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

Eightieth Anniversary of the Discovery of the Persepolis Fortification Archive

March 4 2013 is the Eightieth Anniversary of the Discovery of the Persepolis Fortification Archive

The text of the telegram from Ernst Herzfeld to James Henry Breasted announcing the discovery of the Persepolis Fortification Archive, received 4 March 1933:

Hundreds Probably thousands business Tablets Elamite Discovered On Terrace Herzfeld

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News: Rick St. Hilaire Comments on the First Circuit Ruling in Favor of MFA and Harvard

First Circuit Rules in Favor of MFA and Harvard in Rubin v. Iran
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Rick St. Hilaire on his blog

The First Circuit Court of Appeals on February 27, 2013 decided in favor of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) and Harvard’s museums in the case of Rubin v. Iran.

The case involves victims of a 1997 Iranian-backed terrorist bombing who seek to satisfy a multi-million dollar default court judgment awarded to them in 2003. Since 2005 the Rubin plaintiffs have argued that approximately 2000 reliefs, sculptures, and other archaeological objects located at the MFA and Harvard are the property of Iran that can be seized.  The cultural institutions have been contesting that claim, and yesterday the First Circuit agreed.

The appeals court decision extended its sympathies to the the plaintiffs, saying “we are mindful of the incident that gave rise to the judgment here and the difficulty the plaintiffs are having collecting on that judgment ….”  But the justices upheld “the general rule … that foreign sovereign property in the United States is immune from attachment and execution” because of the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA). 28 U.S.C. § 1609.

The appeals court acknowledged that the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (TRIA) “carves out a narrow exception to that rule, applicable only to ‘blocked assets,’” but wrote that “the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that any of the antiquities in the Museums' possession fall within that exception.”

The MFA and Harvard argued in the lower federal district court that Iran does not own the cultural objects. Even if they were owned by Iran, the MFA and Harvard maintained that the FSIA makes the objects immune from attachment...

 
The ruling:
United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit, No. 11-2144
JENNY RUBIN, ET AL., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, ET AL.,Defendants, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, ET AL., Trustees, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. George A. O'Toole, U.S. District Judge] Before Howard, Stahl, and Lipez, Circuit Judges.
February 27, 2013

See  the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive

See also the chronicle of news on Persepolis

See linked data for Persepolis via awld.js

News: U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Rejects Bid to Seize Iranian Antiquities at Harvard

Federal Court Rejects Bid to Seize Iranian Antiquities at Harvard 
February 28, 2013 - 3:00am
Inside Higher Ed

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled Wednesday that people injured by a terrorist attack financed by Iran cannot make a claim on Iranian antiquities held in a Harvard University museum. Several Americans with claims against Iran have tried to collect money owed by that nation by going after antiquities at various American institutions. But the appeals court ruled -- as other courts have ruled -- that there are very limited circumstances in which artifacts can be seized as assets, and that this is not one of them. The legal challenges to ownership of these antiquities have worried many museum officials who have feared that they would be unable to obtain loans of art from other countries if that art might be seized.

The ruling:
United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit, No. 11-2144
JENNY RUBIN, ET AL., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, ET AL.,Defendants, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, ET AL., Trustees, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. George A. O'Toole, U.S. District Judge] Before Howard, Stahl, and Lipez, Circuit Judges.
February 27, 2013

See  the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive

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News: The First Circuit Hears Oral Arguments in Rubin v. Iran

The meaning of "OF": The First Circuit Hears Oral Arguments in Rubin v. Iran

Tuesday, December 4, 2012
This post is researched, written, and published on the blog Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire at culturalheritagelawyer.blogspot.com.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals today heard arguments about the meaning of the word "of" in the case of Rubin v. Iran.  The Rubin plaintiffs wish to seize "property of Iran" after receiving a multi-million dollar court judgment holding that country responsible for injuries caused by a terrorist attack.  The litigants have been unable to obtain payment; therefore, they seek to execute the judgment by taking ancient Iranian cultural artifacts housed at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) and the Harvard museums.  After losing their case in the lower federal district court, the plaintiffs appealed.

