azerbaijan museum

Azerbaijan Museum is Iran’s second largest archaeological museum after the National Museum of Iran. It is one of the most significant museums in the country. You can find the museum within walking distance of the Blue Mosque.

French archaeologist André Godard designed the simple building of the museum during the second Pahlavi era. In fact the building features local architecture. A big wooden door within a brick portal with two guardian stone rams leads you to the ground floor.

Prehistoric and pre-Islamic objects are on display in the ground floor of this three-story museum. The collection includes 7000-year-old earthenware found in Teppe Hasanlu (an archaeological site of an ancient city located in northwest Iran) and Esmailabad Teppe (an archaeological site in Malekan, eastern Azerbaijan). There is also a 3000-year-old goddess statute from Rostamabad (an archaeological site in Gilan Province). The statute underscores the high status of women in ancient Iran. You can also take a close look at skeletons unearthed from a 3000-year-old grave near the Blue Mosque. There is an interesting point about the burial style which the skeletons reveal. It shows that unlike other burial sites, man and woman were buried together and had a shared grave.

In the coins hall, coins from the Achaemenid Empire to Qajar era are on display. Moreover, the basement features the sculptures of Ahad Hosseini, which are allegorical sculptures depicting life and war. Old gravestones, ancient inscriptions, petroglyphs and stone sculptures are exhibits in a new part of Azerbaijan Museum.