TEHRAN -- Following the nomination of 2004 as `Iran's Commemoration Year' in France, ancient symbols of Iran's Cultural Heritage will be displayed at the Arab World Institute in Paris.

The exhibition is to be held with an aim of introducing Iran's cultural heritage and to this end a selection of objects representing 15 centuries of Iran's Islamic civilization will be put on display, IRNA reported.

Head of Iran's National Museum Mohammadreza Kargar announced that another exhibition is also to be held in 2004 on the selected ancient artifacts of the Bronze Age, between the second and fourth millennia B.C.

Evidences of the Bronze Age have been discovered by French archaeologists through years of excavation and archaeological survey conducted at ancient sites in the Central Asian area, specially in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Since similar objects have been discovered at various areas in Iran such as northeastern, eastern and southeastern Iran, the influence of the 2,000 year-old Bronze Age culture, between fourth and second millennia B.C., might be surveyed as well.

Besides the said objects some artifacts discovered during the archaeological excavations conducted at the neighboring states of Afghanistan and Pakistan will also be displayed.

The outcome of the excavations underlines that the said culture was centered at Iran and that it extended to Afghanistan and Pakistan as well.

Also an exhibition on the culture and art of the said historical era is to be held in a French museum to introduce the `Great Persian Empire'.

In a three-day conference held at Iran's National Museum in September 2001, the outcome of 100 years of survey by the French archaeologists was reviewed.

The conducted surveys was welcomed by the French researchers and gave them an incentive to nominate 2004 as `Iran's Commemoration Year'.