Two members of the Persepolis Fortification Archives team receive awards

Two members of the Persepolis Fortification Archives team will be among those who received awards at the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in January 2015.

James R. Wiseman Book Award

2015 Wiseman Book Award winner Elspeth Dusinberre.

Each year the James R. Wiseman Book Award Committee will recommend, in time for presentation of the award at the Annual Meeting of the Institute, the academic work on an archaeological topic it deems most worthy of recognition in that year. Books and monographs bearing a date of publication within the four calendar years prior to (not including) the year of the Annual Meeting at which the award is made will be eligible for consideration. Fieldwork volumes are welcome; textbooks will not be considered, and handbooks or other edited volumes must be exceptionally strong contriubtions in order to qualify for consideration.

AIA members are encouraged to suggest books worthy of the award by filling out the Nomination Form. Authors and publishers may also bring their books to the committee's attention by sending a Letter of Nomination and four sample copies for distribution to the committee to the address below. Publishers should nominate no more than two (2) books per year and should ensure that the books meet the criteria of the award.  The author must be a member of the Archaeological Institute of American in good standing. Books may be submitted for the award only once, and should not be re-submitted unless specifically requested by the committee. Books intended for a general audience should be nominated for the Felicia A. Holton Book Award.

Due Date for Nomination
Letter of nomination and books should be received by Institute Headquarters at the below address no later than March 16, 2015.

Wiseman Book Award
Archaeological Institute of America
656 Beacon Street, 6th Floor
Boston, MA 02215-2006
(617) 353-9361
FAX: (617) 353-6550
E-mail: awards@aia.bu.edu

Questions about the Book Award may be directed to Deanna Baker, Membership and Societies Administrator, at the above address.

2015 Wiseman Book Award: Empire, Authority, and Autonomy in Achaemenid Anatolia by Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre

Elspeth Dusinberre (A.B. summa cum laude Harvard 1991, Ph.D. Michigan 1997) is interested in cultural interactions in Anatolia, particularly in the ways in which the Achaemenid Empire affected local social structures and in the give-and-take between Achaemenid and other cultures. Her first book, Aspects of Empire in Achaemenid Sardis(Cambridge 2003), examines such issues from the vantage of the Lydian capital, while her third book, Empire, Authority, and Autonomy in Achaemenid Anatolia (Cambridge 2013) considers all of Anatolia and proposes a wholly new model for understanding imperialism in general. Her second book is a diachronic excavation monograph, Gordion Seals and Sealings: Individuals and Society (Philadelphia 2005). She is currently studying the seal impressions on the Aramaic tablets of the Persepolis Fortification Archive (dating ca. 500 BCE), and the cremation burials from Gordion. She has worked at Sardis, Gordion, and Kerkenes Dağ in Turkey, as well as at sites elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean. Professor Dusinberre teaches primarily Greek and Near Eastern archaeology, with a little Egyptian and Roman archaeology plus Greek and Latin language thrown in. She has been awarded six University of Colorado teaching awards, the system-wide President's Teaching Scholar Award, the Chancellor's Faculty Recognition Award, and the Faculty Graduate Advisor Award.

Award for Outstanding Work in Digital Archaeology

2015 award winner Ancient World Online, accepted by
Charles E. Jones

Digital technologies are driving important changes in archaeology.  Despite the increasing acceptance of digital technology in daily life, however, determining how to assess digital scholarship has proved difficult: many universities remain unsure about how to evaluate digital work along side more traditional forms of print publication when faced with tenure and promotion decisions.  Recognizing the value of digital scholarship, and aiming to encourage its practice, the AIA offers this award to honor projects, groups, and individuals that deploy digital technology in innovative ways in the realms of excavation, research, teaching, publishing, or outreach.

Criteria for Selection 
Nominations of projects and individuals are welcome. Nominations may be made by anyone, including the project director or the principal members of the team responsible for the digital creation. Nominations of collaborative projects are encouraged. At least one member of the leadership team, or any individual nominee, must be a member in good standing of the AIA. Please submit the AIA membership number(s) with the nomination.
Due Date for Nomination
September 15, 2015
Materials to Be Submitted

• Name of Project
• CV of the Project Director(s)
• Nomination form

Additional Information
Because the field of digital archaeology is still nascent and the application of digital technologies to archaeology is in constant flux, the committee reserves the right to modify this award as the field evolves.  Furthermore, the committee also reserves the right not give the award if no deserving project is nominated.
Questions about the award should be directed to Deanna Baker, Membership and Societies Administrator, at awards@aia.bu.edu or 617-353-9361.

