MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd October, 2019) Around 1,700 centuries-old clay tablets and fragments, recently returned to Iran by the US University of Chicago, have been put on display at the National Museum of Iran, media reported on Wednesday.
The artifacts were given to the University's Oriental Institute in 1937 for research purposes to be kept until the early 2000s, but were never returned, according to the Mehr news agency.
In late 2018, the head of the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization of Iran, Ali Asghar Mounesan, said that the US Department of Treasury agreed to return to Iran a total of 1,784 objects, including tablets and fragments dating back to the Achaemenid period of the 6th-5th centuries BC. According to him, the Chicago University had about 11,000 artifacts of historic importance for Iran.
