TEHRAN - During the Middle Bronze Age, the Iranian Plateau experienced a short fluorescence of urbanism. Urban centers on the plateau, including Shahr-e Sokhteh, Hissar, Yahya, Shahdad, and Jiroft, were linked through an exchange network that connected the plateau with Central Asia, the southern coast of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, Elam, and Mesopotamia.

Highly desirable commodities in this network included copper from central and southeastern Iran and Oman, lapis lazuli from Badakhshan in Afghanistan and Quetta in Pakistan, and stone from southwestern Iran and Oman.

These materials reached their final destinations either in the form of raw material or as finished goods. Lapis lazuli workshops have been discovered at Shahr-e Sokhteh and Hissar, while Yahya and Jiroft seem to have been centers for carving various objects from steatite and chlorite.

A number of these carved products are on display in the ground floor of the Museum.  The object, depicted here, is a stone weight carved on both sides with figures of mythical heroes who grabs two cheetahs from their tails that are shown between two scorpions. This stone weight is on display at Iran Bastan Museum, at Iran National Museum.

The National Museum of Iran is somewhat chockfull of priceless relics that represent various eras of the country’s rich history. Its structure was completed in 1928 based on the design by French architect André Godard who was also an archaeologist and historian of French and Middle Eastern Art.

AFM/