The attorney for the plaintiffs/appellants told the judges today, "We don't really care, frankly, whether or not the property actually belongs to Iran." explaining "All we care about is whether the property is 'of Iran.'"  "What does the word 'of'' mean?," counsel asked.  He answered that "...the word 'of' does not always mean possession."...

See  the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive

See also the chronicle of news on Persepolis

See linked data for Persepolis via awld.js

Rugs Illustrating Achaemenid Monuments

[Originally posted on March 14th 2008, updated on March 29th with the addition of the caption. Updated 1December 2012 with the addition of the Nazmiyal rug]

Click on the photos for bigger pictures

This is a photograph of The Persepolis Kerman. This rug was woven in the Kerman workshop of Hajji Gholam Riza in 1900. The inscription at the upper end of the border reads (in translation):

Woven according to the command of his excellency, Aghayi Assadullah Khan Behtejulmulk, the vice-governor of the state of Fars, following the time when he made a tour of Persepolis. After seeing all, he commissioned Mirza Aghayi Forsati of Shiraz to study the ruins of the old buildings, as well as the sculpted figures and writings, who began to draw and translate the ancient writings in detail. The results of these labors were woven in this rug in the workshop of Hajji Gholam Riza of Kerman.

The rug, measuring twenty-four feet six inches by seventeen feet was given to The University of Chicago by Mrs. Mary Hooker Dole of Oak Park Illinois. For some years it lay on the floor of the Quadrangle Club, and was subsequently moved to Rockefeller Chapel where it was mounted on the south wall of the east transept. It was eventually sold by the University.



This polychrome rug from the workshop of Master Aboul Ghasem Kermani is currently offered for sale in New York at the Nazmiyal Collection.

Do you know of others? Let me know by way of the comments.

News: Humanities Day 2012: Oriental Institute’s Persian artifacts are subject of ongoing lawsuit

Humanities Day 2012: Oriental Institute’s Persian artifacts are subject of ongoing lawsuit

Americans attempting to get redress from the Islamic Republic of Iran want to take possession of the artifacts, currently on loan at the Oriental Institute.

by Hamid Bendaas - Oct 23, 2012 2:52 pm CDT

For nearly 10 years, a lawsuit against the state of Iran has turned the Oriental Institute into a battleground over 2,500-year-old Persian artifacts.

This past Saturday, Professor Matthew Stolper, head of the Institute’s Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, gave an update on what he called a “salvage excavation” and revealed the innovative technology that might decide the artifacts’ future.

More than just “pieces of dirt that someone poked with sticks a very long time ago,” the archive is “the largest, the most complex, the best dated source of information from within the Persian Empire at its zenith,” Stolper said.

The tens of thousands of fragments, pieces of old administrative records excavated from Persepolis ruins in the 1930s, have been a treasure chest for understanding Persian language, religion, daily life and politics.  “This loan was an extraordinary thing—an extraordinary act of trust,” Stolper said, since the Institute has been allowed to keep the artifacts on loan from Iran during the pending law suit.

“A completely unique discovery is sent off to an American research institute and it is sent intact—it is sent as if they knew it was all one thing. This is almost without precedent in the annals of cultural study,” Stolper said.

If the plaintiffs, Americans who lost relatives in 1997 terrorist attacks in Israel, win, the tablets may be sold and dispersed. If they lose, then Iran may demand the artifacts’ immediate return, according to Stolper. The plaintiffs were already awarded redress money that Iran refused to pay, so the plaintiffs are seeking this Iranian property in the U.S. as an alternative form of payment.
Stolper took a moment to remind the audience that the plaintiffs had lost their loved ones in a terrorist attack and reacted within the legal channels granted by the judicial system. “There’s a tendency to say [about the lawsuit], ‘What a terrible barbaric thing,”” Stolper said. “The plaintiffs are not greedy barbarians. They are seeking redress.”

