Posted on 04/21/2004 8:22:02 PM PDT by Eala
Artefact 90920 is wending its way from the British Museum to Tehran, where it has fired debate between those who see it as a national icon and others who say it represents all that is worst about Iran's pre-Islamic past.
The controversial relic is an unassuming 23-centimetre-long (9-inch) cylinder of baked clay covered in densely packed lines of Babylonian cuneiform script.
It is generally agreed to be the world's first human rights charter -- but Islamic conservatives [hardliners] say it is redolent of paganism and a monarchy ousted in the 1979 revolution.
The British Museum's keeper of Near Eastern antiquities John Curtis said the museum planned to loan the cylinder after it was shown in Paris and Berlin but a date was not yet set. Iranian archaeologists hoped it would arrive in 2006.
When empire-building Persian monarch Cyrus the Great overwhelmed Babylon's army east of the river Tigris in 539 B.C. there was no victorious pillaging or torching of homes.
Instead he wrote his charter, the Cyrus cylinder, declaring that each man would be free to worship his own gods, no race would oppress another and no man would be enslaved.
In a move with sharp modern resonance, the conqueror also gave right of return to refugees.
Shahrokh Razmjou, a scholar at the National Museum of Iran working on a fresh translation of the cylinder, said the artefact kindled intense emotions among many Iranians.
"People feel strongly about it because it is about freedom and giving freedoms," he said. "People want to keep the connection to that golden period."
He said a joyous gasp had rippled around a crowded Tehran lecture theatre when British Museum Director Neil MacGregor announced to them that the cylinder would be loaned to Iran.
HARDLINE CRITICISM
Although many Iranians still name their children after ancient royalty and deities -- Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Roxana and Anahita -- others are less comfortable with pre-Islamic times.
An editorial in the hardline Jomhuri-ye Eslami daily insisted the spiritual father of the modern nation, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, would not have approved of the loan.
"The late leader Ruhollah Khomeini believed monarchy was corrupt and the kings were traitors," the editorial read.
"So this move by the National Museum of Iran contradicts the political line of the founder of the Islamic system and is an attempt to revive the decayed bones of kings," it continued.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah, toppled by Khomeini's 1979 Islamic revolution, tried to identify himself with the greatness of the pre-Islamic kings.
Jomhuri-ye Eslami drew a parallel between the museum's loan and an infamous parade at the ruins of the city of Persepolis in 1971, when the Shah reviewed a march-past of troops clad in ancient robes.
But Islamists have tried in vain to remove the ancient Persian heritage from Iranian life.
Post-revolutionary attempts to stop the teaching of an epic poem about Persia's ancient heroes and monsters whipped up so much anger the plans were quickly dropped. Pre-Islamic warriors now advertise cola on roadside billboards.
Iran Air planes have "The Airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran" painted on their sides, but their tailplanes are decorated with the winged, goblin-faced Homa -- pagan guardian of travellers.
I will never forget the expression on a Chinese national colleague's "significant other's" face when he told me he had just taken "Cyrus" as his Western name. "Oh! A name full of power, wisdom and benevolence," I said, and told them both about Kourosh (sp?). Talk about scoring points...
They'll never take the Persian out of the Iranians, it's what they are.
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