Tehran, May 24, IRNA – The statue of Khayyam by the renowned Iranian sculptor Hossein Fakhimi will be installed in the United States.

The idea of the sculpture and its unveiling in the US was approved by officials. Accordingly, Fakhimi signed a contract on the project, ISNA reported.

“I spent several months studying Khayyam and consulted several scholars. I knew he was a known poet, a great astronomer, philosopher and mathematician who contributed to many fields of science and I tried to portray all these characteristics in his statue,” Fakhimi said.

In 2002, five primary models were built on a small scale. After selecting the main model, the sculpture work began and took 2 months to complete. The whole process, from the beginning of the studies to the completion of the statue lasted 3 years.

The ‘Zij’ (generic name applied to Islamic astronomical books and tabulate parameters for astronomical calculations of the positions of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets), as the symbol for astronomy, has been placed under the statue’s right hand. Khayyam’s mathematical equations and premises, mistakenly attributed to Blaise Pascal (French mathematician), are written on a tablet besides the statue. Also an astrolabe, or a very ancient astronomical computer for solving problems relating to time and the position of the Sun and stars, is placed nearby to show his deep knowledge of math. On the pedestal, his poems are written in Persian, English and Italian to illustrate his wisdom.

The two-meter tall statue (340cm including the height of the pedestal), made from an 18-ton monolith, was sent from Tehran to New York in September 2014 to be installed in Manhattan. “Several American states have asked for the statue; however the final decision has not been made, and officials are still working on the agreement,” Fakhimi said.

By IRNA