Ancient Artifact to be Sent to Iran – NEW UPDATE: Iran Cuts Ties With British Museum
January 19, 2010
A protracted loan of an ancient artifact is endangering UK-Iran cooperation in the field of arts and culture. Iran has accused The British Museum for slowness to deliver on its promises to lend a 2500-year-old Cylinder dating to the reign of the Persian king Cyrus the Great.
The piece of art had to travel from the UK to Iran to participate in an exhibition. Iranians, however, got upset by the lengthy procedures and threatened to sever all relations with the British Museum in case the promise is not fulfilled.
On the British side, officials have warned that they are monitoring the political situation in Iran, after the post-election turmoil in Tehran this June.
The Cyrus Cylinder is credited for being the world’s most ancient declaration on human rights. It is also among the few artifacts that give precise data about the reign of one of the greatest Persian rulers of the whole Middle East.
Article source: Bloomberg
Britain has agreed to loan the 2,500-year-old Cyrus Cylinder to Iran for three months, Iran’s state television reported today. The British Museum wouldn’t confirm the report.
‘We can confirm that representatives from the British Museum are in Tehran at the moment, but until we have spoken to them we can’t confirm anything further’, Esme Wilson, a press assistant for the museum, wrote in an e-mail today.
Iran has accused the museum of slowness on a promise to loan the 539-530 B.C. cylinder, dating back to the reign of Cyrus the Great. It is inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform and is described as the world’s earliest charter of human rights.
Hamid Baqaei, vice president in charge of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, and a museum representative agreed the loan for three months starting in January, Iranian TV said.
Baqaei told the channel that he hopes the museum will agree to a one-month extension of the loan period. The priority is to return the artifact safely to its home after it is exhibited in Iran, he said.
Iran last month said it would sever all ties with the British Museum unless a promise to send the Cylinder to the National Museum of Iran was honored.
The British Museum said in October it was monitoring the Iranian political situation to make sure the loan was made in the best possible conditions.
Election Protests
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in June 12 elections. Ahmadinejad has denied allegations that the poll was rigged. Iranians have taken to the streets in the tens of thousands to protest the outcome.
The British Museum promised to loan the Cylinder after its 2005-6 exhibition, ‘Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia‘, British Museum Head of Press Hannah Boulton said in October. It was made clear at the time that the Cylinder would not be loaned until after the ‘Babylon: Myth and Reality’ exhibition, which ended March 15. The British Museum also wanted the Cylinder shown temporarily in its new Iranian gallery.
Update from Bloomberg
The British Museum, which faces demands from Iran to lend an ancient artifact known as the Cyrus Cylinder, said it would delay sending the object there after making a discovery.
On Jan. 5, inscriptions similar to the Cylinder’s were found on two pieces of cuneiform tablets from Babylonia in the museum’s collections. The pieces will be studied to shed light on the Cylinder’s “missing” or “obscure” passages, the museum said, and presented at a London workshop involving Iranian colleagues.
After that, “it is intended that the two new pieces should be exhibited for the first time in Tehran, together with the Cylinder itself,” the museum said in an e-mailed release.
“The agreement has been made with our colleagues in Iran that we’ll postpone the loan to investigate this exciting discovery with them,” said Hannah Boulton, head of press and marketing at the British Museum. “That’s the reason for the postponement.”
The Cylinder, a 539-530 B.C. artifact dating back to the reign of Cyrus the Great, is inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform, and has been described as the world’s earliest charter of human rights. Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organization said in October that it would sever all ties with the British Museum unless a promise to send the Cylinder to the National Museum of Iran was honored.
‘Forgotten Empire’
The British Museum promised to loan the Cylinder to Iran after its 2005-6 exhibition, “Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia.” Yet in October, the museum said it was monitoring the Iranian political situation to make sure the loan was made in the best possible conditions.
That’s after Iranians took to the streets in the tens of thousands as of mid-June to protest the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, alleging that the poll was rigged.
Another set of protests broke out Dec. 21 after a dissident cleric died. In subsequent marches on Dec. 27, at least eight people were killed in clashes with the security forces.
Boulton said the latest postponement had no link to recent events. “They made this discovery last Tuesday,” she said. “We wanted to have discussions with our colleagues in Iran in terms of what we should do.”
Asked why it took so long for the two tablets to be found, she said, “There are 200,000 cuneiform tablets in our collection, and only a limited number of scholars who can understand and translate cuneiform.”
