National Iranian American Council appeal on behalf of the Persepolis Fortification Archive

Now is our chance to save the Persepolis tablets!

Right now, the Senate is considering legislation that would prevent attempts to confiscate and auction off some of the most powerful symbols of Persian civilization. This legislation is designed to protect the priceless artifacts from Takht-e-Jamshid and all the other Persian artifacts under attack.

A group of lawyers wants to seize these relics of our heritage and auction them off to the highest bidder like cheap items sold on e-bay. "Maybe they'll end up on coffee tables around the country," one lawyer for the plaintiffs mused.

We can't let this happen. Tell your Senators to support the Burris Amendment today!

Pierre Briant books online

Rois, tributs et paysans
par Pierre Briant
Besançon, Les Belles Lettres, ALUB (269), 1982, 538 p.

Les textes présentés ici couvrent une dizaine d'années de recherches (1971-1981) consacrées aux États et sociétés du Proche et du Moyen-Orient sous les dominations achéménide et hellénistique (c. VIe-IIe siècle av.n.è.), La plupart des études qui constituent le corps de l'ouvrage sont des communications présentées à des Colloques. Beaucoup d'entre elles ont été publiées dans des recueils ou des revues peu accessibles. L'unité thématique de ces textes et leur état d'extrême dispersion m'ont paru constituer deux bonnes et simples raisons pour les rassembler dans un recueil. En est absent l'article le plus long paru dans DHA 2, 1976 car je l'ai très largement repris dans un autre livre. Faut-il préciser que la republication de ces études n'implique pas qu'elles soient exemptes d'erreurs ou de défauts ? Du moins, leur publication dans une collection désormais bien connue des historiens de l'Antiquité suscitera, je l'espère, de nombreuses discussions critiques. (Extrait de l'introduction par Pierre Briant)

Antigone le Borgne
par Pierre Briant
Besançon, Les Belles Lettres, ALUB, 1973, 397 p.

These books appear in the context of the Bibliotheque numerique des ouvrages publiés par l'Institut des Sciences et Techniques de l'Antiquité. A full listing of the offerings of that digital collection is here.

News: "Alla scoperta di Persepoli"

Alla scoperta di Persepoli, by Tiziano Mainier, sabato sera online, 2 July 2009

Riemerge una parte sepolta della città, grazie agli scavi compiuti dagli archeologi italiani. Intervista a Pierfrancesco Callieri, direttore della missione.

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

See also the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

ARTA 2009.001-00: Tang-e Bulagh

ARTA 2009.001-006

This series of notes and articles summarises the results of the rescue excavations (2005-2007) conducted at the occasion of the construction of a dam in the Bolaghi valley, which opens about 2km south of the tomb of Cyrus at Pasargadae. Only the results pertaining to the Achaemenid and Post-Achaemenid periods are presented here: full excavation reports will be published in separate volumes edited by the respective joint missions between Iran and Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and Poland.

Hasan Fazeli Nashli, "The Achaemenid/Post Achaemenid Remains in Tang-i Bulaghi near Pasargadae: A Report on the Salvage excavations conducted by five joint teams in 2004-2007" (ARTA 2009.001)

Takuro Adachi, Mohsen Zeidi, "Achaemenid and post-Achaemenid Remains from TB 75 and the General Survey of the Tang-i Bulaghi" (ARTA 2009.002)

Ali Asadi, Barbara Kaim, "The Achaemenid building at site 64 in Tang-e Bulaghi" (ARTA 2009.003)

Alireza Askari Chaverdi, Pierfrancesco Callieri, "Achaemenid and Post-Achaemenid Remains at TB 76 and TB 77" (ARTA 2009.004)

Mohammad T. Atai, Rémy Boucharlat, "An Achaemenid pavilion and other remains in Tang-i Bulaghi" (ARTA 2009.005)

Barbara Helwing, Mojgan Seyedin, "The Achaemenid period occupation at Tang-i Bulaghi site 73" (ARTA 2009.006)

Legal Threats to Cultural Exchange of Archaeological Materials

Legal Threats to Cultural Exchange of Archaeological Materials, by Sebastian Heath and Glenn M. Schwartz, American Journal of Archaeology, Volume 113 No. 3 • July 2009

Legal action on behalf of victims of terrorism has attempted to force the sale of cultural artifacts on loan to U.S. institutions in order to compensate those victims. Such action jeopardizes the participation of American institutions in international cultural exchanges. The authors maintain that archaeological artifacts should not be sold to satisfy a court judgment, regardless of the actions of a particular regime, and that it should be possible for nations to share their cultural heritage without fear of loss.

