News: The Truth Behind the Tablets

The Truth Behind the Tablets 

Archaeology Magazine

Volume 65 Number 1, January/February 2012

by Andrew Lawler

The rush to document thousands of ancient texts before they are sent back to Iran, or sold, reveals the daily workings of the Persian Empire

Tens of thousands of clay tablets and fragments from Persepolis are written in cuneiform to express Elamite, an ancient language of western Iran.
(Courtesy Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, Oriental Institute)

Tensions between Iran and the United States have rarely run higher, with both governments sparring over alleged terror plots, disputing the nature of Iran’s nuclear program, and vying to influence the uprisings across the Arab world. But in Chicago and Boston courtrooms, the two countries have found rare common ground—neither wants ancient tablets from the royal palace of Persepolis in Iran to end up on the auction block. To the relief of scholars, two recent court rulings may give them their joint wish, preserving open access to what is the most significant source of information on the ancient Persian Empire uncovered to date.

In the early 1930s, during excavations of Persepolis, University of Chicago archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld unearthed tens of thousands of fragments of fragile clay tablets dating from about 500 B.C. The fragments were packed into 2,353 cardboard boxes and shipped to the university’s Oriental Institute. The Iranian government of the day allowed the export, with the understanding that the tablets would be translated and then returned. But the task of piecing together and understanding the vast number of fragments has been under way for more than seven decades and the majority of the collection remains in Chicago. Now, fearing loss of the archive, the university has moved into high gear to create thousands of digital images of the tablets, which record the day-to-day accounts of the empire during the reign of Darius the Great (521–486 B.C.) and include records of those traveling on behalf of the king, lists of workers’ rations, and careful notation of offerings made to deities.

Researchers hope to have most of this intensive effort completed within the next two years. To get the job done, the institute has assembled what Gil Stein, director of the Oriental Institute, calls a “dream team” of textual scholars, archaeologists, and technical experts in digital cataloguing to take images of the tablets and make them available for public use. Translations are also being done, though it will take much longer to complete that daunting task. “Whether they are seized for sale or the government of Iran demands them back, the tablets will be out of the building soon. We all understand how important and urgent this is,” says Stein.

To read more, find ARCHAEOLOGY in your local newsstand or bookstore, or click here to buy a copy of the issue online. And if you'd like to receive ARCHAEOLOGY in your mailbox, click here to subscribe.

  

Andrew Lawler is a contributing editor at ARCHAEOLOGY.

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Persepolis Fortification Archive Upload to InscriptiFact

The InscriptiFact Team reports in an email to registered users

We have just uploaded 2112 new images of 229 new texts from the Persepolis Fortification Archive. Most of these images are RTI images (Reflection Transformation Imaging). The Greek, Akkadian and Old Persian tablets are now posted.

In addition, we have added the Assyrian Reliefs from the Oriental Institute, RTIs of KTU 1.18, and RTIs of objects from USC's Archaeological Research collection and the Los Angeles Unified School District's Art and Artifact Collection.

 See here for a previous announcement about the PFA from Inscriptifact.

About InscriptiFact

The InscriptiFact Project is a database designed to allow access via the Internet to high-resolution images of ancient inscriptions from the Near Eastern and Mediterranean Worlds. The target inscriptions are some of the earliest written records in the world from an array of international museums and libraries and field projects where inscriptions still remain in situ. Included are, for example, Dead Sea Scrolls; cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia and Canaan; papyri from Egypt; inscriptions on stone from Jordan, Lebanon and Cyprus; Hebrew, Aramaic, Ammonite and Edomite inscriptions on a variety of hard media (e.g., clay sherds, copper, semi-precious stones, jar handles); and Egyptian scarabs. These ancient texts represent religious and historical documents that serve as a foundation and historical point of reference for Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the cultures out of which they emerged...

InscriptiFact Database Screens and Sample Searches

Examples of screens and searches in HTML format for viewing in a web browser.

Instructions for Using InscriptiFact (PDF)

Step-by-step instructions for conducting searches and retrieving images in InscriptiFact, in PDF format.

Instructions for Using the InscriptiFact Viewer (PDF)

Step-by-step instructions for using the InscriptiFact Viewer, featuring RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging) images, in PDF format.

Bibliographic References for Text and Publication Numbers (PDF)

One possible way to search for texts in InscriptiFact is by choosing "Text or Publication Numbers," i.e., common abbreviations used in the field of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. This PDF documents gives bibliographic information for the abbreviations or references used in InscriptiFact.

Application for User Name and Password (PDF)

Download this document and fax it as stated to obtain access to InscriptiFact.

Web Site for InscriptiFact Access

Click on this link to be taken to the download site for the InscriptiFact desktop client.

Web Site for InscriptiFact Standalone Viewer

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

OI Members Lecture: 'Of Faith and Fire Altars: New visual evidence for ritual in the seals and sealings of the Persian Empire'

Mark B. Garrison, of Trinity University, will be giving a lecture entitled 'Of Faith and Fire Altars: New visual evidence for ritual in the seals and sealings of the Persian Empire'.

