TEHRAN -- Three statues of Penelope loaned by Italy and the Vatican to Iran were put on display in an exhibition at the National Museum of Iran on Monday.

The exhibition opened during a special ceremony attended by Italian Minister for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism Dario Franceschini, Vatican Head of Mission Archbishop Leo Boccardi, Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization Director Masud Soltanifar, and a large group of scholars.

Two Roman copies of the statue coming from the Vatican Museums and a smaller version was loaned by Rome’s Musei Capitolini.

The loan is a reciprocal action following Iran’s decision to lend a life-size copy of the statue, which was excavated in Persepolis in 1945, for a showcase at the Fondazione Prada in Milan in May. It returned home with its Italian and Vatican copies two weeks ago. It is currently kept at the National Museum of Iran.

“Cultural heritage is the outcome of interaction among cultures and a messenger of peace and friendship among nations over history,” Soltanifar said during the opening ceremony.

He also expressed his hope that such exhibitions help interactions and peace develop in the world.

In his short speech, Franceschini said that collaborations deepen the connections among nations and added that understanding may increase by means of art.

Boccardi also pointed to ISIL’s destruction of cultural heritage in Syria and praised Iran’s efforts for development of peace by means of art.

Iran’s Penelope was excavated in Persepolis by the Oriental Institute of Chicago.

It is surmised that the artifact was brought back to the Persian capital by Xerxes after the sacking of Athens.

It lay scattered in three fragments in the ruins of the Persepolis Treasury, a headless torso lying in Corridor 31, with its shattered right hand in Hall 38.

The circumstances of discovery recall the destruction of Persepolis by Alexander the Great in spring 330 BC. Before torching the palace, Alexander removed the gold stored in the Treasury and allowed his army to plunder the rest of its contents.

The statue is currently on display at the National Museum of Iran.

Penelope is a character of Homer’s Odyssey, one of the two great epic poems of ancient Greek literature. Penelope is the wife of the main character, the king of Ithaca, Odysseus (also known as Ulysses), and the daughter of Icarius and his wife Eurynome.

She waited twenty years for the final return of her husband from the Trojan War, while she had hard times in refusing marriage proposals from several princes for four years after the fall of Troy. For this reason, she is often regarded as a symbol of connubial fidelity.

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