Heroic Ages – Thousand Years Persian Book of the Kings

18 March 2011 – 19 June 2011

Museum of Islamic Art, Bodestr. 1-3, 10178 Berlin, Germany

An exhibition of Shahname manuscripts and single folios from the collection of the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin and the Berlin National Library

Organised by

The Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin (SMB) and and The National Library, Berlin (SPK).

Supported by

The Iran Heritage Foundation, Bahari Family Foundation and Total.

Introduction

The National Epic Shahname by the poet Ferdausi is one of the great works of world literature. In nearly 50,000 verses, it recounts a partly mythical, partly historical past of the Iranian people right up to the Islamic conquest of Persia.

Legendary are the stories of its famous kings and heroes, especially of Rustam who so fearlessly defended the Persian kingdom in many spectacular battles against the hostile Turanians from the North. The epic also relates the important features of ideal kingship. It narrates the battle between Good and Evil, and is a constant reminder that Life is just a transitory memento. Ancient Kings of Persia figure in prominently, like Shah Ardashir I, the founder of the Sasanian Dynasty (224-239/40) or Shah Bahram V Gur, the fourteenth Sassanid King (421-438): Historical figures transformed by poetic imagination into quasi-mystical figures transformed by poetic imagination into quasi-mystical heroes. The exhibition will thus confront archaeology of these periods with the stories of those figures both historical and heroic, and sometimes mythical in the Shahname.

Beside a thematic show of the Shahname ‘through the ages’ with masterpieces of Persian painting, the exhibition will present the rich and extremely rare Sasanian collection of the Museum of Islamic Art thus illuminating the important historical past of the mythical legend.

The exhibition will include around 50 manuscripts and folios from the Keir Collection, the National Library, and the Museum of Islamic Art (amongst others the world famous folios from the yet far too little known Diez-Albums, the Great Mongol Shahname and the Shah Tahmasp Shahname) as well as medieval ceramics, textiles, metalwork and weapons plus artifacts from the Sasanian collection. These artworks will be supplemented by important loans from the Berlin Museum of Asian Arts, the Berlin Museum of Ethnology and the Deutsche Historische Museum (DHM).

Admission

Free

Museum für Islamische Kunst
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – SPK

Bodestraße 1-3

10178 Berlin

Tel: +49 (0)30-2090-5405

Fax: +49 (0)30-2090-5402