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

News: Indemniser les victimes d'attentats en vendant de l'art ?

Indemniser les victimes d'attentats en vendant de l'art ?, Rue89, Par Marlene Belilos | Journaliste | 24/06/2009 | 15H50.

L'Institut oriental de l'Université de Chicago -celle où Obama a été chargé d'enseignement-, dépositaire d'un ensemble d'environ 20 000 tablettes trouvées à Persépolis en 1933, se trouve au centre d'une bataille judiciaire inédite : des victimes d'un attentat réclament la vente de ces objets originaires d'Iran comme indemnisation.

Un tribunal de Washington a condamné l'Etat iranien à verser 412 millions de dollars (323 millions d'euros) aux familles des victimes et survivants d'un attentat perpétré à Jérusalem en 1997.

Les plaignants arguent, en effet, que l'Etat iranien aurait financé et entraîné le Hamas, responsable de l'attentat. Ils s'appuient dans leur action sur une loi de 1970 permettant d'attaquer un Etat. Cette législation a encore été élargie en novembre 2008 par le sénateur du New Jersey, Lautenberger, levant l'immunité d'un Etat souverain...

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

News: The Artifacts of Life

The Artifacts of Life, By Carl Marziali, USC News Science / Technology, June 23, 2009 11:16 AM.

USC’s first pilgrims to a temple of high-energy physics will be seeking answers to worldly questions about ancient commerce.

Archaeologist Lynn Swartz Dodd of USC College and her students are taking trade artifacts from Egypt to the Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source, home of the most powerful X-rays in the country...

The group hopes to return to Argonne this fall or next spring for a second round of studies, this time to analyze Assyrian and Persian artifacts found in Israel, Turkey, Iraq and Iran, which are on loan from the Oriental Institute of Chicago...

This is not the first time that USC has brought modern technology to bear on ancient problems. Dodd’s colleague Bruce Zuckerman leads a team that has been creating digital images of the ancient writings on the Persepolis Tablets at the Oriental Institute in Chicago.

The project has two goals: to preserve at least digital access to the Iranian government-owned tablets, which may be sold off as part of a lawsuit seeking to punish Iran for its ties to the terrorist group Hamas; and to reduce physical study of the tablets by scholars.

“Looking at a text is probably the most damaging thing you can do to it,” Zuckerman said.

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

News: "The Big Apple Raises $110,000 to Protect the Persepolis Tablets "

The Big Apple Raises $110,000 to Protect the Persepolis Tablets, NIAC, Thursday, 11 June 2009.

Washington, DC - Iranian-Americans from the New York tri-state area exceeded NIAC’s fundraising goals and helped raise over $110,000 to go towards preserving the Persepolis Artifacts on May 30th at the Asia Society in Manhattan...

Special guest, Professor Matthew Stolper who has dedicated his career to studying these tablets, made the gravity of losing just one of these artifacts crystal clear - If there are too many of these tablets being auctioned, their value will drop. So what do people do to ensure that the price remains high? "They destroy a good number of them," he exclaimed to a shocked audience. He also stressed the importance of keeping these items together, in fact, they are really to be seen as one item. Like a dinosaur fossil - if one bone is missing, we lose a sense of what the animal was. The same goes for these artifacts which tell the story of the Persian empire during the time of Darius the Great.

Thanks to our community in the City that Never Sleeps, NIAC is better positioned to ensure that not a single tablet from Persepolis is confiscated, auctioned or destroyed. NIAC is involved through legal, media and policy avenues to preserve the Persepolis tablets

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

News: "Victims of terrorist attack in Israel can proceed with claim for US antiquities"

Victims of terrorist attack in Israel can proceed with claim for US antiquities, The Art Newspaper. From issue 191, May 2008. Published online 1.5.08.

A federal court in Massachusetts affirmed on 31 March that Iranian antiquities at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Harvard University Art Museums might be subject to a claim by the victims of a terrorist bombing allegedly sponsored by Iran...

In the latest round of litigation in Massachusetts, the court declined to reconsider its prior ruling that the plaintiffs might be able to claim the antiquities under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002. The case will now go to the federal appeals court.