2015 Outstanding Work in Digital Archaeology Award: Ancient World Online
The Ancient World Online (AWOL) is a project of Charles E. Jones, Tombros Librarian for Classics and Humanities at the Pattee Library, Penn State University. AWOL began with a series of entries under the heading AWOL on the Ancient World Bloggers Group Blog. It was moved to the current blogging platform in 2009. The goal of the project is simple but significant: to “notice and comment on open access material relating to the ancient world.” The blog serves as a major hub for online and open-access material relating to the ancient world, regardless of where it is published. The blog and daily newsletter serves as an informative and concise digest of open-access information from across the ancient world. This blog helps the dissemination of knowledge, while also promoting open-access resources. In meeting this goal, AWOL has been remarkably successful, serving archaeological information to more 1.1 million unique visitors to the site since its inception in 2009, nearly a quarter of which return to the site for more.

2015 Outstanding Work in Digital Archaeology Honorable Mentions:
From Stone to Screen (http://fromstonetoscreen.wordpress.com/)
Day of Archaeology (http://www.dayofarchaeology.com/)
These two projects were selected as honorable mentions, as they fulfill the mission of the Archaeological Institute of America to bring archaeology to a wider public and to educate the public about the archaeological heritage and shared past of humanity.  The Award Committee also commend these projects for being collaborative and student-led. By engaging with digital technology for both research and outreach, the work of these students will help to bring archaeology to the next generation of scholars and students, as well as to the interested public.

News: Persepolis Relief Fragment in Montreal Stolen

It has been recovered. An odd story reporting its recovery in Edmonton (From FEBRUARY 25, 2014)


News is emerging today (15 February 2012) of the theft in October 2011, from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, of two pieces, one of them a "Persian low relief of the head of a guard, dating from the fifth century BC. It is made of sandstone, and estimated to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars".  According to the Montreal Gazette: "The Persian piece – donated to the MMFA by Cleveland Morgan in 1950..."

Two valuable artifacts stolen from Montreal museum

joshua knelman

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012 6:32PM EST

Last updated Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 11:14AM EST

 Video of a suspect has been released

Uploaded by themontrealgazette on Feb 14, 2012

Surveillance video of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from Oct. 26, 2011 shows a suspect in the museum that police and the museum believe may have stolen two archaeological sculptures, a Persian bas relief and a Roman head of a man that are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. British-based AXA Art, which is insuring the objects, hopes the public will recognize the individual and call police. The company is offering substantial rewards for the return of the objects and for the arrest of the suspect.

The insurance company, misidentifying the object as "Assyrian" is offering a reward

Assyrian low relief Sandstone

02.2012

Theft at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

AXA ART OFFERING SUBSTANTIAL REWARD FOR SAFE RECOVERY OF RARE ARTIFACTS

An Assyrian low relief and a marble head dating from the Roman Empire, both rare and valuable, have been mysteriously stolen from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA).  AXA ART is offering a substantial reward, subject to specific conditions, for information leading to the safe recovery of the items, which were stolen in October.  Additional rewards are also offered of up to CAN$10,000 for anyone able to identify either of the two individuals caught on CCTV.  Please see below for the full press release and detailed images.

AXA ART Press release

Assyrian low relief Sandstone

A marble head dating from the Roman Empire

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

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

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

Archaeologies of Text: Archaeology, Technology, and Ethics

 

Archaeologies of Text: Archaeology, Technology, and Ethics [Paperback]

Matthew T. Rutz (Editor); Morag Kersel (Editors)

Details

Scholars working in a number of disciplines – archaeologists, classicists, epigraphers, papyrologists, Assyriologists, Egyptologists, Mayanists, philologists, and ancient historians of all stripes – routinely engage with ancient textual sources that are either material remains from the archaeological record or historical products of other connections between the ancient world and our own.

Examining the archaeology-text nexus from multiple perspectives, contributors to this volume discuss current theoretical and practical problems that have grown out of their work at the boundary of the division between archaeology and the study of early inscriptions. In 12 representative case-studies drawn from research in Asia, Africa, the Mediterranean, and Mesoamerica, scholars use various lenses to critically examine the interface between archaeology and the study of ancient texts, rethink the fragmentation of their various specialized disciplines, and illustrate the best in current approaches to contextual analysis.

