The National Museum of Iran holds the finest collection of Persian antiquities anywhere in the world — objects from Persepolis, Susa, Pasargadae, and dozens of other sites spanning 7,000 years of continuous civilisation. The building itself, a brick vaulted structure designed in the 1930s by French architect André Godard, is an intelligent interpretation of Sasanian palace architecture in modern materials.
The collection's highlights include cuneiform tablets from Persepolis recording the administrative accounts of Darius the Great (showing that workers were paid in grain rations, not as slaves), arrowheads and horse equipment from the Medes, Achaemenid gold and silver vessels, and Parthian bronze sculptures. The Sasanian gallery has intricate silver dishes showing hunting scenes of a technical quality that was not surpassed in metal repoussé until much later in European history. The Islamic-era wing covers ceramics, manuscripts, and textiles from the early Islamic period through the Safavid. Buy the English-language guidebook at the entrance — the in-gallery labelling is inconsistent.