The great scientific adventure of Italian archaeology is the theme of an exhibition which opened on Tuesday (Jan. 26) at the National Museum of Oriental Art in Rome.
The exhibition, which is being held during a visit by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, is sponsored by AGI, and promoted by the Italian Institute For The Middle And Far East, the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the “Giuseppe Tucci” National Museum of Oriental Art, agi.it reported.
“Italian archaeological research in Iran. Excavations and restorations”, uses hundreds of mostly unpublished photographs to trace a vast range of academic activities. It began in the late 1950s, when the president of the Italian Institute for the Middle and Far East, the late Giuseppe Tucci, an Italian scholar of oriental cultures carried out the first archaeological exploration in Sistan.
The institute focused on the “Burnt City” of Shahr-e Sukhteh, an area packed with exceptional artefacts. The latest agreement between Italy and Iran dates from March last year, and on Friday it was announced that the University of Zabol has invited Italy to resume cooperation following the lifting of sanctions.
Iran has always been seen as a cultural and economic bridge between Italy and Asia. The visit of President Rouhani comes 45 years after a commemoration of Cyrus the Great, held in Rome at the Capitoline by Tucci, on May 25, 1971, which marked the celebrations for the 2,500th anniversary of the conqueror.
Cyrus’s successes, said Tucci, (1894-1984) cannot just be seen as prodigious achievements or the result of prudent management, instead “it is Asia reaching out to the West. It is a new world situation, the reawakening of a humanism born precisely from the merging together of acquired treasures, of unexpected ferments of proliferous combinations, and of prodigious rapprochements”.
The ancient meanings of history offer themselves once more for the present and for the future, “because nothing is more present than what has been.”
Cyrus was the first to sense the unity of the Euro-Asian continent which still after so many centuries, “we have not managed to consolidate on the basis of mutual trust and understanding,” Tucci further said.
“This legacy has come down to modern times through the Safavid dynasty that reunified Persia in the 16th century.”
