Squeeze Of Foundation Inscription Of Darius I At Persepolis (Iran, Persepolis, Southern Terrace Wall)

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It was able to spend time at the museum on loan from Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery as part of Tools: Extending Our Reach.

A squeeze is essentially a molded negative impression of a carved surface. Early western travelers to the ruins in Egypt, Greece, and the Middle East often brought along draftsmen to make drawings of ancient monuments and sculptures. But in the 18th-century, the practice of recording the reliefs and inscriptions from ancient monuments by molding wet paper "squeezes" heralded a new age of scientific documentation. These inscriptions from monuments preserve information about their construction, and the squeezes aided Western scholars in deciphering and reconstructing the texts. In addition, the texts made possible the instruction and training of new generations of philologists, just as casts of sculptures were employed to teach students of art and history. Interestingly, these impressions also became (unintentionally) receptacles for pigments that were and stripped off in the squeeze-making process. This is among fifty-seven squeezes made by Ernst Herzfeld at Persepolis.

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Tools: Extending Our Reach.