National Museum of Iran

The National Museum of Iran (موزه ملی ایران) in central Tehran holds the country’s main collection of archaeology, from Palaeolithic stone tools to Qajar ceramics. It has two buildings: the Museum of Ancient Iran, opened in 1937 in a brick building designed by André Godard, and the Museum of the Islamic Era beside it. For anyone travelling to Persepolis, Susa or Pasargadae, this is where many of the objects found there are kept.

How the museum came about

For most of the 19th century, finds from Iranian soil left the country. French archaeologists, led from 1897 by Jacques de Morgan, held exclusive rights to dig in Iran, and the best objects from Susa went to the Louvre. Iranian officials began collecting antiquities in the early 20th century, first in a single room and later in a Qajar mansion.

In 1927 the Iranian government ended the French monopoly, keeping their rights only at Susa. As part of the new arrangement, a French architect, André Godard, came to Tehran in 1929 to set up an antiquities service and a national museum. The building, designed by Godard with Maxime Siroux, went up in 1935–1937. Its great entrance arch of red brick imitates the vault of the Sasanian palace at Ctesiphon, a choice that tied the new national museum to Iran’s pre-Islamic past, in line with the cultural politics of Reza Shah’s reforms.

A second building in white stone, for the Islamic-period collections, was added later in the grounds. It has been closed and reopened several times for refurbishment.

Museum of Ancient Iran: what to look for

Prehistory and Elam

The ground floor runs in rough time order. Early cases hold stone tools from cave sites in the Zagros, some tens of thousands of years old. Then come the painted pottery of Tepe Sialk near Kashan and of early Susa, from the 5th and 4th millennia BCE, with long-necked birds, ibexes and geometric bands. Elamite objects from Susa and Chogha Zanbil follow, including clay tablets and bronzes. Our history page on Elam gives the background.

The Achaemenids

The central hall is dominated by finds from Persepolis and Susa:

• A large audience relief from the Persepolis Treasury, showing a seated king receiving an official, with the crown prince behind him. Its twin remains in place at Persepolis.
• A colossal stone column capital in the form of bulls, from the palace columns.
• The headless statue of Darius I found at Susa in 1972, carved in Egypt, with inscriptions in Egyptian hieroglyphs and in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian cuneiform. On its base are figures of the peoples of the empire.
• Gold and silver foundation tablets from the Apadana at Persepolis, inscribed in the name of Darius.
• Clay administrative tablets from Persepolis, including some of those returned from the University of Chicago, where they had been lent for study since the 1930s. See the Persepolis tablets.

Parthians and Sasanians

The best-known Parthian piece is the bronze statue of a nobleman found at Shami in the Bakhtiari mountains, a life-size figure with a heavy moustache, belted tunic and trousers. Nearby are Sasanian stucco panels, coins and silver. In 2023 a Sasanian stone relief that had been smuggled out of Iran decades earlier and seized in Britain was returned and put on display.

The Salt Men

One of the most visited cases holds remains of one of the “Salt Men”, miners preserved by salt in the Chehrabad mine near Zanjan. The first was found in 1993, with his long hair, beard, iron knives and a leather boot. Others found later date to different periods, from the Achaemenid era onwards.

Museum of the Islamic Era

The Islamic galleries show how the arts of Iran continued and changed after the 7th century: early Qurans written in Kufic script, lustre ceramics from Kashan and Rey, Seljuk and Ilkhanid tiles, carved stucco mihrabs, metalwork and textiles, and objects from the shrine of Sheikh Safi at Ardabil. The collection is a good preparation for the tilework of Isfahan and Yazd.

Exhibitions and loans

The museum has hosted several high-profile loans. The best known came in 2010, when the British Museum lent the Cyrus Cylinder for four months, and around half a million people came to see it.

Visiting

• Allow two to three hours for the Ancient Iran building alone. Labels are in Persian and English, but some are brief, so a guidebook or guide adds a lot.
• The Glass and Ceramics Museum (Abgineh) and other museums are a short ride away. Our Tehran page lists them.
• Galleries are sometimes closed for rearrangement. Opening hours and ticket prices change, and the two buildings may be ticketed separately. Check current official information, and see your own government’s travel advice for Iran.