Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia

The British Museum in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation.

British Petroleum

Balli Group plc, Bank Melli Iran, Chiltern Group plc, Credit Suisse, Hinduja Group and Foundation, National Petrochemical Company (NPC), Targetfollow Group Limited

Mr & Mrs Manucher Azmudeh, Freestream Aircraft Limited, Mr & Mrs Sassan Ghandehari, Lord Alliance, Mr & Mrs Mehdi Metghalchi, Persian Cultural Foundation, Mrs Sedigheh Rastegar, Dr & Mrs Ali Sattaripour, Mr Abolala Soudavar

Mr Hossein Afshar, Mr & Mrs Ata Ahsani, Mr & Mrs Farough Farman Farmaian, Mrs Shirin Guild, Mr & Mrs Aligholi Hedayat, Mr Hashem Khosrovani, Dr Karim Lari, Miss Goli Metghalchi, Mr & Mrs Bijan Mossavar Rahmani, Mr & Mrs Mansour Namaki, Mr Rouzbeh Pirouz, Mr & Mrs Kaveh Sheibani, Soudavar Foundation, Mr & Mrs Majid Toutouni

Mr & Mrs David Aaron, Sheikha Hussah Sabah Salem al-Sabah, Mr Hashem Arouzi, Mr & Mrs Hamid Atighetchi, Mr Farad Azima, Mr & Mrs Mehran Azmoudeh, Mr & Mrs Saeed Baradar, Mr John Batson & Mrs Dori Dana Haeri, Mr & Mrs Dris Ben Brahim, Mr & Mrs Jean Michel Chamboulive, Mr & Mrs Michel Danechi, Dr Azar Ebtehaj, Mr & Mrs Farhad Ettehadieh, Mr & Mrs Alexander Farman Farmaian, Mr & Mrs Rashid Farman Farmaian, Mr & Mrs Reza Hakimzadeh, Mr & Mrs Massood Hoomani, Mr & Mrs Bahman Irvani, Ms Fati and Ms Maryam Khosrowshahi, Mr & Mrs Vahid Kooros, Mr & Mrs Ahmad Lari, Mr & Mrs Hamid Lari, Mr & Mrs Ali Malek, Pentagon Capital Management plc, Mr & Mrs Ali Rashidian, Mr & Mrs Hamid Sabi, Mr & Mrs Mehdi Shalfrooshan

Mr & Mrs Manouchehr Aaron, Mr & Mrs Cyrus Ardalan, Mr & Mrs John Eskenazi, Mr & Mrs H R Farman Farmaian, Miss Guity Hakimzadeh, Mr & Mrs Farrokh Mahboubian, Mrs Maryam Massoudi, Mr & Mrs Mazyar Moghadam, Mr & Mrs Mansour Mokhtarzadeh, Mr Reza Nader Sepahi, Mr & Mrs Yacob Shavleyan, Mr & Mrs Rabi Soleimani, Mr Saadi Soudavar

John Curtis, The British Museum.

This exhibition is the most important and elaborate exhibition on Achaemenid Persia ever organised.

Ancient Persia was the largest and wealthiest state in the Ancient Near East, eclipsing Assyria and Babylonia and overshadowing Greece in the west. Between 550 BC and 330 BC the Persians ruled an Empire that stretched from North Africa to the Indus Valley and from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea. This vast Empire was administered from the Persian homeland in South-west Iran and from capital cities such as Susa, Pasargadae and Persepolis, arguably the most magnificent site in the whole of the ancient world. The exhibition shows the splendour of Ancient Persia as reflected in the architecture, the sumptuousness of the material culture, and the sophistication of the administration. This is the legacy of kings such as Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes. This splendid civilization was brought to an end by the invasion of Alexander the Great, who burnt Persepolis. The Western World tends to know about the Persians through their wars with the Greeks, suggesting that the Persians were a despotic and ruthless people, but this is a western and ethnocentric view that is corrected in the exhibition which relies on oriental sources rather than classical texts for information about the Persians. Finally, the exhibition explores the contribution of the Persians to western civilization.

Included in the exhibition will be substantial loans from the National Museum in Tehran, the Persepolis Museum, and the Louvre in Paris. These will supplement the British Museum´s own significant holdings in this area. This will be the first time that many of the objects from Tehran have been outside Iran, and some of the more precious gold and silver items have never been shown in Tehran. In addition to original material, spectacular casts of stone reliefs at Persepolis will be displayed. These were made by the Weld-Blundell expedition in 1891 and are now in much better condition than the original reliefs at Persepolis.

