February 07 2020
Two German museums have indefinitely postponed exhibitions planned in cooperation with Iran for later this year, after insurers refused to provide cover for artefacts on loan because of heightened political tensions between Iran and the West.
In Frankfurt, an exhibition named Death in Salt. An Archaeological Investigation in Persia, was planned for the spring in concert with the National Museum of Iran in Tehran, the Zanjan Saltmen museum and the German Mining Museum in Bochum. At the Badisches Landesmuseum, the show The Persians was scheduled to open October 10 and run until April 2021, featuring 200 loans from Iranian museums.
The latter exhibition was to focus on the Achaemenid Empire (550 to 330 BCE), and life in the royal courts in cities such as Persepolis, Pasargadae and Susa. It was planned as an exchange, with the National Museum of Iran showing 150 Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities from the Karlsruhe Museum over the same period.
“The reason for postponing is that we couldn’t insure the objects given the political situation,” Eckart Kohne, the director of the Badisches Landesmuseum, told The Art Newspaper. “We have halted the project, but if conditions change and there is some stability in the region, we will renew our plans.”
For Frankfurt’s Archaeological Museum, payment transfers also posed a problem, says Wolfgang David, the museum’s director. “We were wondering if we would have to send cash via courier,” he said.
“We have been preparing this exhibition for two years,” David says. “The conditions were already difficult last year. But at the beginning of this year, our German transport company canceled and the insurance company withdrew its offer. Our Iranian colleagues are deeply disappointed.”
The Frankfurt show was to focus on the archaeological site at an Iranian salt mine in Chehr-∂abad, where the mummified victims of historic mine accidents were discovered. The finds, including mummies, textiles, leather items and tools, some as much as 2,500 years old and perfectly preserved in the salt, were to be among the exhibits.
The German Mining Museum in Bochum is still hoping to stage the show in the autumn, David says.