National Museum of Iran

The National Museum of Iran is located in Tehran, Iran. It is an institution formed of two museums; the Museum of Ancient Iran and the Museum of the Islamic Era, which were opened in 1937 and 1972, respectively. The institution hosts historical monuments dating back through preserved ancient and medieval Iranian antiquities. It also includes a number of research departments, categorized by different historical periods and archaeological topics. National Museum of Iran is the world's most important museum in terms of preservation, display and research of archaeological collections of Iran, and currently displays works that express the richness of history, culture, civilization, art, economic growth and technological achievements of Iran.

History
For the first time, the proposal to create a place called "Museum" was made by Morteza Gholi Khan Hedayat. He was thinking of creating a museum and an office called the Department of Antiquities to organize commercial explorations, but he did not achieve this goal. The first museum was established in 1916 under the name of "National Museum" or "Museum of Education" in one of the rooms of the Ministry of Education, which was located on the north side of the Dar al-Funun school building. This museum had 270 bronze artefacts (pottery, glass, coins, old weapons, seals, wooden objects, patches, books and textiles) which were collected by the employees of the Antiquities Department or donated by the people. In 1925, the objects of this museum were moved to the Mirorr Hall at Masoudiyeh Palace. With the start of excavations by European archaeologists, especially the French archaeological team headed by Jacques de Morgan in Susa (1897) the people's attention was drawn to the importance of cultural heritage. In 1927, the unconditional privilege of the French archaeologists in Iran was canceled. They were allowed to dig only in Susa. Since Iran had decided to establish a national museum and library, the privilege of designing and implementing it was given to France. For this purpose, French architecture Andre Godard came to Iran in 1929 to establish a museum and library and officially started his work.

The brick building of the Museum of Ancient Iran was designed by André Godard and Maxime Siroux in the early 20th century, and was influenced by Sassanian vaults, particularly the Taq Kasra at Ctesiphon. Its construction, with an area of about 11000 m2, began in 1935 and was completed within two years by Abbas Ali Memar and Morad Tabrizi. It was then officially inaugurated in 1937.

The Museum of the Islamic Era was later built with white travertine on the grassy grounds of the Museum of Ancient Iran. It was still being remodeled when the Iranian Revolution swept the country. While the Museum of Ancient Iran always had a clear mandate to show archaeological relics, as well as some rare medieval textiles and rug pieces, the newer complex began to also feature the Amlash pottery from prehistoric Caspian Sea regions of Iran. The Museum of the Islamic Era exhibits over 1,500 works from Ilkanids, Seljuks, Timurids, Safavids, Qajars and more. The complex consists of three floors, and it also contains various pieces of pottery, textiles, texts, artworks, astrolabes, and adobe calligraphy, from Iran's post-classical era. The oldest artifacts kept at the Ancient Iran Museum are from Kashafrud, Darband, and Shiwatoo, which date back to the Lower Paleolithic period. Mousterian stone tools made by Neanderthals are also on display at the first hall of the Museum of Ancient Iran. The most important Upper Paleolithic tools are from Yafteh, dating back about 30,000 to 35,000 years. The Museum of Ancient Iran consists of two floors. Its halls contain artifacts and fossils from the Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic, as well as the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, early and late Bronze Age, and Iron Ages I-III, through the Elamite, Median, Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, and Sassanian eras.

Exhibitions
To celebrate its 80th anniversary in 2018, the museum hosted 50 masterpieces from the Louvre and the Musée national Eugène Delacroix. The exhibition attracted over 250,000 visitors.

In 2005–2006, the National Museum of Iran and the British Museum held a major exhibition. It was held in collaboration with the Iranian government, which loaned the British Museum a number of iconic artefacts in exchange for an undertaking that the Cyrus Cylinder would be loaned to the National Museum of Iran in return. The planned loan of the Cylinder was postponed to October 2009 following the June 2009 Iranian presidential election. The Cylinder was displayed in September 2010 for a four-month period. The exhibition was very popular, attracting 48,000 people within the first ten days and about 500,000 people by the time it closed in January 2011.

One of the other successful exhibitions, entitled "Evidence for Two Hundred Thousand Years of Human-Animal Bonds in Iran", ran from August to October 2014.

An ancient Sassanid relief (224 - 651 AD), illegally smuggled to the United Arab Emirates during the Iran–Iraq War (1980-1988), and left there in 2006, was later seized in the United Kingdom in 2016. Its value at a auction could exceed £30 million. The Iranian government was tracking the long-missing relief for years. In 2023, The Guardian reported that the relief had been discovered and confiscated at Stansted Airport near London. The British Museum received permission to display the relief for a short period of time, and then returned it to Iran. After 35 years, on 28 June 2023, the Sassanid relief returned to Iran and a well-received exhibition was held. It is now permanently displayed at the National Museum of Iran.

After 85 years, Iran showcased 3,506 Achaemenid tablets at the National Museum on May 18, 2024, after legally reclaiming them from the US in 2023. The tablets, which were originally provided to the University of Chicago for study in 1930s, were discovered in Persepolis and lent to the United States for a three-year study period. The tablets were repatriated on the plane that also brought home the Iranian delegation from New York, after it attended the United Nations General Assembly. The tablets are among the most important works of Iranian history, and contain vital insights into road resource management, social relations, basic necessities of life, wages, and the economy of Achaemenid society, related to the reign of Darius the Great (522–486 BC).