Iran’s Achaemenid tablets

Restoring Relics

A special team has been formed to search the archives of state institutions to locate documents to prove Iran’s ownership of Achaemenid tablets currently kept at the University of Chicago.
Announcing the above, Omid Ghanami, director general of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO) for legal affairs, said the archives of ICHHTO have been surveyed completely and the team of experts is searching the archives of the Customs Administration, Foreign Ministry and the Presidential Office, CHN reported.

False Claims
The official emphasized that documents obtained so far reveal that Iran had loaned the Achaemenid tablets to the university.
“ICHHTO wants to win in the US court dealing with the case and secure the return of tablets to Iran,“ he said. The exact date of the court hearing has not been announced.
Defense attorneys of nine US nationals made baseless accusations that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism and provided Hamas with weapons and ammunition in the 1997 bombing in Beit-ul-Moqaddas in a federal lawsuit filed against Iran in Chicago.
Iran did not show up at the court, which it considered incompetent, and the judge issued a default judgment and sentenced Iran to payment of huge sums of money as compensation.
In order to collect the compensation, the attorneys of the plaintiffs called for confiscation and auction of Iran’s cultural and historical assets kept at a few American museums, universities and institutions, including the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute.
Excavations
In 1937, joint archeological excavations were undertaken by the Iranian government of the time in cooperation with the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute at Takht-e Jamshid (Persepolis). A large number of cultural and historical relics were found.
The parliament of the time had passed a law in 1930 authorizing joint archeological excavations and permitting foreign institutions to take some of these findings with them for research activities. Until the final days of the former monarchical regime and the early days of the Islamic Revolution, American and French archeological groups carried out excavations in all parts of the country and took artifacts on loan.
The Islamic Republic is determined to prove the Iranian origin and ownership of these artifacts and bring them home.