The British Museum delayed the loan of the Cyrus Cylinder to Iran for a long time due to worries over the security of the loan & guarantees that the artefacts would be returned afterwards. After extensive re-assurances, the loan eventually went ahead. Many in Iran are still questioning whether it should be returned to the British Museum when the four months are up.
From:
Guardian [1]
Iran lays claim to British Museum’s Cyrus Cylinder
Conservative Iranian newspaper raises concern that rare 6th century BC Babylonian artefact may not be returned
# Ian Black and Saeed Kamali Dehghan
Wednesday 15 September 2010 20.06 BSTIt was not an easy decision for the British Museum to lend one of its most treasured artefacts to a country which has a notoriously prickly relationship with the UK. So curators in London are paying close attention to an Iranian threat not to return the famous Cyrus Cylinder — now embroiled in political intrigue in the Islamic Republic.
The 6th century BC Babylonian object, sometimes described as the world’s first human rights charter, arrived in Iran at the weekend and is due to be displayed for four months at the national museum.
In a ceremony on Sunday President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad draped a Palestinian-style keffiyeh scarf worn by Basij militiamen over the shoulders of a bowing actor dressed as Cyrus. He also described Cyrus reverentially as “King of the World” – a striking phrase in a country where pride in Iran’s pre-Islamic past, encouraged by the shah, has been downplayed since the 1979 revolution. For Ahmadinejad’s domestic enemies, this was another glaring example both of his self-promotion and a religious-nationalist agenda that arouses their deepest suspicions.“Isn’t it correct that the Cyrus Cylinder belongs to Iran?” asked the Keyhan newspaper, mouthpiece of hardline conservatives. “Isn’t it true that the British government stole this valuable and ancient object of ours? If the answer to these questions is positive, which it is, why should we return [it] … to the party which stole it.”
The correct answer, insists the British Museum, is that the cylinder was not stolen but excavated in Babylon, Iraq in 1879. Its loan was a triumph of cultural diplomacy for Neil MacGregor, the museum’s director, after relations between London and Tehran were strained to breaking point with the expulsion of British Council staff from Iran, the launch of the BBC Persian TV channel, and the violent and repressive aftermath of last summer’s disputed presidential election.
The loan reciprocates those made by Iran’s national museum to the successful Forgotten Empire and Shah Abbas exhibitions at the British Museum.
The cylinder is due back in Bloomsbury in January. “There is no sense that this is anything other than a loan,” said a museum spokesperson. “This is part of our ongoing relationship with the national museum of Iran which both institutions value as a cultural dialogue independent of political difficulties.”
But it seems destined to be the centre of controversy for as long as it stays in Tehran. Elyas Naderan, a fundamentalist MP, criticised the government for inviting British ambassador Simon Gass to Sunday’s reception.
Ayatollah Makarem-e-Shirazi, an influential cleric, denied rumours that he wanted to see the cylinder. “He never visits any exhibition apart from Qur’anic ones,” a statement said.
Critics on the left point to the irony of the president’s celebration of the cylinder as “a charter against injustice and oppression” as he oversees unprecedented human rights abuses. The opposition Jaras website called the object “a stranger in its own home”. Cyrus would have been shocked to hear Ahmadinejad invoke his name, it said.
“Ahmadinejad was apparently trying to appeal to a new constituency among non-political types and tap into discontent with the clerical establishment, while at the same time trying to keep his hard-line supporters happy,” commented Golnaz Esfandiari in her Persian Letters blog.
The long history of the Cyrus Cylinder
Cyrus, king of Persia from 559-530 BC, conquered Babylon in 539 BC and captured Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king, with the aid of Marduk, the god of Babylon. The nine-inch clay cylinder, now 2,500 years old, praises Cyrus’s kingly virtues, listing his genealogy as a king from a line of kings.
Written in Babylonian cuneiform, it describes how Cyrus (Koroush in Persian) restored shrines dedicated to different gods and repatriated deported peoples who had been brought to Babylon. It was this decree that allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem after their expulsion by Nebuchadnezzar II and rebuild their temple.
The cylinder was popularised round in the world in the late 1960s by the shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who arranged to borrow it from the British Museum in 1971 for his famously lavish celebration of the 2,500 anniversary of the monarchy at Persepolis. At the time the Iranian press campaigned for its transfer to Iranian ownership. A replica is kept at UN headquarters in New York City.