• When: Wednesday, December 7, 2011 
• Time: 19:00 - 22:00

What was the role of Zoroastrian religion in the Persian Empire? This question has dominated much of the analyses of the royal inscriptions that invoke the god Auramazda. A critical resource in these inquiries has been the visual evidence. This lecture investigates the representation of "fire altars" by examining the early reigns of Darius I and Xerxes at their capital city of Persepolis. This tight focus gives us the advantage of dealing with only the most critical, formative period of the Persian Empire, when most of the visual and courtly protocols were established and canonized. Analyses of these sort can help us understand the complex connections between art, religion, and politics in the Achaemenid Persia.

Join us for a reception following the lecture in the Lasalle-Banks room.

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Manfred Mayrhofer's Onomastica Persepolitana

 Manfred Mayrhofer, who died 31 October 2011, was the author of Onomastica Persepolitana.

In this video, he talks about the book.  You can read more about him at his own website.


Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Persepolis and Ancient Iran at ASOR

See the full program and other information on the ASOR Annual Meeting

Thursday, November 17

SessionA15
Olympic
Archaeology of The Persian Empire: In Honor of David B. Stronach

Theme: This session is dedicated to David B. Stronach, one of the key figures of our era for the study of ancient Iran.
Sabrina Maras (University of California, Berkeley), Presiding

10:40
Introduction (5 min.)

10:45
Pierre Briant (Collège de France), “Archaeology, Iconography and Epigraphy in Achaemenid Asia Minor (2000-2011): A Fresh Look” (20 min.)

11:10
Margaret Root (University of Michigan), “Contemplations on the Pasargadae ‘Genius’” (20 min.)

11:35
Remy Boucharlat (Maison de l'Orient), “Water Courses, Pool and Aqueduct in Pasargadae” (20 min.)
12:00 Matthew W. Stolper (University of Chicago), “Recent Results from the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project” (20 min.)

12:25
Mark Garrison (Trinity University), “The Figure in the Winged Disk in Persepolitan Glyptic: Select New Evidence” (15 min.)

Thursday, November 17

 Session A22
California West
Archaeology of Iran I Theme: This session will focus on the archaeology of ancient Iran.
Ali Mousavi (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Presiding

2:00
Elspeth Dusinberre (University of Colorado), “Pasargadaeans in Ionia: A Talk in Honor of David B. Stronach” (20 min.)

2:25
Antigoni Zournatzi (National Hellenic Research Foundation), “Herodotus’ Mêdikos Logos and the Persians’ Legitimate Rule of Asia” (20 min.)

2:50
Elizabeth Carter (University of California, Los Angeles), “The Role of the Susiana Hinterlands in the Rise and Fall of the Middle Elamite Empire” (20 min.)

3:15
Jessica Nitschke (Waseda University, Tokyo), “Cross-Cultural Exchange in Iron Age Iran and the Genesis of Achaemenid Imperial Art” (20 min.)

3:40
Kim Codella (Cosumnes River College), “Achaemenid Gordion: The Deep Sounding at Gordian” (20 min.)

Friday, November 18

Session A43
California East

Archaeology of Iran II Theme: This session will focus on the archaeology of ancient Iran.
Renée Dreyfus (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco), Presiding

2:00
Introduction (5 min.)

2:05
Narges Bayani (University of Pennsylvania), Anne Bomalaski (University of Pennsylvania), David Massey (Ohio State University), and Christopher Thornton (University of Pennsylvania) “Tepe Hissar IIIC: A View from Treasure Hill” (25 min.)

2:35
Evan Carlson (University of California, Los Angeles) “Al-Untash-Napirisha (Choga Zanbil) as a Disembedded Capital in its Global Context” (25 min.)

3:05
Jack Green (University of Chicago) “Between East and West: Persian Period Burial Customs in the Jordan Valley” (25 min.)

3:35
Parisa A. Moghadam (State University of New York, Buffalo) “Intercultural Exchanges in Sassanian Eastern Territories and Central Asia” (25 min.)


Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Rick St. Hilaire comments on Rubin v. Government of Iran v. Boston MFA and Harvard

Massachusetts Court Dismisses Rubin v. Government of Iran v. Boston MFA and Harvard 
Thursday, September 29, 2011
CULTURAL HERITAGE LAWYER

 

A Massachusetts federal court has ruled that the Museum of Fine Arts and Harvard University will not lose their collection of ancient Persian objects to eight plaintiffs injured in a 1997 terrorist bombing. The United States District Court, District of Massachusetts, issued a five page opinion on September 15, 2011 denying the plaintiffs’ efforts to gain control over the artifacts to satisfy their multi-million dollar court judgment against the government of Iran.

Jenny Rubin and several other Americans were injured in Jerusalem after Hamas carried out three bombings. Because the terrorist group received backing from Iran, the eight plaintiffs sued the government of Iran in federal district court in Washington, DC, winning a $71.5 million default award after the Iranian government failed to show up to court. Since then, the plaintiffs have sought to recover that judgment.

The government of Iran would not be expected to pay the court award, so the plaintiffs searched for local Iranian assets to seize. One place they looked was Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts, where museums housed artifacts excavated from ancient Iran. The plaintiffs initiated a court action--known as an attachment--against the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Harvard, the Harvard University Art Museums, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, the Fogg Art Museum, the Sackler Museum, the Semitic Museums, and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. But the judge dismissed the plaintiffs’ case in his recent court order.

