Bundeskunsthalle Bonn | DE
13.04.2017 – 20.08.2017
The exhibition draws the veil from the long hidden treasures of the early Iranian civilisations that flourished between the seventh millennium BC and the rise of the Achaemenids in the first millennium BC. From the snow-capped peaks of the Alborz and Zagros mountain ranges to the blazing heat of the Loot Desert, Iran is a country of contrasts. But those forbidding deserts and mountain ranges shelter fertile valleys that have been inhabited by people ever since sedentism.
«Out beyond ideas of right and wrong doing, there is a field. I will meet you there.» Rumi
These valleys were the cradle of the Iranian civilisations, which culminated in the rise of the Achaemenid Empire. The mountains provided shelter and raw materials. The wild animals and mythical creatures that populated the wilderness found visual representation in scenes of animals fighting on stone vessels from the gravesites of Jiroft, on imaginatively painted ceramics from Susa and in the battle scenes on the gold bowl from Hasanlu.
View from Samirat over the dry river bed of the Naft Sefid. Khuzestan Province, Southwest Iran
© Barbara Helwing
Link to the exhibition: IRAN. Ancient Cultures between Water and Desert.
