TEHRAN - An Iranian national has donated two earthen jars, estimated to date back to millennia, to a museum in Bukan, northwest Iran.

The donor stated that the purpose of this work was to help protect the historical monuments and the [cultural] identity of the area, Bukan’s tourism chief said on Thursday, ILNA reported.

The objects date from the first millennium BC, the official added.

Located in West Azarbaijan province, Bukan is famed for embracing the ancient site of Qalaichi (Ghalay-chi), which has yielded a large number of decorative glazed objects connected to the Mannai civilization.

Mannai, also spelled Manna, was an ancient country surrounded by three major powers of the time namely Assyria, Urartu, and Media. It flourished in northwestern Iran in the 1st millennium BC.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Mannaeans are first recorded in the annals of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (reigned 858–824 BC) and are last mentioned in Urartu by Rusa II (reigned 685–645 BC) and in Assyria by Esarhaddon (reigned 680–669 BC). With the intrusion of the Scythians and the rise of the Medes in the 7th century, the Manneans lost their identity and were subsumed under the term Medes.

AFM