Royal Museum
...tools from the ancient Iran. Indeed, metals could be modelled and converted into art pieces during the bronze and the iron age of the Iranians. The art pieces could take various forms and shapes. The jaguar is a symbol that is often found in their statuettes and other art tools; the preciseness and beauty of the art pieces are various regarding to the age they were made. It is interesting to know that a certain fashion was existing regarding to the rareness of the raw materials; when a raw material was rare (e.g. iron), people were very proud to have and wear fashionable items in this material. When the raw material became more and more accessible, the fashion simply disappeared and the ex-fashionable material was substituted for another. To illustrate this phenomenon, one could give the example of iron; iron was a very fashionable material when it was discovered. It was melted and converted into different art pieces. Nevertheless, when the techniques evolved and even that the iron was used to construct weapons, the fashion was completely finished. Other raw materials like bronze or gold were than considered as the valuable ones. In the Iranian department of the museum, they explained different methods used to estimate the age of the excavated items. One method that is very interesting was the method of the f...