National Jewels Museum
The National Jewels Museum Of Iran is the imperial crown jewels of Iran and it’s also one of the Tehran Tourist Attractions constitute the largest jewelry collection in the world. The National jewels Museum of Iran include several crowns and decorative thrones, 30 tiaras and numerous aigrettes, bejeweled swords and shields, as well as a vast number of unset precious gems.
What to see inside the National Jewels Museum of Iran?
The collection inside the National Jewels Museum of Iran includes numerous plates and other dining services cast in precious metals and encrusted with gems, and several other more unusual items (such as a gemstone globe) collected by the Iranian monarchy during its 2,500-year existence. The collection is housed at The Treasury of National Jewels, but is known colloquially as the Jewelry Museum. It is situated inside the Central Bank of Iran on Tehran’s Ferdowsi Avenue and next to German Embassy.
The museum is open to the public from 14:00 to 17:00, except on Thursdays and Fridays. The museum has guides with knowledge of Persian, English, French and Russian languages. There are also guide booklets available in English, Persian, French, Russian, German, Japanese and Arabic.
Most of the items now in the collection were acquired by the Safavid Dynasty, which ruled Iran from 1502 to 1736 AD. By 1729, however, after an internal struggle of nearly a decade, Nader Shah Afshar successfully drove the Afghans from Iran. In 1738, the Shah launched his own campaign against the Afghan homeland, raiding the cities of Kandahar and Kabul as well as several principalities in northern India, and sacking Delhi in India.
The victorious Nader Shah returned to Iran with what remained of the plundered crown jewels as well as several other precious objects now found in the Iranian Treasury. These included several heavily jewel-encrusted thrones and numerous diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires and other precious gemstones.
Works of European painters presented to the Qajar court are housed in the Hoze Khane, The Hoze Khane was used as a summer chamber during the Qajar ear. A special cooling system pumped water form a subterranean system of streams (qanats) and in this case the king’s qanat into small ponds inside the chambers. Hoz means pool, thus the name Hoz Khane. The system was designed to pass through as many summer rooms as was necessary. The water was then channeled outside to irrigate the royal gardens.
Four of the most prominent acquisitions from this conquest were the Kouh-e-Nour (Mountain of Light) that is now part of the British Royal treasure, and Darya-ye Nour (Sea of Light) diamonds (both originating from India and still among the largest in the world), the Peacock Throne.
In 1937, during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, ownership of the Imperial treasury was transferred to the state. The jewels were placed in the vaults of the National Bank of Iran, where they were used as collateral to strengthen the financial power of the institution and to back the national monetary system