The Institute has responded with innovative steps to preserve the artifacts, digitally and on the Internet. By publicly sharing infrared and photo-edited images of the tablets, alongside intensive linguistic analysis, the Institute is pushing archaeological record-keeping into the 21st century. “Sometimes the images are more useful than the original objects,” Stolper said.

Stolper left his audience and future generations, he hopes, with a challenge. “If I can’t convince you it’s something you should be excited about, at least I can convince you it’s something one can be excited about,” he said.

See  the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive

See also the chronicle of news on Persepolis

See linked data for Persepolis via awld.js

Images uploaded to InscriptiFact

InscriptiFact has recently uploaded another set of images of Persepolis Fortification Tablets. They were all of uninscribed (anepigraphic) tablets. Of 319 tablets there are  2360 PTMs and 202 conventional images (jpeg images with scales in them).

An other set is currently in preparation for upload including  Fort, PF, PF-NN and PFAT images of 163 tablets: 1502 PTMs, 2693 BetterLight images.

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...

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

News: Archaeologists Unearth and Reopen the Achaemenid Sewage System at Persepolis

Archaeologists Unearth and Reopen the Achaemenid Sewage System at Persepolis 
The News Section of the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS)

Tuesday, 10 July 2012 18:51

LONDON, (CAIS) -- Iranian Archaeologists have begun work on unearthing the Persepolis swage system, which in ancient times diverted rainwater from the platform to prevent flooding, reported the Persian service of ISNA on Tuesday.

According to the news, apart from the sewage system, archaeologists have identified three water and irrigation systems at Persepolis, which circulated water over the platform. The sewage system, which is one of the most complex systems in the ancient world, diverted excess water flowing down from Mount Rahamt, away from the platform.

The Achaemenid engineers constructed and implemented the sewage system inside the platform before construction of the citadel. The oldest sewage system at Persepolis is dated to the reign of Darius the Great (r. 550-486 BCE).

Archaeologists believe that by unearthing and re-opening the ancient waterways and the sewage systems, they will be able to resolve the flood issue that Persepolis has been suffering from, particularly in the past few years.

Last year archaeologists warned the authorities that if no necessary measures were taken immediately to resolve the flood issue at Persepolis, the ancient edifice will cease to exit within 10 years.

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis
See also the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive

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News: Illinois District Court Gets Case Back Following Supreme Court's Rejection of Appeal -- U.S. Files Amicus Brief in First Circuit Supporting Museums

Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire comments on the status of Rubin et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran

Monday, July 9, 2012

Rubin v. Iran Update: Illinois District Court Gets Case Back Following Supreme Court's Rejection of Appeal -- U.S. Files Amicus Brief in First Circuit Supporting Museums

The case of Jenny Rubin, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran has been restarted in federal district court in Illinois (docket 03-cv-9370).  That is because the United States Supreme Court on June 25 declined to hear the Rubin plaintiffs' request to review the Seventh Circuit decision, which ruled against them. Justices Antonin Scalia and Elena Kagan did not participate in the decision.

Rubin and the other plaintiffs are trying to recover a court-awarded money judgment against Iran for that nation's sponsorship of a deadly terrorist attack that harmed the parties.  They wish to acquire Persian artifacts located at Chicago's Field Museum and the University of Chicago in order execute the judgment. The case moved from the federal district court in northern Illinois to the circuit court of appeals.  The case was to be sent back to the district court by the appeals court, but the Rubin plaintiffs sought review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court has now returned the case to the district court, where a status hearing  is scheduled for July 18 at 3:00 p.m.

In a companion case now in the First Circuit Court of Appeals, the same parties seek to acquire Persian artifacts held at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston and at Harvard.  The United States filed an amicus brief (i.e. friend of the court brief) on June 7 in support of the MFA, the Harvard museums, and Iran.

Federal lawyers argue two points in their brief to the First Circuit.  They say that the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) does not authorize the attachment of property not owned by a terrorist state.  Second, the government asserts that Iranian property cannot be “contested” within the meaning of the Iranian Assets Control Regulations because "Iran itself has not articulated any claim to the property in question."