Baroness Helena Kennedy, the human rights lawyer and trustee of the British Museum, said of the loan of the cylinder: “Art and culture can sustain relationships between peoples even when diplomacy is strained. To present this particular temporary gift to the people of Iran at this particular time is an act of faith which will have profound meaning and value.”
From:
Payvand [2]
09/15/10
Historic Cyrus Cylinder Called ‘A Stranger In Its Own Home’By Golnaz Esfandiari, RFE/RL; photos by Majid Asgaripour, Mehr News Agency
Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad on Sunday attended the unveiling in Tehran of the Cyrus Cylinder, which is on loan from the British Museum. The cylinder dates from the 6th Century BC and is thought by many to be the first charter of human rights. It will be on public display for four months.The unveiling took place at a ceremony at Iran’s National Museum that was turned into a platform for Ahmadinejad and his controversial chief of staff Esfandiari Rahim Mashaei to promote their brand of religious nationalism. (Read here for more about the recent attempt by Ahmadinejad to promote new religious nationalism and hard-liners’ reaction to it.)
The ceremony — during which Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire, was described by Ahmadinejad as the King of the World and Mashaei suggested that the ideas and status of the ancient Iranian king were like those of the prophets — was highly unusual in the Islamic republic, where in the past 30 years there’s been a decided lack of interest in the country’s pre-Islamic past.
At Sunday’s ceremony, which was reportedly attended by a number of Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries, there was an obvious attempt to connect Iran’s ancient past with some of its current history. (For more pictures of the ceremony, click here.) Ahmadinejad was apparently trying to appeal to a new constituency among nonpolitical types and tap into discontent with the clerical establishment, while at the same time trying to keep his hard-line supporters happy.
During the event, the Iranian president put a keffiyeh, which is part of the uniform of the pro-government Basij militia, around the neck of a man dressed as Cyrus the Great. In a dispatch titled “Cyrus The Great Becomes A Basij Member,” the hard-line Fars news agency wrote that when Ahmadinejad decorated “Cyrus the Great” with the black-and-white keffiyeh, all the foreign ambassadors and other guests present at the ceremony stood up.
Two men, one dressed as an Achaemenid soldier and the other as a member of the Basij, were also honored by Ahmadinejad with keffiyehs, described by official news agencies as “the symbol of the resistance and honor of the Iranian people.”
The move was criticized by some Iranians, who said it was ‘insulting,” “humiliating,” and “painful” to watch.
Blogger Enteghad (Criticism) questioned the move. “Why is Cyrus the Great, the symbol of Iran, being decorated with the symbol of another country — Palestine?” asked the blogger.
Another blogger, Andishe, was also angered by the “insulting and unwise” move, saying, “How can one mix two very different symbols that go against each other? Keffiyeh is the symbol of bloodshed, war, and terrorism in Palestine and Lebanon. Keffiyeh is the symbol of the Palestinians. Look at what Cyrus the Great and the Iranian civilization have to say and look at what Ahmadinejad and Velayar Faghih (the rule of the Supreme Jurist) have to say.”
Others were outraged that Ahmadinejad, internationally criticized for human rights abuses in Iran, praised the cylinder as the embodiment of human values.
“The Cyrus Cylinder represents respect for human beings’ greatness and basic rights,” he said. The cylinder, he said, emphasizes that everyone is entitled to freedom of thought and choice and also underscores the necessity to fight oppression.
The opposition Jaras website reacted by calling the cylinder “a stranger in its own home” and writing that Cyrus the Great has the right to be shocked to hear Ahmadinejad saying that “Cyrus said that every nation is free to accept me as their leader or not.” The opposition accuses Ahmadinejad of massive fraud in last year’s presidential vote.
The Cyrus Cylinder is on loan to Iran by the British Museum in London after a dispute in which Iran threatened to cut ties with the institution. The cylinder was last in Iran in October 1971.
Iran’s hard-line daily “Kayhan” suggested over the weekend that Iran should keep the cylinder and not return it to the “thieves.”
“There is an important question: Doesn’t the cylinder belong to Iran? And hasn’t the British government stolen precious ancient artifacts from our country? If the answers to these questions are positive, then why should we return this stolen historical and valuable work to the thieves?!”