Eleventh International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

Teenagers are always important museum visitors as the next generation. Their vision of national history can be understood as the visit an ancient history museum. The national identity of the next generations is firmly affected by how we narrate history in ancient museums for teenagers. We executed in-depth interviews with 13-18 years old people who visiting Persepolis Museum as the greatest ancient museum in Iran. We obtained saturation in the sixteenth interview but we continued to the thirty-secondinterview. We asked about their experience of visiting Persepolis and how it changed their view of their country and other ancient civilizations. The influence of Persepolis on teenagers is great. The Achaemenian heritage for Iranian teenagers is tending to an imperialist and non-religious government which rules other civilizations by military and cultural power. Their vision to the around civilizations such as ancient Egypt was dismissive and to the western civilization such as Roman civilization was aggressive. Generally, the experience of visiting the Persepolis heats racist emotions. It is momentous how we narrate history for young people who are the next generation to make their identity, friends, and enemies, and their expectations for the present and future. It can help move us toward peace or blind racist challenges.