TEHRAN -- The Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization (CHTHO) Director Hamidreza Baqaii said that he hopes the Garden of Inscriptions, home to 33 models of ancient Iranian inscriptions, will stay in Tehran’s Niavaran Palace Museum.

The garden may be transported to Fars Province following CHTHO’s decision to transfer its Research Center to the province in line with the governmental policy for decentralization of its relevant organizations.
“The garden boosts the status of the Niavaran Palace Museum and increases the number of visitors for the museum,” Baqaii said.
However, he said that CHTHO’s Research Center and the Niavaran Palace Museum are responsible for deciding on this issue.
He said that it is better for the Research Center to devolve responsibility for the preservation of the garden to the museum.
The Garden of Inscriptions opened by CHTHO’s Research Center in the courtyard of the Niavaran Palace Museum in February 2009.
The models of inscriptions of the garden were created by the Shahriar Tandis and Peykare International Company (STPIC).
The STPIC copied the models from the original inscriptions, which are located in ancient Iranian sites.
“Most of the inscriptions were created by kings and out of the reach of the common people in order to safeguard them,” STPIC Managing Director Hossein Taqavi previously said.
The garden provides ordinary people and scholars alike with easy access to models of the inscriptions that are the same color and size as the originals.
Molding, making, and installation of the replicas took 12 years.
Taqavi said that most of the inscriptions are threatened by destruction from human and natural factors and the garden is a means to preserve the ancient inscriptions for future generations.
A part of the Kartir inscription carved on the Zoroaster’s Kaba at the Naqsh-e Rustam site in Fars Province vanished in 2006, just one year after it had been molded by the STPIC for the garden.
Photo: Replicas of a number of ancient Iranian inscriptions are seen on the ground of the Niavaran Palace Museum in Tehran in an undated photo. (ISNA/Mona Hubefekr)