The U.S. Returned a Persian Relief Depicting a Achaemenid Soldier to Iran

Gholamali Khoshroo, Iran's representative to the United Nations, announced on Tuesday, September 4, that following a ruling by the New York Supreme Court to return an Achaemenid relief to Iran, the artifact has been handed over to Iran's mission at the United Nations. The New York Supreme Court had ruled in August that the relief, which had been taken out of Iran about 90 years ago and was recently auctioned in the U.S., must be returned to Iran. This relief, depicting an Achaemenid soldier, was seized by investigators from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office from an exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory, which intended to sell the Achaemenid artifact at auction for $1.2 million. According to reports, researchers stated that this Achaemenid artifact, which was illegally taken out of Iran in 1936, was stolen from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Canada in 2011. Rupert Wace, a well-known antiquities dealer, and his partner Sam Fogg claimed they legally purchased the ancient artifact from the Montreal museum's insurance company, but after investigations revealed the artifact was stolen, they agreed to sign court documents regarding the artifact. The U.S. Supreme Court also ruled last year that Americans injured in the 1997 bombing in Jerusalem, who claim Iran's involvement in the attack, cannot seize Achaemenid tablets from the University of Chicago Museum to cover their $71.5 million damages. Previously, other stolen historical artifacts had also been returned to Iran, including one five years ago when the U.S. returned an Iranian historical object. Mehdi Hojjat, the then Deputy of the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, confirmed that the U.S. government symbolically returned the ancient and highly valuable 'Lion of Darius' to Hassan Rouhani's delegation in New York to demonstrate goodwill. However, at that time, Hamid Baghaei, the head of the Cultural Heritage Organization under Ahmadinejad's administration, claimed that the ancient cup known as 'Lion of Darius' returned from the U.S. was a forgery.