The collection of essays also highlights recent trends in the development of documentation and dissemination technologies, engages with the ethical and intellectual quandaries presented by ancient inscriptions that lack archaeological context, and sets out to find profitable future directions for interdisciplinary research.

Table of Contents

1. Morag M. Kersel and Matthew T. Rutz / Introduction

2. Matthew W. Stolper / Case in Point: The Persepolis Fortification Archive

3. Nicholas P. Carter / Space, Time, and Texts: A Landscape Approach to the Classic Maya Hieroglyphic Record

4. Scott Bucking / Now You See it, Now You Don’t: The Dynamics of Archaeological and Epigraphic Landscapes from Coptic Egypt

5. Timothy P. Harrison / Articulating Neo-Assyrian Imperialism at Tell Tayinat

6. Matthew T. Rutz / The Archaeology of Mesopotamian Extispicy: Modeling Divination in the Old Babylonian Period

7. Adam Smith / The Ernest K. Smith Collection of Shang Divination Inscriptions at Columbia University and the Evidence for Scribal Training at Anyang

8. Eleanor Robson / Tracing Networks of Cuneiform Scholarship with Oracc, GKAB, and Google Earth

9. Lisa Anderson and Heidi Wendt / Ancient Relationships, Modern Intellectual Horizons: The Practical Challenges and Possibilities of Encoding Greek and Latin Inscriptions

10. Christopher A. Rollston / Forging History: From Antiquity to the Modern Period

11. Neil J. Brodie and Morag M. Kersel / WikiLeaks, Texts, and Archaeology: The Case of the Schøyen Incantation Bowls

12. Patty Gerstenblith / Do Restrictions on Publication of Undocumented Texts Promote Legitimacy?

13. John F. Cherry / Publishing Undocumented Texts: Editorial Perspectives

Persepolis Fortification Archive Project in the Oriental Institute's 2013-2014 Annual Report

See now here.

Achemenet Project teams up with Oriental Institute to study ancient Persia

Achemenet Project teams up with Oriental Institute to study ancient Persia
July 16, 2014

Through a partnership with the Achemenet Project in Paris, France, the Oriental Institute will provide online access to new images and documentation of the most significant parts of its Achaemenid period (550-330 BC) object collections. The objects, many of which come from the Oriental Institute’s 1930s excavations at Persepolis, Iran, include seals and sealings, reliefs and sculpture, amulets, tableware, and ornaments. This is the primary goal of the Oriental Institute’s participation in the Achemenet Project, made possible through a grant from the Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute and matching support from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

Persian.ology

Persian.ology: gate-keepers of (clay) dinosaur bones, the story of the discovery and recovery of the Persepolis (Parsa) administrative archives (Persepolis Fortification Archive and Persepolis Treasury Archive) in the early 1930s. (114 pages, about 62M)
By A. J. Cave, April 2014

persian.ology : gate-keepers of (clay) dinosaur bones is an informal look at the Persian Achaemenid Administrative Archives recovered from Pârsa (Persepolis), Iran, in 1930s

parts are taken from the books:

an idol-worshiper’s Guide to god-stan: a Trilogy in 7 Parts (2012)
Cyrus 0.9: Highlander (2013)
“the Road to Persiana”, persian.ology Magazine (2013)

Published in honor of the celebration of the lifelong achievements of Dr. Matthew Stolper, head of the PFA Project, Monday, 28 April 2014, at the Oriental Institute.

The smaller version (without couple of repeated sections on archives and administrative languages, about 11M) is posted here, and here.

 

See Also:

Open Access Publications on Persepolis from the Oriental Institute

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

Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hillaire reports on the Gettleman decision

Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hillaire reports the Gettleman decision

"The Law Cited by Plaintiffs Does Not Offer the Remedy They Seek" - Rubin v. Iran

Thursday, April 3, 2014

"The court recognizes the tragic circumstances that gave rise to the instant action, but finds that the law cited by plaintiffs does not offer the remedy they seek." With these words, Judge Robert Gettleman ended the Northern District of Illinois case of Jenny Rubin, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al. v. The University of Chicago and The Field Museum of Natural History.

