TEHRAN -- The curator of Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace Museum was absolutely amazed when he saw the Ottoman artifacts on display at Tehran’s Malek Museum during his recent visit.

Ilber Ortayli, who has been the curator of the Topkapi Palace Museum since 2004, was invited to Iran by the Iranian Academy of Arts. He is a leading Turkish historian and a professor of history at Galatasaray University in Istanbul and at Bilkent University in Ankara.
“I already knew about the reputation of the museum,” Ortayli said on Tuesday.
“Since the museum holds a number of rare artifacts relating to the Ottoman Empire, it was very important for us to see the museum,” he added.
“The pen cases bearing paintings which depict Iranian and Ottoman soldiers in the Battle of Chaldiran, and the painting tableaus portraying the same scene were amazing,” he exclaimed.
Ortayli described the manuscript Turkish books and documents as historically invaluable and said that his country is interested in familiarizing Turkish scholars with the artifacts.
Located in the vicinity of Baq-e-Melli downtown Tehran, the Malek Museum is home to over 18,000 historical manuscripts in various languages.
It also contains collections of carpets dating back to the Qajar era and gold and silver coins from the Achaemenid era to the Qajar era.
Wooden pen cases, chairs, tables, and paintings dating from the Safavid era to the Qajar era, as well collections of stamps and some other objects are on display in the museum, which is a Qajar era building.
The Malek Museum is affiliated to the Astan-e Qods Museum of Mashhad.