Iran Restores Sassanid King Statue

Shapur ruled with his father Ardashir I the founder of the Sasanian dynasty. They are noted for their wars against Rome. JBOC

Iran Restores Sassanid King Statue

Statue of Sasanian Persian King Shapur

Statue of Sasanian Persian King Shapur full

Iranian cultural heritage experts are planning to restore the statue of the Sassanid king Shapur I in the southern Fars province.
The restoration project will start soon after Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization provides the necessary funding, Presstv reported.
Located in the cave of Shapur, the seven-meter-tall statue of the second Sassanid King was made of a stalagmite about 1,800 years ago.
The sculpture was pulled down after the Sassanid dynasty collapsed about 1,400 years ago and part of one of its legs was broken. Parts of his arms were also smashed about 70 years ago as a result of an earthquake.
A team of Iranian experts did some restorations in 1957, raising it again on iron and cement feet.
Although their work partially ruined the artistic integrity of the artifact, it could prevent further damage.
The new restoration plan will be a joint project of the cultural heritage office of Fars province and Pasargadae Research Center.

Sassanid Dynasty
The Sassanid Empire was ruled by the Sassanid Dynasty from 224 to 651. The Sassanid Empire was recognized as one of the two main powers in Western Asia and Europe alongside the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine Empire for a period of more than 400 years.
The Empire was founded by Ardeshir I, after the fall of the Arsacids and the defeat of the last Arsacid king, Artabanus IV. The Empire lasted till Yazdegerd III lost control of his empire in a series of invasions from the Arab Caliphate. During its existence, the Sassanid Empire encompassed all of today’s Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Dagestan), southwestern Central Asia, most of Turkey, certain coastal parts of the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf area, and areas of southwestern Pakistan.
The Sassanid era, during Late Antiquity, is considered to have been one of Iran’s most important and influential historical periods. In many ways the Sassanid period witnessed the highest achievement of ancient Persian civilization, and constituted the last great Iranian empire before the Muslim conquest and the adoption of Islam.
Persia influenced Roman civilization considerably during the Sassanids’ times, and the empires regarded one another as equals, as exemplified in the letters written by the rulers of the two states addressing each other as “brother”.
The Sassanids’ cultural influence extended far beyond the empire’s territorial borders, reaching as far as Western Europe, Africa, China, and India. It played a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asiatic medieval art. This influence, and especially the dynasty’s unique, aristocratic culture, carried forward to the early Islamic world after the Muslim conquest of Iran.
Art 

Artistically, the Sassanid period witnessed some of the highest achievements of Persian civilization. Much of what later became known as Muslim culture, including architecture and writing, was originally drawn from Persian culture. At its peak the Sassanid Empire stretched from Syria to northwest India, but its influence was felt far beyond these political boundaries. Sassanid motifs found their way into the art of Central Asia and China, the Byzantine Empire, and even Merovingian France. Islamic art however, was the true heir to Sassanid art, whose concepts it was to assimilate while, at the same time instilling fresh life and renewed vigor into it. According to Will Durant:
“Sassanid art exported its forms and motifs eastward into India, Turkestan, and China, westward into Syria, Asia Minor, Constantinople, the Balkans, Egypt, and Spain. Probably its influence helped to change the emphasis in Greek art from classic representation to Byzantine ornament, and in Latin Christian art from wooden ceilings to brick or stone vaults and domes and buttressed walls.”
Sassanid carvings at Taq-e Bostan and Naqsh-e Rustam were colored; so were many features of the palaces; but only traces of such painting remain. The literature, however, makes it clear that the art of painting flourished in Sassanid times; the prophet Mani is reported to have founded a school of painting; Ferdowsi speaks of Persian magnates adorning their mansions with pictures of Iranian heroes; and the poet al-Buhturi describes the murals in the palace at Ctesiphon.
When a Sassanid king died, the best painter of the time was called upon to make a portrait of him for a collection kept in the royal treasury.
Painting, sculpture, pottery, and other forms of decoration shared their designs with Sassanid textile art. Silks, embroideries, brocades, damasks, tapestries, chair covers, canopies, tents, and rugs were woven with patience and masterly skill, and were dyed in warm tints of yellow, blue, and green.
The two dozen Sassanid textiles that have survived are among the most highly valued fabrics in existence. Even in their own day, Sassanid textiles were admired and imitated from Egypt to the Far East; and during the Middle Ages they were favored for clothing the relics of Christian saints.
When Heraclius captured the palace of Khosru Parviz at Dastagerd, delicate embroideries and an immense rug were among his most precious spoils.
Famous was the “Winter Carpet”, also known as “Khosro’s Spring” (Spring Season Carpet) of Khosru Anushirvan, designed to make him forget winter in its spring and summer scenes: flowers and fruits made of inwoven rubies and diamonds grew, in this carpet, beside walks of silver and brooks of pearls traced on a ground of gold.
Harun Al-Rashid prided himself on a spacious Sassanid rug thickly studded with jewelry. Persians wrote love poems about their rugs.