District Court Judge George O’Toole ruled that the plaintiffs could pursue their attachment action under the federal Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 so long as they could prove, under Massachusetts state law, that Iran owned the artifacts in the museums. But the plaintiffs could not supply this proof. Judge O’Toole wrote: “In the present case, the plaintiffs have not shown that the ‘goods, effects, or credits’ at issue here are property ‘of the defendant’ Iran." He added that “[d]espite extensive discovery, the plaintiffs are unable to sustain their burden of showing that any particular item held by the Museums is the property of Iran . . . . It is not enough simply to show that antiquities held by the Museums originated from sites within Iran.”

The court highlighted that the plaintiffs failed to prove that an Iranian cultural patrimony law declared ownership of the artifacts. Judge O’Toole wrote: “For example, the so-called ‘1930 Law’ [the plaintiffs’] cite does not automatically vest ownership of excavated antiquities in the government of Iran. In the first place, the 1930 Law does not on its face purport to vest ownership of excavated antiquities in the government. Moreover, the 1930 Law clearly contemplates that antiquities may be owned by private persons. . . . Additionally, other courts have concluded that the 1930 Law permits private ownership and is inconsistent with automatic government ownership of all antiquities originating from Iran.”

The court struck down the plaintiffs’ further argument that an Iranian civil law, Article 26 of its 1928 Civil Code, makes the artifacts government property. The opinion declared that [t]he plaintiffs have not shown that any of the antiquities now held by the Museums were at the time of removal from Iran ‘Government property . . . in use for the service of the public or the profit of the state.’ The necessary conclusion cannot be drawn simply from the fact that the items are the products of archeological explorations that were conducted in Iran . . . .”

The court also rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that antiquities from Persepolis were the property of the Iranian government. The court ruled that “[t]he plaintiffs’ specific argument that items taken from the ruins of the ancient city of Persepolis cannot be privately owned is also not persuasive. The legal argument relies heavily on Article 26 which . . . does not support a generalized conclusion that excavated items necessarily belonged to the government of Iran. The plaintiffs point to texts suggesting that foreign excavators unlawfully took items from Persepolis. Even if that is true as an historical matter, it does not get the plaintiffs where they need to go. As a general matter, establishing that a particular item was unlawfully exported or removed from Iran is not equivalent to showing that it now should be regarded as property of Iran subject to levy and execution. And as a particular matter, the plaintiffs simply are unable to establish that any item in the possession of the Museums, whether from Persepolis or elsewhere, is rightly considered to be the property of Iran.”

The case in the Massachusetts district court is now at an end. Any appeal would be filed in the First Circuit federal court.


Contact information may be found at www.culturalheritagelawyer.com. DISCLAIMER: The information provided on this web site/email/blog/feed/podcast is general information only, not legal advice, and not guaranteed to be current, correct, or complete. No attorney-client relationship is formed, and no express or implied warranty is given. Links or references to outside sources are not endorsements. This site may be considered attorney advertising by some jurisdictions. The attorney is licensed in NH. The attorney is not certified by the TX Board of Legal Specialization, nor certified by NY regulators as a so-called "specialist" or "expert." Do not send confidential communications through this web site or email.

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Harvard Crimson Editorial: Cultural Loot: Harvard and others should be more open to art repatriation

Cultural Loot:  Harvard and others should be more open to art repatriation
By The Crimson Staff
Published: Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Last week, Harvard escaped from a bizarre and potentially damaging lawsuit after federal judge George A. O’Toole, Jr. threw out a request from a group representing victims of Iranian terrorist attacks to seize various Persian artifacts from Harvard. Still awaiting unpaid damages that a U.S. court ruled they were owed by the Iranian government, the group—under the leadership of Jenny Rubin—has recently set its sights on certain artifacts they believe to be the property of the Iranian government. Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, however, these artifacts are held in various collections such as the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and Harvard’s Peabody Museum, which acquired them long before the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in 1979.

And while Judge O’Toole’s ruling appears in part a straightforward and appropriate rejection of what seems a patently opportunistic attempt to benefit financially from both the tainted reputation of the Iranian regime and a warped view of history, it included a broader stance on the issue surrounding the ownership of formerly stolen artifacts—a controversy in which Harvard’s own position, in our view, warrants a re-evaluation.
“As a general matter,” O’Toole wrote, “establishing that a particular item was unlawfully exported or removed from Iran is not equivalent to showing that it now should be regarded as property of Iran subject to levy and execution.”

Of course, we cannot imagine any other appropriate response to such an attempt. After all, the argument of Rubin et al concerns an alleged—and obviously false—association between the Persian Empire and the belligerent Iranian Islamic “Republic” that currently exists within its former borders. But, even still, we worry that these words may set some sort of dangerous legal precedent that gives Western institutions such as Harvard the right to keep artifacts regardless of the circumstances under which they were acquired. While Harvard has a very good argument for keeping possession of the particular items concerned in the Rubin case, it’s troubling that this case may only lead to Western institutions keeping a tighter stranglehold over the rest of the world's stolen cultural heritage.

