TEHRAN – Iranian authorities have confiscated tens of objects which are estimated to date from the 1st and 2nd millennium BC from an antique dealer in downtown Tehran.

On Saturday, the police was informed of illegal activity of a man in trading antiquities along the Manouchehri St. in downtown Tehran.  

“During an inspection of his shop, 50 coins, 16 mace heads, [an] axe head, small animal skulls, a sculpture of a dragon head, some flower pots, eight bracelets, antique candle holders and … were discovered and seized,” ISNA reported on Tuesday.

According to official cultural heritage experts, [some of] the recovered objects, which are made from bronze, date back to the 1st and 2nd millennium BC.

The experts say that the relics were probably unearthed in western Lorestan province, the report added.

Lorestan was inhabited by Iranian Indo-European peoples, including the Medes, in c. 1000 BC. Cimmerians and Scythians intermittently ruled the region from about 700 to 625 BC. Of ancient highlight of the region are the ‘Luristan Bronzes’ that comprise small cast objects decorated with bronze sculptures from the Early Iron Age, found in large numbers in Lorestan and Kermanshah provinces in western Iran.

Under the Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great, Lorestan was incorporated into the growing Achaemenid Empire in about 540 BC and successively was part of the Seleucid, Parthian, and Sassanid dynasties.

AFM/MG