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

Blog change

I've made a small change to the blog recently. If you're reading this in a feed reader or by email you may not it, so if that's the case, click the through to the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project blog.

In the righthand side bar is a form allowing you to receive notifications of updates to AWOL by email. This seems useful for those for whom news feeds are not. Your address will be safe. Neither we nor feedburner will send you spam. I have been testing it and I'm satisfied that it works reliably.

A. J. Cave on Cyrus

I am Kurush - part one

They say Alexander III [336-323 BCE], the Macedonian King who had defeated Dâriuš III [336-330 BCE], the Achaemenid Great King, in 3 pitched battles and savagely burned Pârsâ [Persepolis] to ashes, admired Great Kuruš [Cyrus II, the Great, 559-530 BCE] - the first Great King who had brought most of the known world under the sway of the Persians over 200 years earlier...

I am Kurush - part two

Second Isaiah's prophecy that the divine action to release the Judean exilic community in Babylon from bondage was to be through the human hands of the 'Persian Cyrus' must have come as a surprise to Judeans.

This 'Cyrus', the mythic figure of the Holy Bible, was no other than the historical King Kuruš II [559-530 BCE], namesake of his grandfather, King Kuruš I. Kuruš was given the epithet of 'Great' by the Romans of the Roman Empire centuries later and became known throughout the history of the world as the Latinized 'Cyrus the Great'...

A. J. Cave is an Iranian-American writer based in California, USA and a member of Stanford University's World Association of International Studies (WAIS). She is currently working on her second historical novel Cyrus Romance: Kuruš Nâmeh. Information about her first historical novel Roxana Romance: Rošanak Nâmeh is available at www.pavasta.com.

NIAC New York Cocktail Fundraiser to Protect the Persepolis Artifacts and Preserve our Heritage

NIAC New York Cocktail Fundraiser to Protect the Persepolis Artifacts and Preserve our Heritage

Guests of Honor*

Roger Cohen, New York Times
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now
Prof. Matt Stolper, Persepolis Fortification Project

Asia Society and Museum
725 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10021

Saturday, May 30, 2009
Time: 6:30 pm - 9:30 PM

Tickets: $150 per person ($100 is tax-deductible)

Purchase your tickets online before May 26, 2009!

Persepolis in the Oriental Institute 2003-2004 Annual Report

Oriental Institute 2003-2004 Annual Report is now online. It includes the following article:

Persepolis Fortification Tablets, By Gil J. Stein

In late April–early May 2004, I had the privilege of helping to work toward the fulfillment of a seventy-year-old promise made by the Oriental Institute to the people of Iran by returning 300 clay tablets from the larger body of Persepolis Fortification Tablets that had been on long-term loan to the Oriental Institute for study and publication. The texts on these tablets have extraordinary importance for our understanding of the Persian empire and ancient Iran...

For a report of the progress of the project four years later, see Persepolis Fortification Archive Project Annual Report 2007-2008, by Matthew W. Stolper.

The phonology and morphology of royal Achaemenid Elamite

This classic is now online courtesy of scanning by Google Books and availability via HathiTrust.

The phonology and morphology of royal Achaemenid Elamite

Paper, Herbert H. (Herbert Harry), 1925-.

---

Publication Year:	1955
Type of Material:	Book
Published in:	Hathi Trust Digital Library
Publisher:	University of Michigan
Place of Publication:	Ann Arbor

Ancient Persian Archive Digitized with Support of Mellon Foundation

Since January, 2007, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has supported a collaboration between the West Semitic Research Project (WSRP), at the University of Southern California and the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, making two kinds of very high-quality images of Persepolis Fortification tablets and distributing the images on line. Bruce Zuckerman and his WSRP team brought to the collaboration more than thirty years of experience with high-quality imaging of West Semitic documents and inscriptions, using conventional and digital techniques. WSRP has been distributing images since 2001 via the robust, easy-to-use application InscriptiFact. More than 8,700 images of more than 300 Fortification tablets will soon be available through InscriptiFact, and more will be displayed at frequent intervals. The following announcement and video clip describe some of the work under way at the Oriental Institute. The PFA Project expects to issue another announcement soon, focusing on the work WSRP-PFA/OI collaboration.

