TEHRAN – Two rarely-seen timepieces will be put on show at a Tehran museum dedicated to time instruments.

The timepieces include a ring watch and a fan-shaped clock being kept at the treasure trove of Zaman (Time) Museum, Mehr reported.

It would be the first time that two time-instruments will go on show at the Museum, the report said, adding “They both date from the 19th century.”

In addition, the museum plans to showcase some other rarely-seen clocks following an extensive restoration.

The museum showcases a wide variety of historical time-measuring structures, such as an oil clock, a sun clock, a water-powered mechanical clock, a candle clock, a sand clock (hourglass), a rope clock, and a dragon boat clock. It also displays those that once belonged to famous people, such as Nasserdin Shah Qajar, and Professor Mahmoud Hessabi, who was an Iranian nuclear physicist and senator.

On the first floor, visitors may tour clocks from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. Moreover, there are replicas of the various clocks, all of which combine art and craftsmanship. Some of these clocks are gifts from political figures from their travels to other countries and some from people’s personal property. Another interesting piece of art in this section is a bronze clock, covered with a thin layer of gold, made in France, which is decorated in the style of Louis XVI and shows the body of Homer, the epic Greek poet.

The second floor is dedicated to the display of Houshang Foroutan’s works. The reason for displaying his works in this museum is his collages, made of unused pieces of old clocks. On this floor, there is a circular display with clock repair tools. Other interesting sights on this floor are the clocks displayed from the Qajar period, such as the sun clock of Nasser al-Din Shah. In this part of the floor, there is an old astrolabe, which was an astronomical device and a permanent calendar. Elsewhere, there is a celestial sphere that was used to measure time.

AFM