrap of ancient Egypt during the 5th century BC, at the time of the 27th Dynasty of Egypt.
The Teispids were an Iron Age branch of the Achaemenid dynasty originally ruling the southern Zagros, in ancient Anshan. The dynasty's realm was later expanded under Cyrus II, who conquered a vast area in southwestern Asia, founding what was later known as the Achaemenid Empire under Darius I. The titulary of the Teispids is recorded on the Cyrus Cylinder, in which Cyrus II identifies himself and his ancestors with the title King of Anshan, as an Elamite tradition. Teispes being the eponymous ancestor and founder, the dynasty furthermore included Cyrus I, Cambyses I, Cyrus II, Cambyses II and Bardiya.
Achaemenid architecture includes all architectural achievements of the Achaemenid Persians manifesting in construction of spectacular cities used for governance and inhabitation, temples made for worship and social gatherings, and mausoleums erected in honor of fallen kings. Achaemenid architecture was influenced by Mesopotamian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Elamite, Lydian, Greek and Median architecture. The quintessential feature of Persian architecture was its eclectic nature with foreign elements, yet producing a unique Persian identity seen in the finished product. Achaemenid architecture is academically classified under Persian architecture in terms of its style and design.
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire, was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the largest empire by that point in history, spanning a total of 5.5 million square kilometres. The empire spanned from the Balkans and Egypt in the west, most of West Asia, the majority of Central Asia to the northeast, and the Indus Valley to the southeast.
The Xerxes I inscription at Van, also known as the XV Achaemenid royal inscription, is a trilingual cuneiform inscription of the Achaemenid King Xerxes I. It is located on the southern slope of a mountain adjacent to the Van Fortress, near Lake Van in present-day Turkey. When inscribed it was located in the Achaemenid province of Armenia. The inscription is inscribed on a smoothed section of the rock face near the fortress, approximately 20 metres above the ground. The niche was originally carved out by Xerxes' father, King Darius, but he left the surface blank.