The case involves American victims of a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 1997. A federal judge in Washington, DC in 2003 awarded the plaintiffs a $71.5 million default judgment against Iran, holding that country to be responsible for the attack. One way the plaintiffs have sought to collect the judgment is to acquire ancient Iranian artifacts at prominent American Museums, including Chicago's Oriental Institute (OI) and The Field Museum, through attachment. [Read the rest]

See  the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive

See also the chronicle of news on Persepolis

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

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

News: Judge: Persian artifacts can't be used to pay survivors of attack

Judge: Persian artifacts can't be used to pay survivors of attack
 By Michelle Manchir Tribune reporter

12:55 p.m. CDT, March 28, 2014

Collections assistant Sarah Coleman works with ancient Persian artifacts at the Field Museum in 2006. (Charles Osgood, Chicago Tribune / February 9, 2006)

The University of Chicago and The Field Museum won’t have to turn over ancient Persian artifacts in their possession to help resolve a legal settlement owed to survivors of a terrorist attack, a federal judge has ruled.

In a long-running court battle, nine American victims of the 1997 attack in Jerusalem sued Iran, where the artifacts were excavated, for being a financial supporter of Hamas, the Palestinian extremist group.

The victims won a multimillion-dollar court judgment.

To collect on that, attorneys for the plaintiffs have been trying to gain control of Iranian assets in the United States, including artifacts the Chicago museum has had for decades, according to the ruling.

In Thursday’s decision, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman held that the plaintiffs’ argument was flawed because there was no evidence that Iran has asserted ownership over the collections.

“The court recognizes the tragic circumstances that gave rise to the instant action, but finds the law cited by the plaintiffs does not offer the remedy they seek,” Gettleman said in the decision.

Keepers of the Chicago collections said the pieces were priceless and welcomed the court’s ruling.

“These ancient artifacts...have unique historical and cultural value,” said Gil Stein, director of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute in a statement. The university “will continue our efforts to preserve and protect this cultural heritage,” he said.

David Strachman, an attorney for the victims who brought the lawsuit, said his clients were particularly upset that the U.S. State Department “takes the side of Iran in these cases.”

See the text of the judgement: 

Case: 1:03-cv-09370 Document #: 669 Filed: 03/27/14

See  the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive

See also the chronicle of news on Persepolis

News: Archive.ology: start with (clay) dinosaur bones, spice with love

Archive.ology: start with (clay) dinosaur bones, spice with love
By A.J. Cave
03/03/14 

Dr. Matthew Stolper



Once upon a time people used something called paper for writing all sorts of things, from love letters to secret sauce formulas to stockholder reports. It was when writing was just word-winding. 

They say some hyper competitive Silicon Valley companies (there was no other known kind) even went as far as hiring detectives to sort through paper trash of their competitors to patch together highly guarded business secrets.

This paper was made of trees that grew wild in the nature-in places people of old used to call forests. There were all sorts of round trees and all kinds of flat paper.
Something called deforestation saw to the end of these green forests and paper became rare and eventually extinct.

People didn’t stop writing, they wrote even more. But instead of real paper, they started to use old software programs that nostalgically looked like pages of white paper on computer screens, but they were really nothing more than zeroes and ones, stored on primitive hard drives.

As everyone knows those clunky computers eventually became obsolete too when we started to use glasses and tablets and watches and other things to record our blinkings and doings and thinkings.

Now and then one of those ancient paper archives called Libraries that have miraculously survived shredders and recyclers are discovered here and there. Page-turning paper-lovers from all over the world immediately converge on the discovery pits to make sure these antiquated archives don’t turn into dust during excavations...

...

...In 2006 Dr. Matthew Stolper, one of handful of specialists on Elamite language in the world, cleared his plate, assembled a stellar team of scholars from a number of American and European universities, embarked on the never-ending quest for (much) needed grants, and took on the emergency task of digitization of the Achaemenid archive-known as the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project (PFAP).

And here we are. 

Under Matt Stolper’s steadfast watch and with the moral support of his faithful friend, Baxter the Beast, the initial phase of cleaning, conserving and digitizing the archive is finally reaching critical mass and the next phase of making sense of the mass of generated data is kicking in-the old sprinkling of the water of life on dead bones.

In the process, surprising new discoveries have come to light, among them finding the footprint of Udusana (Greek: Atossa), the quintessential Achaemenid royal woman (queen), who, according to the classical writers, was the eldest daughter of Cyrus the Great, the chief wife of Darius the Great, and the powerful mother of Xerxes (Persian: Xsayarsa, or Khshayarsha). Triple Crown of Persian royalty.