As an institution at the forefront of learning and education, Harvard's steady acquisition of numerous artifacts whose provenance spans both time and space falls into a tradition of prominent historical collections held by universities. While not quite the Ashmolean, our Sackler and Peabody Museums, amongst others, house many rare and notable artistic and historical materials. Many of these pieces, it must be said, were acquired around the turn of the last century, at the same time or soon after many of this country’s great international collections were assembled in museums and at other universities. It is of course no coincidence that the acquisition of many of these items from cultures such as Ancient Egypt, China, Greece, and the Islamic Middle East came during a period of unparalleled Western hegemony. And it is no secret that many of the Western world's most famous collections, such as the British Museum's storied Elgin Marbles, were effectively stolen from their territories of origin. Much of the finest Chinese porcelain that today adorns many museums and private homes was looted from Beijing's Old Summer Palace during the nineteenth century, coming as revenge for China's role in the Opium Wars and Boxer Rebellion.

A walk through any major museum—be it the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the British Museum in London, or the Louvre in Paris—would show that Harvard takes a backseat in the saga of Western museums proudly holding onto artifacts that others want back. Many of the circumstances in which these objects were taken do not amount to the trope of a civilizing mission that is so frequently used to justify Lord Elgin's seizing of the Elgin marbles: Look again, for instance, to the looting of the Forbidden City in the summer of 1900 by the Eight-Nation Alliance. And even when objects were taken from their areas of origin for the purposes of protecting them, why not follow Harvard's own example of returning the Lowell Bells to Moscow after 50 years of safeguarding them? For too long, museums in Western Europe and the United States have jealously clung to objects to which they have no underlying valid claim. As a rule, they should begin returning them to the many nations of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asian and others who now have the ample resources to take care of them.

We would not dispute that collections in the great Western museums have served as infinite sources of education, enjoyment, and awe for countless residents and tourists of these cities. There is even an argument to be made that more people across the world encounter and learn from these artifacts in a Western museum than would were they all returned to the sites of their creation. However, the purpose of a historical artifact is the rare insight it affords the world of the present into the world of the past, and the value of that insight depends upon a conversation between an object’s current home and the site of its creation. In moving forward, we urge Harvard to consider following the example of peer institutions like Yale, which, after a lawsuit of its own from the Peruvian government over certain Incan artifacts taken years before, is moving to create a jointly operated research center slated to open in October.

This question of artifacts stolen years ago in different times from national entities that no longer exist is indeed a complicated one. We can only hope that Harvard’s approach in the future will be one of active engagement with the cultures from which many of the artifacts in its museums were taken and that the Rubin case doesn’t set a precedent of stifling discourse between East and West.

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

The Implications of Rubin v. Iran

Should National Treasures be Subject to the Judicial Auction?: The Implications of Rubin v. Iran
By LAINA LOPEZ, ESQ.

The main question at issue in Rubin v. Iran, a case pending in both the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago and the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, is whether national treasures of cultural heritage should be – or legally can be – subjected to a court-ordered auction to satisfy judgments. In that case, a group of plaintiffs who won a default judgment against Iran have asked the Chicago court to seize collections of Iranian national treasures to be auctioned off – with no guarantee that they will be auctioned off as collections – so that the proceeds can be used to satisfy part or all of the judgment...

Even though the Seventh Circuit has ruled, the core issue still is not resolved. That is, the district court will now have to answer the main question – can the antiquities be seized and sold at judicial auction?

Read the article in the Summer 2011 Newsletter of the American Bar Association Art & Cultural Heritage Law Committee.












Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

News: Heritage Hunters

Heritage Hunters: Trying to cash in on what Darius and Xerxes left us!?
Iranian.com
by Ari Siletz
22-Sep-2011

 In 2010 James Dolan, chief executive officer of Cablevision got paid about $13 million, or about 400 time the wages of an ordinary you and me. By comparison the manager of the royal household of the Achaemenid king Darius the Great was paid 700 sheep, 600 loads of flour, and 32000 liters of beer and wine. This is about 100 times the wage of an ordinary Achaemenid postal worker (courier). Never mind how much Darius got paid—the king was a national symbol, and therefore beyond labor pricing--but when it comes to income disparity Achaemenids seem to have the U.S. beaten four to one in terms of social justice. How do we know how much workers and top administrators got paid during the Achaemenids? 

The information comes from deciphering a fraction of the 12000+ clay tablet “file cabinet” found at Persepolis circa 1930, and now stored mostly in the U.S. These are the famous Persepolis tablets now facing death by lawsuit in the U.S. legal system. The U.S. says the IRI is a state sponsor of terrorism and therefore U.S. citizens can sue Iran for injury resulting from IRI sponsored terrorist activity. For example, if Hamas hurts an American citizen during a terrorist attack, the injured person can sue Iran for supporting Hamas’ act. In fact many plaintiffs have already won large damages against Iran; the only problem was how to collect the court awarded money. After some hunting around in law books, they found out that a loophole in the 2002 Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) allows them to auction off the Persepolis tablets housed in U.S. universities. That should raise a few million, they thought. 

