One of the more bizarre actions taken against a museum in years... Not necessarily archive news, but very well worth the read. On an administrative/museum level, this could have major repercussions: no international loans, perhaps... Chicago Museum, Iran Fight U.S. Court Thursday July 6, 2006 5:16 PM By NASSER KARIMI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - The University of Chicago and the government of Iran have come together in a rare alliance against a U.S. court ruling that aims to compensate victims of a 1997 Jerusalem bombing by auctioning off a rare collection of Persian tablets. A U.S. court previously found Iran responsible for supporting Hamas, which claimed responsibility for the 1997 bombing that killed five people and wounded 192 others, and ordered Tehran to pay the victims $423.5 million. The only Iranian asset that U.S. authorities could get their hands on was a collection of ancient Persian tablets inscribed with one of the world's oldest alphabets, dating to between 553 B.C. and 330 B.C. The clay artifacts have been housed at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute museum since the 1930s. A federal judge ruled last month that the school must auction off the tablets, the proceeds of which would go to compensate the bombing victims. But the university said it would appeal. In a letter to Iranian cultural authorities, the museum's director called the tablets ``an irreplaceable scholarly data set'' that should not be subject to political battles. ``The protection of cultural patrimony and of scholarly research are fundamental matters of principle for us, as they should be for every civilized person and nation,'' wrote museum director Gil Stein. Iran did not represent itself in the U.S. court battles - either in the first one, when a judge ordered it to pay compensation for the bombing, or in the current suit over the tablets. But it reacted strongly to the rulings, calling on the U.S. government to intervene. ``We expect the U.S. government to show a swift and serious reaction to prevent implementation of the verdict,'' Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Sunday. He said Iran would also appeal to the United Nations and UNESCO to protect its cultural heritage. ``What America did was basically wrong. A local court should not issue such a verdict. This also impedes cultural and scientific cooperation,'' Asefi said. On June 22, U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning ruled that only Iran could claim its right to the tablets, not the museum. She said she was ``sympathetic'' to the university's fears that an auction of the artifacts would result in fewer international loans to American museums and American artifacts being seized by foreign courts. But the university's ``brazen accusation that the courts of the United States are hostile to Iran and that, as a result, Iran should be excused from bothering to assert its rights, is wholly unsupported,'' the judge ruled. Lawyers for the school had argued they were protecting Iran's rights to the ancient artifacts, since no Iranian representative was involved in the proceedings. Stein said the tablets were on long-term loan from Iran, which was not profiting from their display in the U.S. ``This trove of tablets has never been a commercial item to be bought or sold. They have never been a source of profit to either Iran or the Oriental Institute,'' he wrote in a June 30 staff memo released Wednesday. The artifacts were ``every bit as unique and important as the original document of the Constitution of the United States,'' he added. The tablets date from the Achaemenid Period, 553 B.C. to 330 B.C., and were excavated from Persepolis, the ancient Persian capital built by Darius I. Their inscriptions are written in cuneiform - one of the world's oldest alphabets, consisting of arrowhead signs, points and dashes. Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic relations since 1979 when militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held its occupants hostage for more than a year. They currently are embroiled in a dispute over Iran's nuclear program. ---- Associated Press writers Jasper Mortimer in Cairo and Tara Burghart in Chicago contributed to this report. A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org. For the terms of participation, please refer to http://www.archivists.org/listservs/arch_listserv_terms.asp. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname *or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>