Exhibition:
Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia (Achaemenid Persia)
9 September 2005 - 8 January 2006
Organised by: The British Museum in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation
Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DG
United Kingdom
Cyrus The Great Cylinder 539 BCE; British Museum, London
Ancient Persia was the largest and wealthiest state in the Ancient Near East, eclipsing Assyria and Babylonia and overshadowing Greece in the west. Between 550 BC and 330BC the Persians ruled an Empire that stretched from North Africa to the Indus Valley and from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea. This vast Empire, one of the largest of antiquity, was administered from the Persian homeland in South-West Iran and from capital cities such as Susa, Pasargadae and Persepolis, arguably the most magnificent site in the whole of the ancient world.
The exhibition shows the splendour of Ancient Persia as reflected in the architecture, the sumptuousness of the material culture, and the sophistication of the administration. This is the legacy of the Great Kings such as Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes.
Included in the exhibition will be substantial loans of material from the National Museum in Tehran, the Persepolis museum, and the Louvre in Paris. This will be the first time that many of the objects from Tehran have been outside Iran, and some of the more precious gold and silver items have never been shown before.
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