But just last week the NIAC news email brought good tidings that some of the tablets have been rescued, apparently through clever use of a legal technicality. Lawyers defending the tablets in Massachusetts successfully argued that the plaintiffs couldn’t prove that the items actually belong to the IRI. To get more detail on the temporarily good news I talked on the phone with NIAC president Trita Parsi. NIAC has been involved in the tablet rescue efforts, leading where it can and assisting where it can. When I asked what would happen to the tablets if they were auctioned, Parsi’s typically measured interview voice became troubled: 

“When you have a lot of artifacts--as we see in this case--the relative market value of each item drops. And as has happened before, the business owners destroy many of the items in order to increase the value of the remaining ones. We have seen this happen with Egyptian artifacts in the past. There’s a significant risk. It may actually happen that there will be a deliberate effort to destroy the stocks to make sure that the remaining 500 out of the 12000 fetch the best price! Then this part of our history and heritage will be destroyed.”
 
This is simply barbarism, committed in the name of 21st century justice. From a perfectly reasonable angle these tablets are just as important as the Darius Behistun inscriptions or even the Cyrus Cylinder. Why? Because archeological sites and museums are full of self-descriptions by rulers of what kick-ass heroes they were and how justly they ruled. Bein e khodemoon, “Cyrus Cylinder” kings were a dime a dozen. Even today, Kayhan is a daily Cyrus Cylinder made out of paper. To give substance to our past we need more than the words of Cyrus and Darius; we need to audit their receipts. And this is precisely what these tablets are: receipts, invoices, pay stubs, wage tables, reimbursement, how much food and wine the priests of different religions got to offer their gods, etc. sampling several periods of Achaemenid rule. So far the tablets reveal an empire buzzing with a complex economy, an active society and run by an intricately structured administrative system. There’s an astonishing amount of detail about Achaemenid life in these tablets, beyond what we could have reasonably hoped; their discovery is a cultural windfall for Iranians. Ironically if it hadn’t been for another barbaric act—Alexander’s--more than two millennia ago, these tablets may have been scattered centuries ago. The quick collapse of the Persepolis building hid the tablets and made them inaccessible...

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Update on RUBIN v. THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

GEORGE A. O'TOOLE, Jr., District Judge, issues an OPINION AND ORDER on 15 September 2011 in the case of RUBIN v. THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, JENNY RUBIN, et al., Plaintiffs-Judgment Creditors, v. THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, et al., Defendants-Judgment Debtors, v. MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS and HARVARD UNIVERSITY, et al., Trustee Process Respondents. Civil Action No. 06-11053-GAO. United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

The final paragraph reads:

Accordingly, the plaintiffs' Motion (dkt. no. 2) for Order of Attachment by Trustee Process is DENIED; Harvard's Motion (dkt. no. 150) to Dissolve Attachment is GRANTED; and the Museum of Fine Arts' Motion (dkt. no. 158) to Dissolve Attachment is GRANTED. The trustee attachments are DISSOLVED

All those interested in the case are urged to read the full document.







Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Persepolis at the University of Chicago's 33rd annual Humanities Day

Recording Persian Antiquities in Crisis: The Persepolis Fortification Archive Project 

October 22, 2011, 2.00-3.00pm 

Matthew Stolper

Session II

In 1933, Oriental Institute archaeologists made a startling discovery at Persepolis, near the palaces that Darius and Xerxes built in the heartland of the Achaemenid Empire (near the Fars Province of modern Iran): tens of thousands of clay tablets, with texts in several ancient languages and the impressions of thousands of seals. Oriental Institute researchers have been studying them ever since, with results that have transformed our understanding of the Persian Empire at its zenith. But since 2004, researchers have been working under the shadow of litigation that threatens the future of the tablets. Since 2005, the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project has marshaled electronic tools and techniques in a race to preserve a comprehensive record of the Archive and to enable new kinds of research.

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Course: From Ground to Gallery, The Persepolis Fortification Archives

Course: From Ground to Gallery, The Persepolis Fortification Archives

When:	Saturday, October 15, 2011 1:30 pm
Where:	Oriental Institute 1155 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL
Description:	This course is part of the Ground to Gallery series, but may be taken individually. In 1933, Oriental Institute archaeologists working in Iran at the site of the ancient capital of Persepolis discovered tens of thousands of clay tablet documents within a bastion of the city’s fortification wall. Most of the tablets, which date to around 500 BC, were loaned to the Oriental Institute for analysis in 1936. Join Professor Matthew Stolper to learn how the Institute’s long and painstaking study of the Persepolis Fortification Archive has provided a wealth of information about the languages, society, institutions, religion, and art of the ancient Persian Empire at its zenith. Then go behind the scenes to see how the Archive is now the subject of a multi-institutional research project that uses the most advanced imaging equipment to record and study the tablets. Matthew Stolper, John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies, Oriental Institute Pre-registration is required
Cost:	$39 members, $44 non-members
	Website
Contact:	Oriental Institute - Museum Education Office 773-702-9507
Calendars:	OI, Arts, Short Courses
	Persons with disabilities who need an accommodation in order to participate in this event should contact the event sponsor for assistance. For events on the Student Events Calendar, please contact ORCSA at (773) 702-8787. Information on Assistive Listening Device

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Persepolis Fortification Archive Upload to InscriptiFact

The InscriptiFact Team reports in an email to registered users

We have just uploaded approximately 5700 new images of 296 new texts from the Persepolis Fortification Archive. The majority of Aramaic texts from the archive are now available.

