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Fight to Return Plundered Persian Limestone Relief

by | Jun 3, 2018 | 0 comments

Note: All of the information in this blog post is taken from a publicly filed document. No confidential or privileged information was used in preparing this post.

Last month, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos petitioned the NY Supreme Court to turn over an Achaemenid limestone bas-relief that had been looted from Iran. Referred to as a “Persian Guard Relief,” the rare object was stolen from Persepolis in 1935. Our founder, Leila A. Amineddoleh, was instrumental in the filing of this case.

Persepolis, in current day Iran, is one of the world’s most treasured historical sites, with its name derived from Greek, meaning “Persian city.” Persepolis is considered by UNESCO to have “outstanding universal value.” UNESCO describes Persepolis as “magnificent ruins…among the world’s greatest archaeological sites… among the archaeological sites which have no equivalent and which bear unique witness to a most ancient civilization.” In 1931 excavations were begun at the site, and UNESCO declared the ruins a World Heritage Site in 1979.

Persepolis
© BornaMir/iStock.com

The ancient city, dating back to at least 515 B.C., was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire. Persepolis was built in terraces up from the river Pulwar to rise on a larger terrace of over 125,000 square feet, partly cut from a mountain. Darius I began construction of the site, and it developed until the Greeks plundered and razed the city under the leadership of Alexander the Great in 333 BC (purportedly in retribution for the destruction of the Parthenon by the Persians in 480 BC). The city was widely known as spectacular and breath-taking. As part of the site, Darius I built a palace known as the “Apadana,” used for official audiences. The looted relief at issue was stolen from this great hall.

The looted limestone bas-relief was stolen from Persepolis in 1935, during official excavations completed by the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. Authorities were alerted to the theft, and the Iranian government attempted to find and recover the piece, but it disappeared and entered the global black market, eventually making its way into a Canadian museum. Decades later, it was stolen from the museum, recovered, and then appeared at TEFAF in New York in the fall of 2017. At that point, the work was seized by the NY District Attorney’s Office after they learned of the work’s illicit origins. Our founder, Leila Amineddoleh, had informed authorities about the piece after learning about its plundered past by Dr. Lindsey Allen, Lecturer in Greek & Near Eastern History at King’s College in London. As the result of several years examining fragmentary reliefs from the site in museums around the world, and searching archives for their histories, Dr. Allen suspected the relief was looted. When Wace exported the relief for TEFAF, Dr. Allen contacted Ms. Amineddoleh, and explained why she thought the work was stolen.

Iran safeguards Persepolis due to its historic significance. In fact, Iran protects all of its cultural heritage, with the nation’s first patrimony laws passing in 1930. Because of these laws, there is no way that the relief left Iran legally, absent permission from the cultural ministry. Ms. Amineddoleh served as an expert to the District Attorney’s Office in advising on the relevant cultural heritage laws.

The eastern stairs at the Apadana in 1933.
(Photo: The Oriental Institute of University of Chicago, Photo 23188/ Neg.Nr. 12822
https://oi-idb.uchicago.edu/id/bec348b2-7e3c-49fd-8fd6-e9f057c92c4e)

The District Attorney’s Office submitted its turnover request on May 24 (read the document HERE: 18-05-24 PGR Motion for Turnover-reduced), but the case may carry on for some time. The limestone relief, part of an historical complex, has significance not only to the people of Iran, but to archaeologists and classicists, and to anyone visiting Iran’s most celebrated archaeological site. The limestone relief’s theft from Persepolis was tragic and damaging to the site, and hopefully the limestone guard will return to his home protecting the ancient site. The guards are designed to work in the site as a collective, not as individuals. Their fragmentation removes their context, and high-profile sales make other Achaemenid ruins potentially vulnerable to plunder.

 

 

Ancient Iranian Artifacts to Remain in the Oriental Institute

by | Feb 22, 2018 | 0 comments

 

Photo: Courtesy of University of Chicago

After a legal battle spanning over a decade, the fate of the Persepolis Collection at the University of Chicago has been determined. In a unanimous decision, the United States Supreme Court affirmed a decision by the federal appeals court in Chicago, ruling in favor of Iran.  In an opinion written by Justice Sotomayor, the court writes that the plaintiffs cannot collect on a judgment against Iran by transferring ownership of antiquities.

This judgment stems from a case in which victims of a terror attack in Israel sued Iran and received a $71.5 million judgment against the Middle Eastern nation. Iran did not pay the judgment, and so the plaintiffs attempted to seize assets located in the US under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). The items they attempted to seize include the Persepolis Collection, a collection of 30,000 thousand clay tablets, many with Elamite inscriptions, loaned from Iran to the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute in 1937. The rare and historically priceless artifacts were excavated by the university’s archeologists in the 1930s in the ancient city of Persepolis. The finds were then given as a long-term loan to the Oriental Institute for cataloging, researching, and translating.

The victims argued that the objects could be seized under the FSIA (the same law used to restitute Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, known as “The Woman in Gold,” to Maria Altmann). The FSIA grants immunity to foreign states, except for nations (like Iran) designated as state sponsors of terrorism. In addition, the FSIA also exempts certain foreign-owned property in commercial use in the US. In this case, the lower court found that the FSIA exemptions cover property used by the foreign state, but do not include property used by a third party, like the university.

In finding that an exception to the FSIA does not apply, the victims will be unable to seize these objects. A representative from the University of Chicago, Marielle Sainvilus, stated, “The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago is committed to preserving and protecting a collection of Persian artifacts on loan from the Iranian government, which are among the region’s most important historical documents…These ancient artifacts, along with the Oriental Institute’s own Persian collection, have unique historical and cultural value.  Today’s ruling reaffirms the University’s continuing efforts to preserve and protect this cultural heritage.”

In 2006, the then-director of the Oriental Institute Gil Stein described his disbelief, “It’s a bizarre, almost surreal kind of thing… You’d have to imagine how we would feel if we loaned the Liberty Bell to Russia and a Russian court put it up for auction,” Stein said.

The significance of objects from Persepolis cannot be understated. Persepolis is considered by UNESCO to have “outstanding universal value.” UNESCO describes Persepolis as “magnificent ruins…among the world’s greatest archaeological sites… among the archaeological sites which have no equivalent and which bear unique witness to a most ancient civilization.”