The British Museum is sending one of Iran’s adored antiquities to Israel
The cyrus cylinder is, at first glance, an unremarkable chunk of clay, the size of a rugby ball. And yet it is one of Iran’s most treasured antiquities. The cuneiform script that covers its surface recounts the capture of Babylon, in modern-day Iraq, by Cyrus the Great, a Persian emperor. One of its most striking claims is that Cyrus allowed those who had been deported to Babylon to go home. That included the Jews. Cyrus, the only non-Jew in the Hebrew Bible deemed to be a messiah, or anointed one, even paid for the restoration of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, according to the Book of Ezra.
The cylinder is owned by the British Museum which is due to send it to Jerusalem on loan later this year. This has outraged Iran’s rulers. In January Hadi Mirzaei, head of the General Office for Museums in Tehran, threatened the British Museum with legal action. An object of such cultural significance to Iran could not, Mr Mirzaei suggested, be trusted to Israel, a country against which the Islamic Republic has recently carried out air strikes.