The display cases contain some unique exhibits from the time of the Parthian Empire – a state that was situated to the south and south-east of the Caspian Sea, on the territories of present-day Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. When it was under the control of the Seleucids (as heirs to Alexander the Great), the art of this region combined features characteristic of the civilizations of its conquerors. Alongside an ivory rhyton and Parthian documents from a wine store, you can see unique fragments of a relief from the city of Persepolis that was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire in the 5th–4th centuries BC.
Particularly interesting are the seals and a detail of a glazed ceramic relief that come from Susa, one of the most ancient cities in the world. In the 4th–1st millennia BC it was the capital of Elam, which was conquered by the Babylonians and then by the Persians. The ancient Elamite ceramics are astonishingly elegant.