These Persian administrative records, roughly 30,000 or so pieces from a single archive, dating from 509 to 493 BCE (from 13th to 28th regnal years of Darius the Great, about 16 years, with some references to the 7th regnal year)-conceptually likened to the bones of a dinosaur-have led to not just an understanding of the routine imperial administrative infrastructure, but all sorts of interesting things like art, language, religion, and society of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, that was unknowable merely from the traditional biblical and classical sources.

The sort of raw data that the large cuneiform archives like the Persepolis Fortification Archive have been yielding is “Big Data”-datasets that are getting too big to process using classical computing techniques. Big Data is now being used in computer technology circles to refer to the latest advances in aggregating massive amounts of data from various sources and enabling researchers to mine and map data in amazing new ways-see what no one has seen before, ask questions no one has answered yet.

On the academic side of the coin, Big Data research will eventually exponentially expand the newly-minted field of Digital Humanities.

While virtualization and visualization of archival data from the Achaemenid royal chancelleries will not give us historical answers-at least not to what we think-it will, however, provide a richer context for understanding and interpreting the Big Data we have accidentally inherited and luckily recovered.

This Big Data is also the playground of writers like me who troll the archival treasure troves for historical backstory to turn boring administrative records into sizzling stories about the adventurous lives and scandalous love affairs of the Persian royal sons and daughters-kings and their queens who once ruled the world-the real royal games of the only throne that really mattered. Masters of Asia.

Achaemenid scholars have been spending years carefully reconstructing a clay dinosaur to restore Persians to the history of the world, and the Persian storytellers thankfully ride this paper-beast to restore the Persians to the story of the world.
Dr. Stolper, now retired as of the end of 2013, is continuing as the head of the PFA Project, crisscrossing the globe on a mission to evangelize the immense impact of the ancient archive on Persian Achaemenid history and heritage.

In recognition of his lifelong achievements and his tireless efforts in preserving and promoting the integration of knowledge from the Achaemenid Administrative Archives into mainstream classical and ancient Near Eastern (ANE) studies, there would be a celebration at the Oriental Institute tentatively scheduled for 28 April 2014.

These types of events are normally planned for the local colleagues, students and patrons of the institute. This one, however, might just turn out to be a greater gathering of the friends of the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, die-hard supporters of Persian history and heritage, and the who-is-who of the Persian Achaemenid studies.

Tell Parnakka (probably the paternal uncle of Darius the Great and the first chief of the imperial administrative archives at Parsa) to order more Shiraz wine for the feast. Persians are coming.

See  the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive

See also the chronicle of news on Persepolis

Lecture in Toronto for the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies

On Wednesday, 19 February, Matthew W. Stolper, John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, will give a lecture for the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies:

PERSIAN RECORDS IN CRISIS:  RESCUING THE PERSEPOLIS FORTIFICATION ARCHIVE

The Persepolis Fortification Archive (PFA) is the richest, densest, most complex and most consequential source of information about languages, art, institutions, religion, and society in the heart of the Achaemenid Persian Empire at its zenith, about 500 BC.  Since 2006, in the face of a legal threat to the future of the Archive, the PFA Project at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has been working to open this source by recording and analyzing the tens of thousands of clay tablets and fragments, their texts and seals, that make up the Archive, and by reconnecting them in meaningful systems of information.  This presentation will discuss what the PFA Project is, why it matters, what the PFA Project does and what it seeks.

This free public lecture is at 8:00 pm in Earth Sciences Auditorium B142, 5 Bancroft Avenue, University of Toronto, St. George Campus.

Persepolis Fortification Archive (PFA) Project 2012-2013 Annual Report

See now here.

Index to ARTA: Achaemenid Research on Texts and Archaeology

I have updated the index to ARTA: Achaemenid Research on Texts and Archaeology at AWOL.

News: Iranian researcher renders inscriptions of Persepolis

Iranian researcher renders inscriptions of Persepolis

4 Nov 2013 14:19

Iran Book News Agency

Abdul Majid Arfaei, a professor of Ancient Near Eastern languages and cultures, has translated ‘The Inscriptions of Persepolis’ in four volumes which have been handed over to the Cultural Heritage Organization for publication. 

IBNA: Abdul Majid Arfaei said he has finished translating 647 tablets, related to the era of Darius the Great, which were read by Richard Treadwell Hallock. The works are included in the first volume of the series.