The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago is using modern technology to digitally record thousands of tablets that, as they are being pieced together, tell an unusually detailed story of the Persian Empire.

These ancient tablets from the palaces of Persepolis include pieces of language and art from the center of the Persian Empire, all made when it extended from India and Central Asia to Egypt and the Mediterranean. Most have texts in impressed cuneiform characters, many them have inked texts in Aramaic writing and almost all of the tablets have seal impressions. They are now being recorded and distributed with digital processes that will allow scholars and viewers across the world to examine them as if they had picked them up and rotated under a light.

With a substantial grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a team of researchers began work in 2007. Now, with a second Mellon grant, the team will continue this work through 2010. By that time researchers hope to have about 10,000 tablets and fragments recorded.

Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute, where the tablets are kept, is principal investigator along with Matthew Stolper, John A. Wilson Professor in the Oriental Institute. Other team members and co-principal investigators are Annalisa Azzoni at Vanderbilt University, Elspeth Dusinberre at the University of Colorado, Mark Garrison at Trinity University, Wouter Henkelman at the Free University of Amsterdam, and Bruce Zuckerman and members of the West Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California. The team collaborates in person, but also electronically.

The tablets being digitized come from the Persepolis Fortification Archive, some 30,000 administrative tablets and fragments that Oriental Institute archaeologists recovered in 1933 at Persepolis, the ruined palaces where the kings of the ancient Persian Empire held court. Since 1936 they have been on loan from Iran to the Oriental Institute for analysis and recording.

“They were written, sealed and filed in a short span of time, between 509 and 493 B.C., in the middle of the reign of the Achaemenid Persian king Darius I,” Stein said. “The oldest Greek tragedy of Aeschylus, and the first Greek history of Herodotus tell us about the reign of Darius, but they don’t tell us anything like this. The administration that these documents record touched every level of society, from lowly workers through bureaucrats and governors to the royal family itself,” he said.

Part of the collection has been recorded, and many of the tablets have been returned to Iran, but the tablets have challenged scholars since their discovery. Only one other document of its kind had been found before the discovery of the archive, making the comparison, reading and understanding of the archive’s tens of thousands of pieces difficult.

Matthew Stolper, Professor at the Oriental Institute, examines a tablet on loan from the government of Iran that has been digitized.
Oriental Institute professor Richard Hallock devoted his career to the tablets. His work, culminating in the groundbreaking publication of 2,087 texts in 1969, fundamentally changed how scholars look at the Persian Empire.

“It is no exaggeration to say that this knowledge has transformed every aspect of modern study of the languages, history and society, institutions and art of the Achaemenid Persian Empire,” Stolper said. “No serious treatment of the Achaemenid Empire can any longer omit the perspectives provided by the Fortification Archive.”

As the project continues, scholars will be able to better analyze the information available in the archive. Online presentation of images of the tablets, images of the seal impressions and editions of the texts will allow researchers to be able to look at each piece, compare and connect it with other pieces, and to assemble and work with the archive as a whole system.

How the recording works

The phase of the project supported by the Mellon grants is a close collaboration between the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and the West Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California. This phase captures and distributes two kinds of high-quality images of Persepolis Fortification tablets.

One set of images is made with a high-resolution, large-format scanning camera with polarized and filtered lighting. The lighting compensates for some of the staining, glare and fading that problematic in seeing inked texts.

The second set of images is captured with Polynomial Texture Mapping (PTM) apparatuses, using a technology developed by Hewlett Packard Labs and Cultural Heritage Imaging. Only a dozen or so of these apparatuses exist, and two of them are recording Persepolis tablets in the basement of the Oriental Institute. A computer controls the camera in each device, making a set of 32 distinctly lighted views of each document. Each image set is combined by a software application in such a way that viewers can control the apparent direction, angle and intensity of the light falling on the object, using a computer mouse just as if they were handling the original object under a desk lamp.


Clinton Moyer, senior imaging technician, photographs a tablet for digitization at the Oriental Institute.

High-resolution images of about 200 Persepolis Fortification texts are available on InscriptiFact, on the Web site of the West Semitic Research Project. Several hundred more will be available soon. Images of about 150 more Persepolis tablets, along with editions, and analytical tools, will soon be released on the On-Line Cultural Research Environment (OCHRE), the archaeological and textual database and presentation application developed at the Oriental Institute and maintained by the University of Chicago Library.

