Last Updated: Wednesday, 26 July 2006, 11:14 GMT 12:14 UK
Brown said the book explored "certain aspects of Christian history"
Eight previous editions of the Persian translation of Dan Brown's book will remain in the country's shops but no further versions can be produced.
The Da Vinci Code has sold 40 million copies worldwide and was turned into a film, which was not released in Iran.
Some Christians objected to its theory that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, with their descendants surviving today.
There were protests in several countries when the movie was released in May, and it was banned in places such as the Philippines' capital Manila and some Indian states.
A spokesman for Iran's culture ministry said that "based on the request of three Christian clerics" they had "decided to ban its re-publication".
There are believed to be about 100,000 Christians in Iran, a nation of some 69 million Muslims.
I took art history and we were told that Da Vinci redid The Last Supper many times because he kept experimenting. And it was in a monastery cafeteria anyway, meaning the pigments used were exposed to a lot of heat and steam from cooking. So it needed touch ups. There's no conspiracy.
It's like how older paintings are sometimes found under paint layers on canvasses or plaster. The materials were expensive and you couldn't just run to the store for more.
I took art history and we were told that Da Vinci redid The Last Supper many times because he kept experimenting. And it was in a monastery cafeteria anyway, meaning the pigments used were exposed to a lot of heat and steam from cooking. So it needed touch ups. There's no conspiracy.
It's like how older paintings are sometimes found under paint layers on canvasses or plaster. The materials were expensive and you couldn't just run to the store for more.
In a similar vein to this, marble statues we have from the Greeks and Romans are pale-yellow/white now, but they were originally painted, with traces of paint flakes still on a good number of them. The paint flaked off and nobody considered 'restoring' them. It's a similar story with surviving metal sculptures, too. What we see today is the result of centuries of corrosion, not the original finish as intended by the sculptors to be seen.
It's not even his own bullshit. I remember reading Holy Blood, Holy Grail forever ago - theories about the bloodline of Christ, templars, Rene le Chateaux (sp?) etc. Then some years later the Da Vinci Code came out and it's pretty much all their theories but turned into a conspiracy action novel. It drives me batshit when something openly known is suddenly treated by pop-culture as a revalation. I recall watching the movie Stigmata (also ancient) and about half-way through saying: "wait... Gospel of St. Thomas? Why are they all acting like this isn't in your local library?"
I have never seen the movie but I can't stand Tom Hanks so wouldn't have liked it anyway. It just goes to show the real money is not in discovering something, or creating it, but being the first to deliver it to the masses. Dan Brown, the Steve Jobs of the literary world.
