TEHRAN -- The Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization announced on Monday that it has recently completed the production of a documentary about the ancient Iranian earthenware bowl bearing the world’s oldest example of animation.

Directed by Mohsen Ramezani, the 11-minute film gives viewers an introduction to the bowl, which was discovered in a grave at the 5200-year-old Burnt City by an Italian archaeological team a few years before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. However, the members of the team had not recognized the relationship between the pictures.
The artifact bears five images depicting a goat jumping up to eat the leaves of a tree.
Several years later, Iranian archaeologist Mansur Sajjadi, who afterwards was appointed director of the archaeological team working at the Burnt City, discovered that the pictures formed a related series.
“The earthenware bowl, which is wrongly known as ‘The Burnt City’s goat’, depicts the myth of ‘The Assyrian Tree of Life’ and a goat,” expert on ancient cultures and languages Delaram Keimanesh said during a ceremony held on Sunday to promote the production.
The Burnt City is located 57 kilometers from the city of Zabol in the southeastern Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchestan.