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Iranian art 90 4 , L ondon lb ert Museum Aand ictoria V© 3 3 Qaran Unhorses Barman, folio from the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, Tabriz, about 1523-35. The Sarikhani Collection, I.MS.4025 4 Armlet, Iran, 500-330 BCE, from the Oxus Treasure. Victoria and Albert Museum i Collection Sarikhan The Photo: © ‘Epic Iran’ will encompass sculpture, metalwork, ceramics and glass, textiles and carpets, paintings, the arts of the book, but also digital art. Thus it will reflect the culture and design of five millennia. History begins in Iran in about 3200 BCE with the introduction of writing. It was under the Persian Empire established by the Achaemenid dynasty that Iran was first united politically, in the 6th century BCE. The exhibition begins with striking imagery of the Iranian plateau, framed by mountain chains, the Caspian Sea to the north, the Persian Gulf to the south, and with two great deserts in the centre. At the end of the fourth millennium BCE these landscapes were home to indigenous populations on the Iranian plateau, dependent on agriculture and trade. The early periods are documented by small objects—mostly figurines, basins, seals and tablets. New populations speaking Iranian languages migrated to the plateau from Central Asia from about 1200 BCE, while a sophisticated Elamite civilisation flourished in southwest Iran, long before the foundation of the Persian Empire and Achaemenid dynasty by Cyrus the Great in 550 BCE. The Achaemenids were the first to use Persian as a written language in cuneiform script. Their prosperous artistic culture is displayed in a dramatic section with insights into kingship, royal power, trade and governance. Highlights include reliefs from Persepolis and objects from the Oxus Treasure. On loan from the British Museum is the Cyrus Cylinder (8), sometimes celebrated as the first declaration of human rights. Alexander the Great overthrew the Persian Empire in 331 BCE, but died in Babylon less than a decade later, whereupon his generals struggled for power in the conquered regions. One of them eventually established the Seleucid Empire, which was quicky replaced by Iranian dynasties. First came the Parthians, who were in turn defeated by the Sasanians. Zoroastrianism, which is considered to be the world’s oldest monotheistic faith, became the state religion under the last of these ancient empires.
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Iranian art 91 Seineet-Marne ent de is, Départem Bourh Photo: Yvan 5 5  Silk samite fragment (detail) depicting pheasants with haloes contained in roundels, 7th century. 0.64 x 0.96 m (2' 1" x 3' 2"). Jouarre Abbey, Jouarre Exhibition highlights from this era will include Parthian reliefs from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and British Museum, and a silver gilt ewer from the Wyvern Collection. We also encounter the first occurrence of textiles, with animal designs from the V&A collections and the Jouarre Abbey in France (5, 7). The Arab armies invaded Iran from the Arabian Peninsula in the first half of the 7th century CE, leaving the Sasanian Empire devastated. However, despite the rapid invasion and conversion to Islam, Iranians kept a strong attachment to their long history and traditions. This legacy was understood in later centuries through the Shahnameh (or Book of Kings), the world’s greatest epic poem, completed by Firdowsi around 1010. In more than 50,000 couplets it offers a glorious and legendary version of past events, rooting Iran’s pre-Islamic history in the minds of its populations. Thus, the Iranians kept their traditions of kingly glory alive, with the Shahnameh marking the intersection between civilisations of both the ancient and medieval worlds. Among the iIlluminated manuscripts and folios displayed in ‘Epic Iran’ will be a magnificent page from the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp (1525–35) from The Sarikhani Collection (3). Between the 9th and 11th centuries, Arabic became the common language in Iran. The power of word, through the Holy Qur’an, was the purest form of art. The occupation by Muslim armies gave the Iranians a whole new understanding of history focused on the Prophet Muhammad and his successors. Disputes over the events of his life lay at the heart of the division between Sunnism and Shi‘ism. In Iran, they took on great significance from the 16th century, when the Imami form of

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Iranian art 90

4

, L ondon lb ert Museum

Aand ictoria

V©

3

3 Qaran Unhorses Barman, folio from the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, Tabriz, about 1523-35. The Sarikhani Collection, I.MS.4025

4 Armlet, Iran, 500-330 BCE, from the Oxus Treasure. Victoria and Albert Museum i Collection

Sarikhan

The

Photo: ©

‘Epic Iran’ will encompass sculpture, metalwork, ceramics and glass, textiles and carpets, paintings, the arts of the book, but also digital art. Thus it will reflect the culture and design of five millennia. History begins in Iran in about 3200 BCE with the introduction of writing. It was under the Persian Empire established by the Achaemenid dynasty that Iran was first united politically, in the 6th century BCE.

The exhibition begins with striking imagery of the Iranian plateau, framed by mountain chains, the Caspian Sea to the north, the Persian Gulf to the south, and with two great deserts in the centre. At the end of the fourth millennium BCE these landscapes were home to indigenous populations on the Iranian plateau, dependent on agriculture and trade. The early periods are documented by small objects—mostly figurines, basins, seals and tablets. New populations speaking Iranian languages migrated to the plateau from Central Asia from about 1200 BCE, while a sophisticated Elamite civilisation flourished in southwest Iran, long before the foundation of the Persian Empire and Achaemenid dynasty by Cyrus the Great in 550 BCE.

The Achaemenids were the first to use Persian as a written language in cuneiform script. Their prosperous artistic culture is displayed in a dramatic section with insights into kingship, royal power, trade and governance. Highlights include reliefs from Persepolis and objects from the Oxus Treasure. On loan from the British Museum is the Cyrus Cylinder (8), sometimes celebrated as the first declaration of human rights.

Alexander the Great overthrew the Persian Empire in 331 BCE, but died in Babylon less than a decade later, whereupon his generals struggled for power in the conquered regions. One of them eventually established the Seleucid Empire, which was quicky replaced by Iranian dynasties. First came the Parthians, who were in turn defeated by the Sasanians. Zoroastrianism, which is considered to be the world’s oldest monotheistic faith, became the state religion under the last of these ancient empires.

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