About InscriptiFact

The InscriptiFact Project is a database designed to allow access via the Internet to high-resolution images of ancient inscriptions from the Near Eastern and Mediterranean Worlds. The target inscriptions are some of the earliest written records in the world from an array of international museums and libraries and field projects where inscriptions still remain in situ. Included are, for example, Dead Sea Scrolls; cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia and Canaan; papyri from Egypt; inscriptions on stone from Jordan, Lebanon and Cyprus; Hebrew, Aramaic, Ammonite and Edomite inscriptions on a variety of hard media (e.g., clay sherds, copper, semi-precious stones, jar handles); and Egyptian scarabs. These ancient texts represent religious and historical documents that serve as a foundation and historical point of reference for Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the cultures out of which they emerged...

InscriptiFact Database Screens and Sample Searches

Examples of screens and searches in HTML format for viewing in a web browser.

Instructions for Using InscriptiFact (PDF)

Step-by-step instructions for conducting searches and retrieving images in InscriptiFact, in PDF format.

Instructions for Using the InscriptiFact Viewer (PDF)

Step-by-step instructions for using the InscriptiFact Viewer, featuring RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging) images, in PDF format.

Bibliographic References for Text and Publication Numbers (PDF)

One possible way to search for texts in InscriptiFact is by choosing "Text or Publication Numbers," i.e., common abbreviations used in the field of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. This PDF documents gives bibliographic information for the abbreviations or references used in InscriptiFact.

Application for User Name and Password (PDF)

Download this document and fax it as stated to obtain access to InscriptiFact.

Web Site for InscriptiFact Access

Click on this link to be taken to the download site for the InscriptiFact desktop client.

Web Site for InscriptiFact Standalone Viewer

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Paper Online: Xerxes, Atossa, and the Persepolis Fortification Archive

Xerxes, Atossa, and the Persepolis Fortification Archive 
by Wouter F. M. Henkelman

Annual Report 2010, Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Leiden, Netherlands Institute in Turkey, Istanbul, Leiden 2011: 26-33

All Papers by Wouter Henkelman available online at Academia.edu

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Related News: Achaemenid palace found in Iran

Achaemenid palace found in Iran
Posted by TANN 
7:15 PM

Archaeologists have unearthed an ancient palace dating back to the Achaemenid dynasty in Dahaneh Gholaman located in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan. 

The Dahaneh Gholaman site, in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan [Credit: Press TV]

Comparing the structure in the Dahaneh Gholaman site with Achaemenid palaces in Takht-e Jamshid and Pasargaad proved that the newly-found site dates to the Achaemenid era, said Kourosh Mohammadkhani, leader of the archeological team, IRNA reported. 

He added that the finding is the most significant achievement in the current phase of the recent study. 

The Dahaneh Gholaman site comprises of 54 ancient structures, most of which were discovered during the years 1959 and 2008. 

Takht-e Jamshid (Throne of Jamshid) or Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BCE) which is located in Iran's Fars Province. 

Pasargadae was also the capital of another Achaemenid king, Cyrus (559-530 BCE), and is the location of his tomb. Recent research has shown that Achaemenid engineers constructed the city to withstand a severe earthquake.  

Source: Press TV [July 31, 2011]

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Related News: Herzfeld Paper Squeeze Digitization Project

The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives (Freer|Sackler Archives)  received a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund to aid in the preservation of the Herzfeld squeezes in the Archives, which date from 1911-1934.

The squeezes contain Arabic script, Middle Persian, and Cuneiform impressions from archaeological sites: Bastam, Isfahan, Rayy, Samarra, Shiraz, Sunghur, Taq-i Bustan, Tus, Sarpul, Pasargadae, Persepolis, Naqsh-i Rustam, and Paikuli.

See my full entry in AWOL for the Ernst Herzfeld Paper Squeeze Digitization Project

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

Paper Online: The First Administrative Document Discovered at Persepolis

From the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, 3 The First Administrative Document Discovered at Persepolis: PT 1971-1

By Charles E. Jones - Institute for Study of the Ancient World, New York, and 

Seunghee Yie - Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago

ARTA 2011.003

Ernst Herzfeld’s field photographs from the 1932 excavation season at Persepolis include three pictures of a large fragment of a cuneiform tablet (Herzfeld Nos. 32.85 a & b [= Oriental Institute No. 12979] and 32.86 a [= No. 12978]; see Fig. 1).1 The photographs were made in the year before the discovery of the first Persepolis Fortification tablets in March, 1933, and about four years before the excavation of the first Persepolis Treasury tablets in 1936 (Schmidt 1939:  3-37; 1957: 4f.).

