Iran opens Garden of Inscriptions

Garden of Inscriptions, Niavaran Cultural Complex, Tehran, Iran

Iran’s Niavaran Cultural Complex has opened the world’s first Garden of Inscriptions, presenting petroglyphs as old as 5,000 years. 

The garden opened its doors to students and researchers, offering mollage images of inscriptions created based on the original rock carvings found in the country. 

“The Garden provides students with a good opportunity to study petroglyphs without visiting the original sites,” said head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage research Center, Seyyed Mehdi Mousavi. 

“The Garden of Inscriptions is not only meant to preserve historical relics, but also our ancestors’ thoughts and ideas,” he added. 

Located in the capital city of Tehran, the Garden of Inscriptions includes cuneiform, Akkadian, Elamite, Assyrian and ancient Persian scripts. 

Alphabetical scripts including Parthian and Pahlavi as well as Islamic calligraphy styles such as Kufic, Naskh, Nasta’liq and Cursive Nasta’liq have also been displayed. 

The oldest mollage in the collection belongs to a 2,000 BCE Akkadian inscription found in Iran’s western Kermanshah Province.