Antiquities Exhibits

Silver Sasanian Horse-Shaped Drinking Vessel 200-325 CE at the Cleveland Art Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. The horse was a favorite artistic subject in ancient Iran, where horsebreeding flourished. This muscular Sasanian stallion was descended from the royal and sacred Nisean breed of the Achaemenian Persians. Although now extinct, Nisean horses were highly sought after in the ancient world. The ancient Greeks called him the Nis ean after the town Nisa, where he was bred but the Chinese called him the Tien Ma – Heavenly Horse or Soulon-Vegetarian dragon. The horse came in a variety of colors including the more common dark bay, chesnut and seal brown but also the more rare black, roan, palomino, and various spotted patterns. The royal Nisean was the mount of the nobility in ancient Persia. Two gray Nisean stallions pulled the King of Kings’ royal chariot, while four of the regal animals pulled the chariot of Ahura Mazda, the supreme god of Persia and Medea. Cyrus the Great was so distr...

Ancient Iran: a glimpse of Persian art and architecture under the Sassanids.  The Sassanid dynasty of ancient Persia was established in 224 CE when Ardashir I overthrew the Parthian empire.  Sassanid monuments in such cities as Ardashir Khurreh and Bishapur incorporate domes and squinches, or arched openings, in four sides of a square structure.  This architectural form, used extensively in religious architecture after the adoption of Zoroastrianism as the state religion, was continued during the subsequent Islamic era. It was also used in the grandiose palaces at Ctesiphon, Firuzabd, and Sarvestan.  It was during this period that the bas-reliefs on limestone cliffs, including  Bishapur, Naqsh-e Rostam and Naqsh-e Rajab in southern Iran were created.  In 2018, UNESCO added an ensemble of Sassanian historical cities in southern Iran, entitled “Sassanid Archaeological Landscape of Fars Region”, to its World Heritage list.  The Sassanids also practiced h...

Achaemanid and Sassanian era art ongoing at the Azarbaijan Museum in Tabriz, Iran. The Azarbaijan Museum in northwestern Iran houses archaeological collections dating back to the 5th millennium BCE through the Achaemenid and Sassanian dynasties in its first two galleries as well as a library with three thousands volumes. Items include religious and funerary monuments and inscriptions, rhytons, human remains, ceramics, weights,  jewelry, glassware, coins, and seals. For those also interested in more modern art, the museum displays Iranian artist Ahad Hosseini's twelve sculptures, "Misery Around the World" in its third gallery. Image: Sassanid era (221 -651 CE) gilded silver plate, Azerbaijan Museum , Tabriz , Iran courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Alborz Fallah. The Sassanids were one of Rome's most formidable opponents. For those of you unable to travel to Iran, the Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. has a number of outstanding s...