Although this was the first cuneiform tablet discovered by the Oriental Institute’s excavations at Persepolis, there is no mention of it in the publications of Herzfeld or of Erich Schmidt, who succeeded him as director of the excavations, or in those of George G. Cameron or Richard T. Hallock, who undertook the publication of the many Treasury and Fortification tablets found later. Perhaps Herzfeld was not excited by a fragment with a text that was mostly numbers and “dittos” and a few
words that would have been incomprehensible in 1932, accompanied by the merest traces of a seal impression.

It is tempting to infer from these photographs that Herzfeld made trial excavations in the Treasury as early as the season of 1932, but no records of such an effort survive....

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

News: PARSA CF Award to the Persepolis Fortification Archive (PFA) Project

PARSA CF Awards $370,000 to Museums and Institutions for Preserving and Advancing Persian Arts

June 2, 2011

 

The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, which is the recipient of two previous PARSA CF grants, has been awarded a $200,000 grant for their important work on capturing, recording, and distributing the information from the famous tablets of the Persepolis Fortification Archive (PFA). The archive is comprised of some 30,000 clay tablets and fragments found in 1933 by the Oriental Institute archeologists, examining and clearing the ruins of Persepolis palaces of kings Darius and Xerxes and their successors, near Shiraz. The tablets contain close to 20,000 original texts in cuneiform and Elamite language, Aramaic script and language, and seal impressions, and are currently on loan from Iran at the Oriental Institute.

PFA is the largest and most consequential single source of information on the Achaemenid Persian Empire at its zenith. It provides a very important portal into the languages, art, society, administration, history, geography and religion in the heart of the Persian Empire in the time of Darius I, around 500 BC. It has fundamentally transformed every aspect of modern research on Achaemenid history and culture.

The PFA Project at the Oriental Institute is responsible for carefully cleaning these important ancient tablets, taking high resolution digital imagery of the texts on the tablets, exploring various technologies for the best imaging of the tablets such as 3D, laser, and CT scanning),  and recording the texts and impressions. An editorial team within the group reviews and prepares editions of the texts, and all of the tablets, texts and impressions are carefully cataloged for publication and archiving. At this point more than 8000 tablets are completed, resulting in almost 40 Terabytes of data, and the team expects to grow the collection to approximately 11,000 over the next two years.

The tablets have been subject to a long legal battle where plaintiffs suing the Iranian government are asking for the ancient tablets as compensation. With the fate of the archive hanging in balance, the PFA Project has been under pressure to clean, scan, and record as many tablets as possible and as fast as possible. The grant from PARSA CF helped the PFA Project during an urgent time, since the project was in critical need for servers and other resources. An appellate court ruling a while later at the end of March came out with favorable result for the PFA, although the battle still continues.

The PFA project has received support from many other organizations besides PARSA CF, including the Andrew Melon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Iran Heritage Foundation is also working closely with the PFA project, and supports and promotes their work.

"After almost eighty years, the Persepolis Fortification Archive is producing a growing stream of new information, deeper understanding, and surprising discoveries. Making sure that this stream continues to flow repays the trust and hope that Iran's loan of the Archive to the Oriental Institute entailed, magnifies the cultural heritage of which these tablets are the humble vessels, and lays that heritage before its cultural heirs and before the civilized world" said Matthew W. Stolper, Director, Persepolis Fortification Archive Project.

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

News: Ancient Persian Treasures in American Courts

 Ancient Persian Treasures in American Courts

by ARASH KARAMI

02 May 2011 23:40

Legal dispute over Persepolis tablets threatens international lending of cultural assets.
 
In 1930, archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld came across 30,000 clay tablets on a dig in the ancient city of Persepolis, near modern-day Shiraz. Now these same Persepolis tablets are embroiled in a legal battle involving the Islamic Republic of Iran, the University of Chicago, and a pedestrian mall bombing in Jerusalem. 

After they were unearthed in the 1930s, the inscribed and sealed tablets have been on loan to the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago for study, where many still remain. They have become a treasure trove in revealing the inner administrative workings and social structure of ancient Persia during the reign of Darius I around the time of 500 BCE. 

Among many facts, they hold the records of the different rations apportioned to women and men, receipt and taxation, redistribution to priests and artisans, means of travel and communication, storage of food and livestock. Not least of all, they have proven to be a valuable asset in the study of ancient languages such as Elamite, which died off with the invasion of Alexander the Great, and Old Persian, a language which the tablets show was surprisingly used more often than expected by everyday Persians.
The tablets hold a further value: What is known about this era historically comes from Greek and Arabic sources, and the Aramaic and Hebrew versions of the Old Testament. For the first time, scholars had the day-to-day story of the Persians, by the Persians, and for the world. 


In 2002, the Persepolis Fortification Archive at the Oriental Institute began state-of-the-art 3D imaging of the tablets that had not already been returned to the government of Iran. Though the primary purpose of the Fortification Archive is to store digitally the clay tablets for future scholars who happen to find the daily administrative routine of the Persian Empire titillating reading, there was a more immediate motivation for initiating the process. 

Only one year before the Oriental Institute began the 3D imaging, five American victims of a 1997 Hamas suicide bombing that occurred on Jerusalem's Ben Yehuda Street sued the government of Iran in a U.S. court for its support of the Palestinian organization...