The visitor will enter through a room decorated with casts of reliefs from Persepolis showing the Great King in combat with bulls and lions, and will then turn left past a reconstructed doorway relief from the Hall of 100 Columns from Persepolis. This shows Xerxes on a throne supported by people from all around the Empire. The long corridor beyond will be lined with a series of casts of reliefs from the apadana (audience hall) at Persepolis showing five delegations from different parts of the Empire (from Lydia in the west to India in the east) bringing tribute and presents to the Great King.

The exhibition is divided into the following sections:

Introduction

´ I am Darius, the Great King, king of kings, king of Persia, king of lands, son of Hystapses, grandson of Arsames an Achaemenid. ´ (Bisitun inscription of Darius I)

This section will introduce the visitor to the history, geography and material culture of the Persian, or Achaemenid, Empire. Central to this is the figure of the Great King himself.

The Great King has absolute authority. He is the central figure; without him, the edifice collapses. Darius is represented by a cast of a life-sized statue found in Susa but originally from Egypt. This dark-grey stone statue is a wonderful embodiment of Persian Kingship. With Egyptian hieroglypic decoration and inscriptions on the base (recording all the provinces of the Empire) and cuneiform inscriptions in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian on the robes, this piece immediately encompasses much of the Empire. We do not know what his head looked like, but a fragment of a head from another statue could give an indication.

The foundation inscription from Susa describes how for the construction of his palace Darius brought materials and workmen from all around his Empire (from Babylonia, Assyria, Asia Minor, Egypt, India, and so on). This shows the basically eclectic nature of Persian art and architecture. Also here will be probably one of the most iconic objects to have survived from the formative period of the Empire: the ´Cyrus cylinder´. Sometimes known as the ´first declaration of human rights´, it shows religious toleration and a respect for the gods of other peoples. It is Cyrus, the Bible records, who released the Judaeans from their Babylonian captivity, to return to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem.

The Palace

´ This palace which I built at Susa: its materials were brought from afar ... The goldsmiths who worked the gold were Medes and Egyptians. ´ (Foundation Charter from Susa)

From the didactic, introductory section the visitor steps into the heart of the exhibition, the Palace, where numerous key elements and themes are addressed.

Above all, however, the theme of this section is palaces and particularly those of Persepolis and Susa. In the ancient Near East it was traditional for kings to put foundation deposits beneath their buildings, and in the apadana at Persepolis these consisted of gold and silver plates that are now amongst the greatest treasures of the Republic of Iran. One of these silver plates, with a trilingual inscription of Xerxes, will be in the exhibition.

Through architectural pieces the visitor will experience some of the splendour and scale of Persepolis. Features, like human-headed bull capitals and massive, over-sized lions´ paws, juxtaposed with site images, will give the visitor a feel for the enormity of the actual site.

The decoration of the palaces will be represented by carved stone slabs showing priests, servants, and tributaries, and glazed-brick panels with pictures of guards. All these reliefs contain a wealth of detail and show many items which can actually be paralleled amongst the objects in the exhibition. Smaller fittings, like balustrades, and gold and bronze gate bands, will provide a flavour of the interior decoration at these palaces.

Also in this section are examples of some of the magnificent portable objects which were found in the palaces at Persepolis, such as the stone guardian dog and a monumental bronze stand in the form of three prowling lions.

The Royal Table

Inside their palaces, travelling through the Empire, and on campaign, Persian kings enjoyed a lavish lifestyle to aid their authority. This is reflected in the exhibition by a range of gold and silver vessels, all intricately decorated, and some inscribed. These are gold and silver bowls, horn-shaped drinking cups (rhytons), trays in beautifully polished stone and a range of vessels and utensils. This glittering assemblage is a testimony to the skills of the Persian metalsmiths.

Jewellery and Personal Ornaments

Just as the wealth and splendour of the Persian court and nobility is shown by the dazzling range of tableware, so it is by the jewellery they wore. There are collections of wonderfully intricate bracelets, earrings, necklaces and pendants from Pasargadae, Susa and the Oxus Treasure. Such jewellery can be seen represented on reliefs and on glazed bricks in the exhibition.

Religion and Burial

´ Ahura-Mazda is a great god, who created this earth, who created the sky, who created man, who created happiness for man, who made Darius king, one king among many, one lord among many. ´ (Foundation Charter from Susa)

Little is known about the religious beliefs of the Persians, and this exhibition will provide the opportunity to review the evidence. It seems certain that the kings worshipped Ahura-Mazda, but whether they were orthodox Zoroastrians is uncertain.Probably belonging to a Zoroastrian tradition are a large number of gold votive plaques and statuettes from the Oxus Treasure. The existence of parallel religious traditions is demonstrated by amulets and representations in Egyptian style and by references in clay tablets.