Update Tehran Times
TEHRAN — Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization (CHTHO) director, who is also a vice president, said on Thursday that Iran would cut cultural ties with Britain if they cannot come to an agreement with the British Museum concerning the Cyrus Cylinder loan.
“We are currently talking to them about the issue and if the discussions produce the outcome that Britain doesn’t want to fulfill the previous agreement, undoubtedly, we will cut cultural ties with Britain due to our previous ultimatum,” Hamid Baqaii told the Persian service of IRNA.
Iran has been waiting to receive the Cyrus Cylinder on loan from the British Museum since 2005 after the National Museum of Iran loaned the British Museum a number of artifacts for the “Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia” show in London.
The cylinder was to put on display in an exhibition at the National Museum of Iran on January 16, but officials at the British Museum said last week that would be a delay in sending the artifact.
They said that the decision to postpone sending the artifact to Iran was made due to a recent discovery of two cuneiform tablets in BM’s collection of Babylonian art, which contain passages with remarkable similarities to those found on the cylinder.
But Iranian government sees political reasons for the delay as it occurs in the wake of turmoil following Iran’s disputed presidential election.
“If we catch the Britain killing time in sending the Cyrus Cylinder, we will inform the world that Britain is forcing cultural issues into the political arena,” Baqaii noted.
“At present, the cultural and academic centers of Britain and CHTHO are collaborating, but on this matter, they need to cooperate with us,” he said.
Considered the world’s first declaration of human rights, the Cyrus Cylinder is a document issued by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great in the form of a clay cylinder inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform script.
The cylinder was created following the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, when Cyrus overthrew the Babylonian king Nabonidus and replaced him as ruler, ending the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
The text of the cylinder denounces Nabonidus as impious and portrays the victorious Cyrus as pleasing to the chief Babylonian god Marduk.
It goes on to describe how Cyrus had improved the lives of the citizens of Babylonia, repatriated displaced peoples and restored temples and cult sanctuaries.
The cylinder was discovered in 1879 by the Assyro-British archaeologist Hormuz Rassam in the foundations of the Esagila, the main temple of Babylon. Today, it is kept in the British Museum in London.
Update from AFP
TEHRAN — Iran cut ties with the British Museum on Sunday in protest at repeated delays in the loan to Tehran of an ancient Persian treasure, the Cyrus Cylinder, a senior official said.
In London a British Museum statement expressed “great surprise.”
Hassan Mohseni of the cultural heritage and tourism organisation said relations were annulled after the London museum failed to transfer the artefact to Tehran.
“We confirm the cutting of ties and we consider it a closed chapter,” Mohseni, who heads the organisation’s public relations, told AFP.
The decision to sever ties with the museum was revealed earlier by Hamid Baghai, who heads the cultural heritage and tourism organisation.
“Since the Cyrus Cylinder has not been transferred to Iran, we will lodge a complaint against the British Museum to UNESCO and cut ties,” he was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
Baghai said the British Museum had failed to meet a final deadline of Sunday, leading to the cut and Tehran’s decision to notify the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
But the museum statement said it had confirmed its intention to lend the artefact and associated fragments of clay tablet to the National Museum of Tehran in the second half of July in a phone call to officials on February 2.
This was followed up with an email and faxed letter to Baghai on February 5, it said.
“The new announcement from Mr Baghai therefore comes as a great surprise,” it said.
“The British Museum has acted throughout in good faith, and values highly its hitherto good relations with Iran. It is to be hoped that this matter can be resolved as soon as possible.”
Many historians regard the Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in 1879, as the world’s first declaration of human rights.
It was written at the order of Persian ruler Cyrus the Great after his conquest of Babylon in 539 BC.
“The British Museum told us they will transfer it to us in September, then they said November, and then finally said January 16. We have so far spent around 200,000 dollars on additional security devices to protect the loaned cylinder,” Baghai said.
“Then we got a letter saying they cannot send the cylinder following the Ashura day incidents,” he said of deadly clashes in Tehran between security forces and opposition supporters on the day of a Shiite ritual on December 27.
Baghai said the museum later told Tehran it had more “fragments belonging to the cylinder and the cylinder will be transferred to Iran… So we gave them a final two weeks to keep their word” — a period which ended on Sunday.
Mohseni also said there would be no further visits by British archaeological teams to Iran following the cut in relations.
Diplomatic ties between Tehran and London have fluctuated since the creation of the Islamic republic in 1979, and further deteriorated after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in June.
Tehran has accused London of fomenting the post-election riots and detained nine local British embassy staff.
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