Arabian Nights at the Museum

On Monday, I took my sister to the Museum of Natural History for her biology assignment. After taking notes in several exhibits, we decided to take a stroll through the Stout Hall of Asian Peoples. Wandering through displays and learning about India, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan and so on, we paused in front of miniature models of different moments from those countries. One showed ships from the Dutch East India Company docking in an Indian seaport, another showed a typical day in ancient Ur. Then, there was one depicting Iran, as seen below:



Looking at this, my sister noticed something hovering above the scene in the upper-right corner of the display. This is what she saw:



Yep, that's right, people, it's a man on a flying carpet, because, you know, it's the Middle East and all, and of course people flew around on flying carpets. There was no note of this in the description, so, it's a joke...right?