Some of the wealth of the burials of this time is shown by the grave goods from a royal grave at Susa which will be reconstructed for the audience.

Administration and the Economy

´ ... the Persians say that Darius was a huckster ... for Darius looked to making a gain in everything ´ (Herodotus)

The Empire was incredibly well-administered: there were provinces (satrapies) governed by satraps. There was an advanced bureaucracy with an imperial postal service that used a complex road network. The ´Royal Road´ ran from Sardis to Susa and preserved letters provide an insight into the world of a courier in the Empire. The administration was strengthened and centralised in the reigns of Darius and Xerxes.

Likewise, although centred in the palaces, the administration of the Empire provides insights into far-off places. Documents written in Aramaic and clay tablets inscribed in Elamite are testimony to administrative arrangements. Here, various pieces in different scripts can show the diversity of the populations and the fact that so many languages were used shows a tolerance, albeit probably based on pragmatism. We even have example of tablets being translated in the palace. Finally, the content of many of the documents give fascinating insights into Persian society - for example, women with newly-born babies were allocated extra rations.

Commerce was facilitated across the Empire by the use of a standard royal coinage, and by a tolerance of local coinages. Highly ornate bronze lion weights give an indication of sophisticated of storage and redistribution systems. An amphora from Sidon with a seal of the King/Satrap shows the close involvement of the imperial authorities in trade.

Transport and Warfare

´ The Persians teach their sons, between the ages of five and twenty, only three things: to ride a horse, use the bow, and speak the truth ´ ( Herodotus )

The Persian Empire, at some 7,511,000 square kilometres (2,900,000 square miles) roughly that of the Roman and Han Chinese Empires at their peak, could not have been maintained without a good system of communication and transport, and without an effective army, and it is these themes that are explored in this section.

The armed might available to the king is a significant topic in Achaemenid Persian art, and is represented on palace reliefs (in the form of the Persian guardsmen possibly to be identified as the so-called ´Immortals´, 10,000 strong according to Greek sources) and in the minor arts, such as the horsemen featured on seals.Impressive representations of Persian guardsmen will be in the exhibition as on the two glazed-brick panels from Susa and on numerous stone reliefs and casts. Horses and horsemen also feature throughout the exhibition, and on seals showing hunting and combat in this section. Weaponry and equipment will be explained through display of the akinakes or sword scabbard from the Oxus Treasure, parts of a gorytos or bow-case from Deve Hüyük and the Oxus Treasure, and arrowheads from Persepolis (plus depictions on reliefs and casts).

The topic of riding, horses and horse-harness, and horse-drawn vehicles will be illustrated through examples of horse-bits and harness elements and depictions on seals and reliefs. The wonderful gold models of chariots from the Oxus Treasure will be combined with photographs and drawings of actual chariots of the same type from Salamis in Cyprus, as well as similar bronze and stone models from the Louvre and British Museum collections.

Persian Expansion

This section shows the contacts and interface with outlying portions of the Empire, such as Egypt, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and of course Greece, where hostile relations led to several conflicts including the Graeco-Persian wars. As well as highlighting influences from contemporary cultures there will be objects from abroad, such as a statue of ´Penelope´ and a monumental bronze weight from Miletus in Asia Minor.

Discovery of Ancient Persia

´ The very venerable appearance of this ruin (tomb of Cyrus) instantly awed me … I sat for nearly an hour on the steps, contemplating it until the moon rose on it; and I began to think that this in reality must be the tomb of the best, the most illustrious, and the most interesting of Oriental Sovereigns. ´ (Claudius James Rich, 1821)

In this concluding section the exhibition examines how the tradition of ancient Persia survived in Iran and how ancient Persian civilization became known to the west. This is shown through engravings of early travellers such as Jean Chardin (1643 -1713) and Cornelis de Bruijn (1652 - 1727).

It is also shown how cuneiform script was deciphered by Hincks and Rawlinson in the 19th century, using the Persian ´Rosetta Stone´: the Bisitun Inscription.

Full rate 8 GBP
Senior citizens 7 GBP
Students 6 GBP
14-18 years 4 GBP
Under 14s free
Season ticket (limited availability) 20 GBP
Groups Special admission rates apply for groups of 10 or more

3.50 GBP

Exhibition operates on a timed ticket entry system. To guarantee the entry time of your choice advance booking is strongly recommended.

Book tickets through the British Museum box office
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Illustrated exhibition catalogue - including vital commentaries on Ancient Persia´s history, languages, architecture, religion and legacy, is available in the Museum, by telephoning 0800 085 0864 or online at www.britishmuseum.co.uk/product.aspx?ID=1025