Read more

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

PFA on Facebook

The Persepolis Fortification Archive Project is now on Facebook

Derek Fincham comments on today ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

 Derek Fincham:  Seventh Circuit Rules Terrorist Victims Attachment Request Against Iran was Overbroad

He is commenting on today ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

Read the ruling

Read reports on the ruling 

• U. of Chicago and Museums Win Key Ruling in Legal Battle Over Iranian Antiquities
• U.S. court backs Iran in dispute over assets 

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

News: U.S. court backs Iran in dispute over assets

U.S. court backs Iran in dispute over assets
Reuters
CHICAGO | Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:58pm EDT

(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday backed Iran in a dispute with Americans who demand that Persian antiquities in two Chicago museums be used to pay damages for victims of a 1997 suicide bombing in Israel.

The decision by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a lower court ruling allowing the U.S. plaintiffs to search for any and all Iranian assets in the United States to pay a $71.5 million judgment against Iran.

The case grew out of a September 1997 triple suicide bombing at a Jerusalem pedestrian mall that killed five people and injured 200. Two members of the Islamist group Hamas were convicted.
The lawsuit filed by five groups of Americans who were either seriously wounded or relatives of the injured argued Iran bore responsibility because it provided training and support to Hamas for attacks.
Having won their case, the plaintiffs embarked on a search for Iranian assets to pay the judgment. They found three collections of ancient Persian artifacts -- prehistoric pottery, ornaments, and precious tablets with Elamite writing -- owned by or on loan to Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute.

The museums argued the artifacts qualified for immunity under U.S. law and could not be used to pay the judgment. They said seizing the artifacts would set a dangerous precedent for institutions who rely on scholarly interest to trump political and legal disputes.

But the plaintiffs insisted the artifacts were fair game, arguing U.S. legal protections afforded to foreign-owned property do not apply when the property is used for commercial purposes, or when it belongs to an agent linked to a terrorist group.

Iran initially ignored demands that it appear in U.S. courts to assert its sovereign rights. It later hired an American lawyer to represent its interests.

The appeals court did not rule on the fate of the antiquities but it said the lower court wrongly denied Iran its sovereign immunity, which it says is presumed and did not need to be asserted in court by Iran.

The ruling also voided the lower court's order that all Iranian assets in the United States be disclosed, and sent the case back to the lower court for further proceedings "consistent with this opinion."

(Reporting by Andrew Stern; Editing by Xavier Briand)

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

News: U. of Chicago and Museums Win Key Ruling in Legal Battle Over Iranian Antiquities

U. of Chicago and Museums Win Key Ruling in Legal Battle Over Iranian Antiquities 

The Chronicle of Higher Education

March 29, 2011

By David Glenn

Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute won a victory on Tuesday in their efforts to maintain possession of thousands of ancient Iranian artifacts. In a ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed a lower court's order that might have handed the artifacts over to several American victims of a 1997 terrorist bombing in Jerusalem.
Those victims won a $90-million judgment in 2003 against the government of Iran, which is believed to have financed and trained the terrorists who carried out the Jerusalem bombing. But the victims and their families have struggled to collect any of that judgment from Iran, and their lawyers have sought instead to seize purported Iranian assets in the United States, including antiquities held in American museums. Those legal efforts have been condemned by some scholars as a dangerous politicization of the world's archaeological heritage.

In Tuesday's ruling, a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit ruled that the lower court had misinterpreted the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, which generally protects the property of foreign governments in the United States. The plaintiffs have asserted that the antiquities in Chicago are exempt from that immunity because of a provision in the 1976 law that excludes property "used for a commercial activity."

The lower court had ruled that the plaintiff's argument on that point must win by default because Iran had not come forward to assert its immunity under the 1976 law. But the Seventh Circuit, like other appellate courts in similar recent cases, ruled that the 1976 law requires courts to decide for themselves which foreign immunities apply to each case, whether or not a foreign government has explicitly demanded those immunities. (Complicating the case, Iran did eventually come forward to assert its immunity.) ...

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

News : Lawsuits by Victims of Terrorism Imperil Archaeological Studies

Lawsuits by Victims of Terrorism Imperil Archaeological Studies
In claiming $4-billion in damages from Iran, American plaintiffs demand that colleges and museums turn over ancient Persian artifacts
By Peter Schmidt
Chronicle of Higher Education
March 6, 2011

U. of Chicago

Matthew Stolper, a professor of Assyriology at the U. of Chicago's Oriental Institute, examines a tablet on loan from the government of Iran.

Enlarge Image

Their original owners, in what is now Iran, probably saw them as ordinary records of day-to-day transactions, like today's ATM statements or store receipts. More than two millenniums later, however, clay tablets housed at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute have assumed extraordinary significance, as both objects of archaeological study and sources of modern conflict...

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

BISOTUN WORLD ROCK CLIMBING FESTIVAL IRAN NOV 2010

Bisutun in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695

News: Ernst Herzfeld Archive

See today's notice of updates on Ernst Herzfeld Online Resources by Rachael Cristine Woody on the Smithsonian blog.

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

Persepolis in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/922695