Tag: Cyrus the Great

Cyrus Cylinder row resolved: ‘Ancient declaration of human rights’ to visit Iran

The Cyrus Cylinder will go on loan to Tehran, Iran The British Museum has announced that it is lending the Cyrus Cylinder to the National Museum of Iran. Together with two fragments of contemporary cuneiform tablets, it will be the centrepiece of an exhibition that celebrates a great moment in the history of the Middle East.

The artefact which is described as ‘an ancient declaration of human rights’ by the United Nations was originally due to arrive in Iran in September 2009. At that time, the British Museum cited the ‘political situation’ in post-election Iran as the reason for the delay. In August this year, the loan was once again delayed, prompting Iran’s Cultural Heritage Organisation to declare it would cut all ties with the British Museum.

In a statement released today, the British Museum said that although political relations between Iran and the UK are at the moment difficult, the Cyrus Cylinder will after all be send to Tehran, where it will be on display for four months.

One of the chief tasks of our generation is to build a global community, where peoples of differing ideologies can live together in respect and harmony, said Karen Armstrong, author and commentator on religious affairs and a British Museum Trustee.

At a time of political tension, it is essential to keep as many doors of communication open as possible. We all have much work to do to build a peaceful world. This cultural exchange may make a small but timely contribution towards the creation of better relations between the West and Iran.

Objects are uniquely able to speak across time and space and this object must be shared as widely as possible.

In 2004, Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, wrote in ‘The whole world in our hands’ that the Cylinder may indeed be a document of human rights, and clearly linked with the history of Iran, but that it is in no real sense an Iranian document: it is part of a much larger history of the ancient Near East, of Mesopotamian kingship, and of the Jewish diaspora. According to McGregor, it is one of the British Museum’s tasks to resist the narrowing of the object’s meaning and its appropriation to one political agenda.

The two fragments of tablet that will accompany the Cylinder were also found in nineteenth century British Museum excavations in or near Babylon.

These fragments were identified by experts at the Museum earlier this year as being inscribed with parts of the same text as the Cylinder but do not belong to it. They show that the text of the Cylinder was probably a proclamation that was widely distributed across the Persian Empire.

Originally, the Cylinder was inscribed in cuneiform and buried in the foundations of a wall after Cyrus the Great, the Persian Emperor, captured Babylon in 539 BC. It stayed buried there until it wasdiscovered by an excavation team from theBritish Museumin 1879, which brought the ancient document to England. Cyrus’ Cylinder has been in London ever since.

The clay document records that, aided by the god Marduk, Cyrus captured Babylon without a fight. According to Cyrus (this part of the document is written as he himself is speaking)he abolished the labour-service of Babylon’s free population and restored shrines dedicated to Marduk and other gods. He also repatriated deported peoples who had been brought to Babylon; the decree that allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild The Temple.

It is because of these enlightened acts, which were reasonably rare in antiquity (and quite the opposite of Nebuchadnezzar’s behaviour), that the Cylinder has become a symbol of tolerance and respect for different peoples and different faiths.

You could almost say that the Cyrus Cylinder is A History of the Middle East in one object and it is a link to a past which we all share and to a key moment in history that has shaped the world around us, comments MacGregor, referencing the museum’s ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects’ project.

Objects are uniquely able to speak across time and space and this object must be shared as widely as possible, he adds.

It does make you wonder. If this is true, shouldn’t the Elgin Marbles be allowed to have their s(t)ay in Greece?

Who Has Conquered the Middle East throughout History? Mapsofwar’s Interactive Map

My generation has grown up almost exclusively exposed to war in the Middle East. Two wars in Iraq, one in Afghanistan and countless battles between neighbouring nations in the region. The Middle East has been a battleground since time began – and now you can see exactly who has conquered it through the ages with mapsofwar.com‘s great-looking 90 second walkthrough.

The map begins in 3,000 BC with the invention of the Egyptian Empire – though there’s no mention of the Sumerian states which comprised the Cradle of Civilization – and shows the spread of the Hittites, Israelis, Assyrians and Babylonians before Cyrus the Great’s Persians swept all in their path, forging an empire which stretched from Libya and Greece to Syria from 550 to 330 BC.

