Iran Showcases Repatriation of Ancient Tablets from the US: A Glimpse into History

According to SAEDNEWS, Iran has proudly unveiled 162 clay tablets from the Achaemenid era, which were repatriated from the United States last year after a lengthy legal battle.

These ancient artifacts, inscribed in Elamite and Aramaic, were displayed at a ceremony held at the National Museum of Iran on Saturday, coinciding with International Museum Day.

The tablets are part of a larger collection of 3,506 items that were brought back home by Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi following his attendance at the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2023.

During the ceremony, Jebrael Nokandeh, Director of the National Museum of Iran, remarked that these tablets, dating back to the reign of Darius the Great (522-486 BC), offer “valuable information about the administrative and social structures” of the Achaemenid Empire. The tablets were originally discovered nearly 90 years ago during excavations led by German archaeologist and Iranologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld at Persepolis, the former capital of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which flourished from the 6th to the 4th centuries BC.

After their discovery, the tablets were transferred to the University of Chicago's Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, previously known as the Oriental Institute, for research purposes.

To date, five batches of the tablets have been successfully returned to Iran, and the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts is actively working to repatriate over 10,000 additional tablets still held at the University of Chicago.