Richard Treadwell Hallock, Elamologist and Assyriologist, was a professor of Chicago University. The late professor, who read the bulk of the Persepolis Elamite tablets, died in 1980.

The Iranian researcher has also translated 2,586 clay Achaemenid tablets into Persian and English which were rendered by Hallock.

The work is also handed over to Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO) for publication.

The three other books of the ‘The Inscriptions of Persepolis’ will be published in Iran gradually.

Arfaei, the renowned expert of Elamite, Avestan and Pahlavi languages, is the founder of the Inscriptions Hall of Iran’s National Museum and has written a number of books on Iranian history.

He is the only Iranian Elamologist who worked under the supervision of Professor Hallock.

Arfaei was the first person who translated the inscription of Cyrus Cylinder.

The Iranian expert has also translated more than 2,500 Persepolis inscriptions, which are housed at Chicago University.

See  the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive

See also the chronicle of news on Persepolis

Lecture: De Persépolis à l'Arachosie achéménide: à propos des fragments de tablettes élamites trouvés dans l'ancienne Kandahar

Matthew W. Stolper

De Persépolis à l'Arachosie achéménide: à propos des fragments de tablettes élamites trouvés dans l'ancienne Kandahar

Lundi 4 novembre 2013, 17h00

Collège de France, 11 place Marcelin-Berthelot, Paris 5e, salle 5.

Retrouvez toute l’actualité du site Achemenet

News: CHTHO Chief in Pursuit of Iran’s Ancient Relics in New York Visit

CHTHO Chief in Pursuit of Iran’s Ancient Relics in New York Visit
Fars News Agency
Tue Sep 10, 2013 5:13

TEHRAN (FNA)- Vice-president and head of the Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization (CHTHO) Mohammad Ali Najafi vowed to follow up the case with returning Iran’s ancient tablets during his upcoming visit to New York.

 

“One of my programs during the visit to New York will be meeting with Chancellor of Chicago University to discuss the return of about 30,000 Achaemenid tablets which are now in New York to Iran …,” Najafi said, saying that his name has been included in the list of the delegation which will be accompanying Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in his upcoming visit to New York.

President Rouhani will participate in the 68th annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York due to open on 17 September, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced earlier.

In August, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon invited Iranian President Rouhani to participate in the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in September.

The tablets were discovered by the University of Chicago archaeologists in 1933 while they were excavating in Persepolis, the site of a major Oriental Institute excavation.

The artifacts bear cuneiform script explaining administrative details of the Achaemenid Empire from about 500 BC. They are among a group of tens of thousands of tablets and tablet fragments that were loaned to the university's Oriental Institute in 1937 for study. A group of 179 complete tablets was returned in 1948, and another group of more than 37,000 tablet fragments was returned in 1951.

In spring 2006, US District Court Judge Blanche Manning ruled that a group of people injured by a 1997 bombing in Israel could seize the 300 clay tablets loaned to the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute and the university cannot protect Iran's ownership rights to the artifacts.

Following Iranian officials' protests against the ruling, the court was slated to reexamine the case on December 21, 2006, but the court session was postponed to January 19, 2007, allegedly due to the fact that Iran had not provided all the documents required by the court.

The court session was held on the above-mentioned date, but no verdict was issued.

Museum of London has voiced its support for the return of the collection of clay tablets to Iran as the owner of the artifacts.

The Oriental Institute holds 8000 to 10,000 intact and about 11,000 fragmented tablets, as estimated by Gil Stein, the director of the university's Oriental Institute.

Based on a bill approved by the Iranian parliament in 1930, foreign research institutes were allowed to conduct excavations at Iranian ancient sites exclusively or during joint projects with the Iranian government.

Foreigners were also given permission to share the artifacts discovered during the excavation projects with Iranian team members and to transfer their share to their country.

By the act, many Iranian artifacts were looted by foreign institutes working on Iranian ancient sites until the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

See  the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive

See also the chronicle of news on Persepolis

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

Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hillaire reports on a motion for a summary judgement in Rubin vs. Iran

Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hillaire reports on a motion for a summary judgement in Rubin vs. Iran

Chicago Museums Seek Summary Judgment in Rubin v. Iran

The Field Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute filed a motion for summary judgment last week seeking to end a case that has pitted victims of a terrorist attack against two Illinois museums and Iran. The Chicago-based institutions argue that the plaintiffs' wish to take museum "property that Iran neither owns nor has ever claimed." And regarding Persian artifacts owned by Iran but on loan to the museums, the museums say that the plaintiffs cannot take title to these objects in order to satisfy a court judgment. American lawyers representing Iran filed their own motion in agreement [Read the rest]

See  the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive

See also the chronicle of news on Persepolis

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

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute grant to the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project

In March, 2013, Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute awarded a grant of $30,000 to the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago to support summer work on the Project by six students, both from Chicago and from other universities.