Related links:
West Semitic Research Project
On-Line Cultural Research Environment (OCHRE)
Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative at UCLA
Musée Achéménide at the Collège de France

This story is an expanded version of the news item released by The University of Chicago News Office.

Panoramas of Achaemenid sites in Iran

The 360 Cities project offers some interesting panoramas of achamenid sites

The Throne Hall in Persepolis


Apadana Hall in Persepolis


The Gate of All Nations in Persepolis


Pasargadae in Pasargadae


The tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae


The Private Palace of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae


Pasargad Audience Hall in Pasargadae

Visual Representation of the Divine and the Numinous in Early Achaemenid Iran: Old Problems, New Directions

Visual Representation of the Divine and the Numinous in Early Achaemenid Iran: Old Problems, New Directions, by Mark A. Garrison

Text - last updated: 3 March 2009 (1.7 MB)
Illustrations - last updated: 25 February 2009 (4.5 MB)

An electronic prepublication of an entry in ICONOGRAPHY OF DEITIES AND DEMONS IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST, A Research Project of the History of Religions Chair of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in co-operation with Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden, Netherlands

National Iranian American Council Action Alert

The National Iranian American Council is asking people to contact Eric H. Holder,, Attorney General, Acting Attorney General and Barack H. Obama, President of the United States to to prevent the auction of the Perspolis Fortification Archive:

"Ask President Obama to prevent the auction of priceless Persepolis artifacts

At a time of hope when President Barack Obama has commended our heritage, saying "The Iranian people are a great people, and Persian civilization is a great civilization," a court in Chicago is about to confiscate and auction off some of the most powerful symbols of this civilization: priceless artifacts from Takht-e-Jamshid.

By failing to gain reparations from the Iranian government, lawyers for victims of terrorist attacks in Israel are now in turn attacking the heritage of Iranian Americans.

The plaintiff's objective: seize these relics of our heritage and auction them off to the highest bidder like items sold on e-bay. "Maybe they'll end up on coffee tables around the country," one lawyer for the plaintiffs mused.

This must be stopped. Ask President Obama to prevent the auction of our cultural heritage!

The artifacts from Persepolis are part of our heritage and identity. While far too few people know of the glories of our Iranian heritage, even fewer will have a chance to discover our history if these artifacts are taken from the museums and sold to the highest bidder on e-bay.
By sending a letter to President Obama, you are not only saving Iranian-American history and culture, but you are preserving it for your children's education and pride as well.

NIAC sounded the alarm in 2006 after ancient artifacts held by Harvard University were in danger. Now, irreplaceable clay tablets from the rule of Darius the Great on loan to the University of Chicago are under risk.

Not surprisingly, the thought of putting a price tag on 2,500 years of history has caused outrage world-wide. A European group of scholars has already collected hundreds of signatures in their petition to President Obama. Even the Department of Justice has recognized that this case has crossed the line.

By enlisting the help of a major law firm, NIAC has created an avenue to make your voice heard. Mayer Brown LLP is in the process of submitting an amicus brief on behalf of NIAC and the Iranian-American community. But we need your help!

Act now to stop this affront to our rich Iranian heritage. Ask President Obama to intervene to prevent our history and symbols of our identity from falling into careless hands.

Take this opportunity to speak out against the looting of our Iranian culture."

AIA Statement on Attachment of Cultural Objects

The Archaeological Institute of America has issued the following statement concerning cultural objects on loan to U.S. institutions and calls for Congressional action to assure the security of international loans and exhibitions from attachment.

On the Attachment of Cultural Objects to Compensate Victims of Terrorism

Statement

The Archaeological Institute of America believes that loans of cultural objects from foreign nations to U.S. cultural institutions serve the best interests of the people of the United States. We are concerned that legal actions and the threat of legal action on behalf of victims of terrorism now jeopardize the participation of American institutions in international cultural exchanges. These legal actions seek to force the sale of cultural artifacts on loan to or in U.S. institutions to satisfy court judgments obtained by these victims. The AIA strongly condemns all acts of international terrorism and supports efforts by victims of terrorism to obtain compensation. However, we believe that archaeological artifacts should not be sold to satisfy a court judgment, regardless of the actions of a particular regime, and that it should be possible for nations to share their cultural heritage without fear of loss.

