Azerbaijan Museum Ancient Artifacts and History
Explore the Azerbaijan Museum in Tabriz, one of Iran's most important regional museums where artifacts spanning from the prehistoric period through the Islamic era tell the story of northwestern Iran's role as a crossroads of ancient civilizations from Urartu to the Mongol Ilkhanate.
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Prehistoric Section
Begin in the prehistoric section where artifacts from the ancient settlements of Azerbaijan province — pottery, stone tools, and bronze objects — demonstrate the early human occupation of the region that is today northwestern Iran, with some pieces dating to the Chalcolithic period over 6,000 years ago.
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Urartian Artifacts
Examine the Urartian artifacts from the ancient kingdom that controlled much of what is now northwestern Iran and eastern Turkey in the 9th-6th centuries BCE, the bronze objects, inscriptions, and architectural fragments documenting a civilization that rivaled Assyria for control of the Near Eastern highlands.
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Achaemenid and Parthian Gallery
Walk through the Achaemenid and Parthian galleries where the integration of this region into successive Persian empires is documented through luxury objects, coins, and architectural fragments, the material culture showing how Iranian imperial traditions shaped the development of Azerbaijan province.
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Sasanid Objects
See the Sassanid-period objects where the silver plates, coins, and metalwork demonstrate the high artistic achievement of the last pre-Islamic Persian empire, Tabriz having been an important center during this period before the Arab conquest transformed Iranian civilization.
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Islamic Period Gallery
Explore the Islamic period gallery where ceramics, metalwork, and architectural fragments from the medieval Islamic centuries document the prosperity of Tabriz as a major city of the Islamic world, including the Ilkhanate period when Tabriz served as capital of the Mongol successor state that ruled Persia.
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Coin Collection
View the impressive coin collection spanning from the ancient Achaemenid period through the modern era, the numismatic sequence providing a timeline of the political history of northwestern Iran where Greek, Parthian, Sassanid, early Islamic, Mongol, and later Persian dynasties all left their marks in metal.