Since late May these students have been working with Roshan support:  

• Christina Chandler (undergraduate, Classics, University of Colorado)
• Erin Daly (graduate student, Classics and Art History, Notre Dame)
• Katherine Livingstone (undergraduate, Art History, University of Minnesota)
• Tytus Mikołajczak (graduate student, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Chicago)
• Emily Wilson (PhD Candidate, Classics, Chicago)
• Seunghee Yie (PhD candidate, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago)

By supporting these student workers, Roshan is not only helping make available the daunting volume and variety of information that the Persepolis Fortification Archive offers, but also helping to prepare a new generation of scholars who can use the information with a full appreciation of its context and connections.

Video: Persepolis and the Economy of Achemenid Persia

Dr. Matt Stolper of the Oriental Institute lectures on Persepolis and the Economy of Achemenid Persia as a part of the docent training miniseries.

 

 

The panel discussion wrapping up the Ancient Economy docent training miniseries.

Celebratory Conference on the Occasion of the 80th Anniversary of the Discovery of the Persepolis Fortification Archive

The Administration of the Achaemenid Empire – Tracing the Imperial Signature Celebratory Conference on the Occasion of the 80th Anniversary of the Discovery of the Persepolis Fortification Archive

Tuesday, May 14th - Friday, May 17th

Program

From Humban to Auramazda – Image and Text. A New Religious Landscape for the Early Persians

Vortrag: From Humban to Auramazda – Image and Text. A New Religious Landscape for the Early Persians

Wouter F. M. Henkelman and Mark B. Garrison
From Humban to Auramazda – Image and Text. A New Religious Landscape for the Early Persians
Montag, 13. Mai 2013, 15.00 Uhr

The Persepolis Fortification texts, a large economic archive of sealed claytablets written in Elamite cuneiform and Aramaic alphabetic script (ca. 500BCE), is rapidly becoming established as the most important primary source for the early Achaemenid Empire. The overwhelming richness of the glyptic imagery and the vast potential of its textual contents are unparalleled among other sources from the period. And though the preserved timespan (16 years) is rather short, the archive bears a relevance to a much longer period, notably the fundamental context of cultural encounters between Elamites and (Indo-)Iranians in centuries prior to the emergence of the empire. As such, the archive supports the view that, as in later periods of Iranian history, Persian identity at the time of the Achaemenids was rather inclusive. A telling example is that of the religious landscape: whereas the early Persians were previously viewed as the heralds of an enlightened new faith (Zoroastrianism) that was believed to have either emerged in a cultural void or have contrasted markedly with that of the ‘pagan’ Elamites, the Fortification archive now shows us an entirely different and much more interesting world. Replacing an almost colonist perspective of cultural dominance, it reveals a variegated divine and ritual imagery, as well as a surprisingly mixed pantheon served by priests with Elamite or Iranian titles performing sacrifices with Elamite or Iranian names. As such, the archive challenges the idea of religious, Zoroastrian or Mazdaic, orthodoxy and simultaneously forcefully underlines the importance of Elamite traditions alongside the Indo-Iranian heritage. In the end, then, the new evidence once more eloquently demonstrates what may be the most important trait of Persian culture: the ability to reach synthesis.
Mark B. Garrison is professor of Art and Art History, Art and Art History at Trinity Uni-versity (San Antonio, Texas) and an expert of Achaemenid glyptic art. Wouter F. M. Henkelman is Humboldt Research Fellow at the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut as well as assistant professor of Elamite and Achaemenid Culture at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris). Garrison and Henkelman have been collaborating closely for almost ten years in the edition and study of the Persepolis Fortification archive.This will be a joined presentation in which the lecturers will speak alternately. The presentation will be in English, but it will be supported by a PowerPoint in German; the discussion will be in English and German.
The event will be followed by a wine reception.

Eventdate

2013-05-13

Eventlocation

Berlin, Topoi-Haus Dahlem, Hittorfstraße 18, 14195 Berlin