TEHRAN –A total of 120 historical relics, being kept in Azarbaijan Museum in Tabriz, northwestern East Azarbaijan province, have undergone some rehabilitation works, the provincial tourism chief has announced. 

Some 120 movable and metal historical properties of the Azarbaijan Museum, discovered during excavations in recent years, have been restored by the private sector under the supervision of the province’s cultural heritage experts, Alireza Quchi said on Monday. 

The project involves cleaning, corrosion and sediment detection, desalination, strengthening, reconstruction, and final fixing of the historical objects, the official added. 

Soaked in history and culture for millennia, Tabriz embraces several historical and religious sites, including the Jameh Mosque of Tabriz and Arg of Tabriz, and UNESCO-registered Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex to name a few. The city became the capital of the Mongol Il-Khan Mahmud Gazan (1295–1304) and his successor. Timur (Tamerlane), a Turkic conqueror, took it in 1392. Some decades later the Kara Koyunlu Turkmen made it their capital, it was when the famous Blue Mosque was built in Tabriz.

The city retained its administrative status under the Safavid dynasty until 1548 when Shah Tahmasp I relocated his capital westward to Qazvin. During the next two centuries, Tabriz changed hands several times between Persia and Ottoman Empire. During World War I, the city was temporarily occupied by Turkish and then Soviet troops.

Glimpses of metalworking in Iran

During the 5th and 4th millennia BC in Iran, craftsmen were able to create enough heat to reach temperatures required for the melting of most of the then known raw materials, and thus extract metals, according to Encyclopedia Iranica.

On top of that copper-smelting techniques became well known in various parts of Iran in this period. With the advancement of the knowledge of metallurgy in the Achaemenid era, finely crafted copper and bronze objects were created, continuing through ancient times.

Although copper is mentioned in geographical texts much less often than precious metals, it appears to have been mined over wide areas of Persia in early Islamic times.

In a travelogue inscribed by the medieval Arab traveler Abu Dolaf, he wrote about the Neyshabur copper mine though the extent of the deposits in Iran became known only from accounts of European travelers from the Safavid period onwards.

Sir John Chardin (1643-1713), for instance, wrote that “copper is found in Sari, Khorasan, and Qazvin. However, Iranian copper is not malleable. It has to be mixed with copper from Sweden and Japan to make it soft”.

ABU/MG