In light of our concern that archaeological and other cultural objects should be part of cultural exchanges that benefit the American public, the Archaeological Institute of America calls on the U.S. Congress to enact new legislation to ensure that such cultural exchanges can take place. This legislation should prevent the sale of cultural objects to compensate those who have obtained court judgments under anti-terrorism provisions of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and would apply to cultural objects on loan from other nations to U.S. nonprofit institutions as part of public exhibitions that have a cultural and educational purpose.

Background

In 1996, the U.S. Congress amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), narrowing the traditional immunity that had been granted to foreign sovereigns and allowing individual victims of terrorist acts to sue those countries that the United States has listed as state sponsors of terrorism. In January 2008, the Congress amended the FSIA, in order to facilitate recovery of judgments that had been awarded to terrorism victims. Both before and after the 2008 amendments were enacted, cultural artifacts on loan to or present in U.S. institutions were under threat.

A group of plaintiffs, who were the victims of a Hamas bombing in Jerusalem, won a judgment against Iran, which defaulted in the proceedings. Having difficulty locating Iranian assets in the United States, in 2004 this group sued the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Harvard University, the University of Michigan and the Detroit Institute of Art under both the FSIA and the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. The plaintiffs sought to attach (that is, obtain for purpose of sale to satisfy a judgment) two collections of cuneiform tablets (the Persepolis Fortification Tablets and the Choga Mish tablets) that had been on loan to the Oriental Institute from Iran since the 1930s and the 1960s, respectively. The plaintiffs are also seeking to attach additional artifacts in the collections of these institutions, alleging that the artifacts are stolen property and therefore belong to Iran. While this litigation was ongoing, a second group of plaintiffs, the relatives of U.S. Marines killed in the Beirut barracks bombing, who had also won a default judgment against Iran, intervened in the attachment proceedings and are now also claiming a right to the monetary value of the artifacts.

In fall 2008, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York was organizing its major exhibition “Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.,” Syria gave the museum permission to borrow 55 objects. Under the Immunity from Seizure Act, the U.S. State Department can grant immunity from seizure to objects brought into the U.S. on temporary loan for exhibition purposes. However, when the Metropolitan Museum requested immunity for the objects to be loaned by Syria, there was concern that, in light of the 2008 amendments, even a State Department grant of immunity might not protect the objects from attachment by individuals who have claims against Syria for supporting terrorist activity. According to a statement by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was therefore not possible for these objects to be part of the exhibit.

The ability of nations and institutions throughout the world to loan objects is crucial to achieving international cultural exchange and increasing understanding of different places, different times, and different people. Such archaeological artifacts should not be sold to satisfy claims that are unrelated to the objects themselves. While the earlier litigation related to Iran had already indicated some threat to cultural interchanges, the Metropolitan’s inability to borrow objects from Syria for an exhibition indicates the danger this legislation and litigation pose to cultural exchange. American citizens have been deprived of the opportunity of appreciating and learning from archaeological artifacts and works of art from one of the world’s oldest civilizations. The actions in question therefore pose a serious threat to cultural exchange and cultural diplomacy, which are extremely important in building understanding among peoples.

If the United States is in the practice of confiscating artifacts that belong to other nations, then other nations will be unlikely to lend objects to U.S. cultural institutions. In addition, the U.S. will make itself vulnerable to the confiscation of its own cultural objects on loan in foreign nations. In the suit against the Oriental Institute, the Justice Department has, in fact, recommended against attachment of the tablets, presumably in part because of the bad precedent it would set for U.S. interests elsewhere. We call on Congress to enact legislation to preserve the principle that 
cultural heritage should be made available for public viewing and cultural exchange in the 
interest of promoting greater understanding of our shared past.

Download pdf of statement

News from Achaemenet

Livres récents
Peter Calmeyer, Die Reliefs der Gräber V und VI in Persepolis (Archäologie in Iran und Turan 8), Mainz 2009.

ARTA
John Hyland, “Pharnabazos, Cyrus' Rebellion, and the Spartan War of 399”.

Sous presse
Olivier Casabonne, “De la Cappadoce à la Cilicie : deux notes anatoliennes”, in: O. Tekin (ed.), Ancient History, Numismatics and Epigraphy in the Mediterranean World, Studies in Honour of Clemens E. Bosch, Sabahat Atlan and Nezahat Baydur, Istanbul (forthcoming).

For details go here.