Alexander the Great – Heritage Key’s ancient election 2010 victor – then wiped out Persian resistance, establishing Hellenistic rule from his native Macedon to Pakistan. Alexander’s mighty empire would soon collapse under civil and economic unrest, and the Roman Empire controlled the Mediterranean as far east as the Persian Gulf.

The Byzantines and Sassanids then conquered various parts of the Middle East, until the rise of Islam resulted in the Caliphate around the 6th and 7th centuries AD. Great leaders such as Saladin and, of course, Genghis Khan, then stamped their mark on the continent before the Middle East moved out of the ancient period. The map is a great way to see how the world’s greatest empires have evolved over time. Let’s face it: there are much worse ways to spend 90 seconds!

Cambyses the Persian’s Lost Army found in Egyptian Desert

A pair of Italian brothers believe they have at last discovered the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II in the Egyptian desert, some 2,500 years after they are said to have been swallowed up by a vicious sandstorm. The 50,000-strong army was engulfed as it crossed the Great Sand Sea towards Siwa Oasis, to destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun. Archaeologists have searched for the legendary lost men for centuries – yet Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni claim that hundreds of human bones and bronze weapons just outside the oasis are the remains of Cambyses’ fateful crew.

Greek historian Herodotus first told the tale of the lost army, sent by Cambyses, son of Cyrus the Great, from Thebes to Siwa to threaten the oracle, after its priests denied his claim to the Egyptian throne in 525 BC. The army trapsed the desert for seven days until it reached an oasis, which many believe to have been El-Kharga, 120 miles west of the Nile.

“In this desolate wilderness we have found the precise location where the tragedy occurred.”

Yet on pressing forward to Siwa the men were hit by a cataclysmic sandstorm and never seen again. Just as the Nazis perished in the foul winters of Russia during World War II, Cambyses soldiers would be fatally thwarted by the tempestuous weather of the arid Egyptian wilderness. “A wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand,” writes Herodotus, “which entirely covered up the troops and caused them wholly to disappear.”

Due to a lack of archaeological evidence, Herodotus’ tale has been written off by many as a myth. Yet the Castiglioni brothers’ recent discovery may prove it happen after all. The duo made their first breakthrough in 1996 just outside Siwa, where they spotted a huge rock 35m long, 1.8m high and 3m deep. “Its size and shape made it the perfect refuge in a sandstorm,” says Alfredo Castiglioni.

Map to show the two routes taken to follow the tracks of the Persian Army.

His Eastern Desert Research Center team excavated a bronze dagger and many arrow heads – proof of Cambyses doomed campaign? “We are talking of small items, but they are extremely important as they are the first Achaemenid objects, thus dating to Cambyses’ time,” adds Castiglioni, “which have emerged from the desert sands in a location quite close to Siwa.”

Moving a quarter of a mile south, the team found an earring, necklace links and a silver bracelet dating to Cambyses’ Achaemenid Dynasty. The Castiglioni brothers spent the next few years mapping possible routes through the desert and painstakingly researching each one. Now the pair feels Cambyses’ army didn’t in fact pass through El Kharga at all – instead chosing a longer route heading east from Thebes to Gilf Kebir, then due north towards Siwa. Their theory was coming together when they found artificial water sources and hundreds of pots dating back 2,500 years along the route.

The show-stopping moment for the Castiglionis would come in 2002, however, when at the end of their last expedition, they explored Bedouin tales of hundreds of bones rising from the desert in certain wind conditions. It would turn out to be much more than an old wives’ tale – a mass grave contained the bones, alongside Persian arrow heads and a horse bit. Sadly they had not been the first there: “We learned that the remains had been exposed by tomb robbers and that a beautiful sword which was found among the bones was sold to American tourists,” says Castiglioni.

The brothers handed in their findings to the Egyptian authorities, from whom they haven’t heard since. Yet they are convinced Cambyses’ men dispersed during the storm and that their bodies are still somewhere in the area. “In the desolate wilderness of the desert, we have found the most precise location where the tragedy occurred,” says Dario Del Bufalo, a Lecce University official who helped the brothers. Their findings will be presented in a Discovery documentary, out soon. The brothers had their first taste of archaeological fame two decades ago when they uncovered the ancient Egyptian ‘Golden City’ of Berenice Panchrysos.

Since this post was published, doubts have been raised as to whether the Castiglioni brothers actually did locate the city of Berenice Panchrysos. For a full SCA statement via Egyptology News, read the .