The government writes:
"The United States emphatically condemns the act of terrorism that grievously injured the plaintiffs, and has deep sympathy for their suffering. The United States remains committed to disrupting terrorist financing and to aggressively pursuing those responsible for committing terrorist acts against U.S. nationals. In addition, however, the United States has a strong interest in ensuring that courts properly interpret TRIA’s scope. Normally, unless a person obtains a license from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), that person is barred from attaching assets that are blocked under various sanctions programs, such as the Iranian Assets Control Regulations."

The lawyers add:
"The district court found that Iran does not, in fact, own the assets in question. The United States takes no position on the question of ownership. If this Court affirms the district court’s holding, however, that ruling will also preclude attachment of the assets under TRIA. TRIA does not, as plaintiffs contend, permit them to attach the artifacts possessed by the Museums if those assets are not owned by Iran."

The government concludes that the court "should hold that the Museums’ artifacts cannot be attached under TRIA unless the plaintiffs establish that Iran owns the artifacts. Additionally, if the Court reaches the issue, it should hold that an asset is not “contested” for purposes of [the Iranian Assets Control Regulations] unless Iran itself is claiming an interest in the asset."

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Roundup of Persepolis Fortification Archive (PFA) Project Annual Reports

The Oriental Institute Membership Office publishes the Oriental Institute Annual Reports and distributes them in book form as one of the privileges of membership. They are not for sale to the general public. They contain yearly summaries of the activities of the Institute’s faculty, staff, and research projects, as well as descriptions of special events and other Institute functions. Twenty of these have been made available in open access form on the Oriental Institute's website.  Indeed is was the text of the 1991-92 Annual Report and the 1992-93 Annual Report along with the Highlights From The Collection that provided the core of the very first Oriental Institute website inaugurated in April 1994.

The Persepolis Fortification Archive has summarized its activities in each Annual Report since 2007:

• 2010 - 2011 Annual Report
• 2009 - 2010 Annual Report
• 2008 - 2009 Annual Report
• 2007 - 2008 Annual Report
• 2006 - 2007 Annual Report

View the Persepolis Fortification Archive using the On-Line Cultural Heritage Environment (OCHRE)

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News: Part of Persepolis sewage system unearthed

Part of Persepolis sewage system unearthed
Payvand Iran News ...
06/06/12
Source: Tehran Times

A team of Iranian archaeologists has recently discovered 20 meters of a canal of the sewage system of Persepolis in southern Iran. The team led by Ali Asadi has been commissioned to carry out excavations of the sewage system to discover how the system worked during the Achaemenid era, the Persian service of CHN reported on Tuesday.

The sewage system is located in the southwest of the Achaemenid city near the city of Shiraz.
The team dug down about five meters to reach the canal, Asadi said.
A number of stone bas-reliefs have also been discovered during the excavations, he added.
Asadi said that the sewage system branches off into many canals, which extend to the south and then turn to the east.

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News: Solicitor General Tells U.S. Supreme Court to Reject Rubin v. Iran Case

 Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire comments on the status of Rubin et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Solicitor General Tells U.S. Supreme Court to Reject Rubin v. Iran Case

Saying that the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals got it right, the US Solicitor General told the Supreme Court last week to reject the case of Rubin v. Iran. 

Lawyers for Jenny Rubin and other injured litigants who won a judgment against Iran for its sponsorship of a 1997 terrorist attack have been trying to collect a multi-million dollar court award by attempting to seize ancient Persian artifacts located at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and the Chicago Field Museum.  The Seventh Circuit on March 29, 2011 sent the case back to the federal district court in Illinois for review. But the Rubin plaintiffs instead sought review by the nation's highest court.  See here for more background

Read the rest here

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Briant Lecture: Persépolis de Darius III à Alexandre.

Pierre Briant will deliver his last lecture at the Collège de France (amphithéâtre Budé) on Wednesday June 6. at 4 p.m. on the following topics: Persépolis de Darius III à Alexandre.