TEHRAN – Gorgan Archaeological Museum is set to host a loan exhibition of exquisite potteries, tiles, and porcelains.

Seven tiles and seventeen works of ceramics and porcelains will go on view at the exhibition, which will be running from May 24 to June 25.

The objects, according to organizers, have tightly been selected from the Islamic Arts’ treasure trove of the National Museum of Iran.

Being kept at the National Museum, the objects were unearthed from the ancient city of Gorgan in successive rounds of excavation, the museum director Jebrael Nokandeh has said.

“The objects mostly date from the Anushtegin era (1077 to 1231),” he said.

The ancient city of Gorgan was a prosperous hub of handmade tiles and porcelains in the medieval Islamic eras, Nokandeh said.

Gorgan, formerly Astarabad, is situated along a small tributary of the Qareh River, 37 kilometers from the Caspian Sea. Gorgan for long suffered from inroads of the Turkmen tribes who occupied the plain north of the Qareh River and were subjected to incessant Qajar-Turkmen tribal conflicts in the 19th century according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The ancient city of Gorgan was a prosperous hub of handmade tiles and porcelains in the medieval Islamic eras.Furthermore, Gorgan is famed for its ruined ancient defensive wall which is stretched for almost 200 kilometers. The ancient Great Wall of Gorgan was constructed from 420s CE to 530s as a northern frontier of the then mighty Persian Empire, which was then ruled under Sassanids.

The wall was involved in a series of wars first against the Hephthalites or White Huns and later against the Turks. Most parts of the gigantic monument are still hidden underneath the surface some segments have so far been unearthed and even restored to former glory.

The gigantic barrier is also more than three times the length of the longest late Roman defensive wall built from scratch, the Anastasian Wall west of Constantinople. The combined area of the forts on the Gorgan Wall exceeds that of those on Hadrian’s Wall about threefold.

AFM