A virtual museum featuring ancient Iranian rugs has been launched to mark National Cultural Heritage Week that began on Friday.
The Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism website is hosting the virtual exhibit.
"It offers an opportunity for those interested in museum exhibitions to access part of the historical and cultural collections of [conventional] carpet museums and takes the audience from across the globe on a cultural and artistic tour over the Internet," CHTN quoted an institute official, Shokoufeh Mesbahi, as saying on Wednesday.
The virtual initiative also spares the curators the maintenance cost of traditional museums and allows them to take their museum resources to a wider audience, the cultural heritage expert said.
"It makes it possible for museum organizers to employ modern ways of introducing and showcasing their artworks and to bring their rug collections to more eyes. It frees them from the space restrictions of physical exhibitions and difficulties of transferring museum objects."
Given the range and number of the rugs on exhibit at museums across the country, many of which have yet to be accounted for, the website has been designed to gradually build up its database, Mesbahi said.
"The first section of the museum, themed Luminaries and Kings, is currently ready to be opened to the public," she added.
