TEHRAN – A total of 54,672 Iranians and foreign nationals paid visits to the archaeological heritage exhibition of Spain’s Archeological Museum of Alicante (MARQ), which was held in Tehran for seven months.

Hosted by the National Museum of Iran, the large-scale exhibition displayed around 300 objects, some of which dating for millennia, ISNA reported on Saturday.

The exhibit was scheduled to be held from September 22 to April 14, but as the coronavirus outbreak in the country put everything on a halt, the exhibit came to an end in mid-March, said Jebrail Nokandeh, the director of the National Museum of Iran.

While international flight suspensions in response to the coronavirus pandemic, caused a delay in returning the artifacts to the Spanish museum, the National Museum of Iran launched an online visit and virtual tour of the exhibit, he added.

However, it was finally decided to collect the works without the presence of the representatives of the Archeological Museum of Alicante and the objects were returned to Spain on Wednesday, the official mentioned.

The exhibit was in return for a landmark Iranian exhibit titled “Iran, Cradle of Civilization” that the Spanish museum had hosted from March 14 to September 1, pulling in 101,108 visitors Spain and other nationalities.

“Iran, Cradle of Civilization” was previously on show at Drents Museum, Assen, the Netherlands, where it was well-received by museumgoers from June to November 2018.

“Iran, Cradle of Civilization” turned the spotlight on the earliest developments of agriculture and livestock farming from the very beginning to cuneiform clay tablets, gold beakers and ornaments, bronze weapons and beautifully painted ceramics associated with successive Iranian kingdoms as it featured nearly two hundred pieces of a large span of Iranian history, starting from pre-historical era to the Islamic period.

ABU/MG