Damage to Two Seljuk Pottery Vessels Following the Collapse of a Display Wall at the National Museum

On Saturday, November 8, the director of the National Museum of Iran confirmed that the overturning of a glass wall of a display case in the museum has damaged two pottery vessels belonging to the Seljuk period. Jabrial Nokandeh, an archaeologist and the director of the National Museum of Iran, did not provide details about the damage to these historical objects and expressed 'no desire' to disclose the cause of the incident. However, given Mr. Nokandeh's remarks about the necessity of restoring these historical artifacts, it can be inferred that the damage to these items is significant. According to ISNA, 'the overturning of a glass partition wall of a display case in the Islamic Era Museum,' a subsidiary of the National Museum of Iran, caused damage to two valuable pottery vessels from the Seljuk period. It appears that the glass wall of a 'horizontal type' display case fell onto the pottery vessels. The director of the National Museum referred to this incident as a 'bitter accident' and promised to prevent such occurrences in the future. He also pledged that all display cases in the museum would be 'technically inspected to ensure that such incidents do not happen again.' The Islamic Era Museum of Iran, built in 1996 over an area of about four thousand square meters across three floors, was closed on July 1, 2006, with the aim of expanding certain spaces and re-evaluating the display of artifacts, but its reopening took nine years and even involved the oversight of the General Inspection Organization. This museum was finally reopened in September 2015.