Thomas Jefferson’s copy of Cyrus the Great’s biography, “Cyropaedia” by Xenophon (Photo by Reza Ganji/IHF America)
“I would advise you to undertake a regular course of History and Poetry in both languages. In Greek, go first thro’ the Cyropaedia, and then read Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon’s Hellenus and Anabasis...” - THOMAS JEFFERSON, from a letter written to his grandson, 1820
Gold plaque showing Persian Zoroastrian priest, from the time of Cyrus the Great (Photo by Reza Ganji/IHF America)
The Cyrus Cylinder tour was made possible by a partnership between the British Museum, the Iran Heritage Foundation (IHF) and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of Art. Numerous Iranian American organizations and individuals have contributed their
governance and politics. NM: It’s not just Jefferson, it’s not just Machiavelli. By the time you get to the 18th century, everybody in Europe is interested in Cyrus. One of the best sellers in France is Les Voyages de Cyrus, written in English and French by the same author. We know that there are even Icelandic poems about Cyrus in the 18th century. It is impossible to exaggerate what he meant to the Enlightenment world, the world out of which the American Constitution is born. CA: Doesn’t it blow your mind that this is a Persian king in today’s world where Persia is viewed so negatively by so many people? NM: It’s astonishing. You talked about the relationship between Israel and Iran, the U.S. and Iran being so bad. But, this is a very new phenomenon. For most of western history, the Persian Empire, and that moment in Iranian history, has been the model to which statesmen look to think how to solve problems. CA: Does the actual Cylinder say the Jews were allowed to go back to Jerusalem? NM: No. The Cyrus Cylinder is only about what happens in Mesopotamia, but fascinatingly the words used in the Cyrus Cylinder are exactly the words used in the Hebrew bible in Chronicles and Ezra. God called Cyrus and took him by the hand. God tells Cyrus to be his Shepard, to set the people free. The difference is of course that in Babylon, it’s the Babylonian god that does that. In the Hebrew Scriptures it’s Jehovah. But they use the same words and they speak to Cyrus in the same way. And this is evidence I think that there’s a general decree by Cyrus to let everybody go home. And the Jews in Jerusalem know what is happening in Babylon because a lot of them have just come from there. And of course we know so much about this because they stopped building the temple in Jerusalem, and then, as we all know from building projects, sponsorships, etc. money runs out. It gets slow, things start going badly. So, the Jews in Jerusalem appeal to Darius to help them.
time and money to support bringing the cylinder to exhibitions in Washington (3/5-4/28), Houston (5/36/14), New York (6/20-8/4), San Francisco (8/9-8/22) and Los Angeles (10/2-12/2). More information and press on the tour can be found at:
CA: The son of Cyrus? NM: Yes, the son of Cyrus. And the Jews said your king wanted this temple to be built what are you going to do? So, they go through the files in the bureaucracy and they find the document where
Cyrus said this temple must be built and that the Persians will help. Ezra in the Hebrew scriptures tells us this and he quotes the document in Aramaic, a language the Persians used. So, thanks to the extraordinary bureaucracy of the Persian Empire, another great thing they really ace on bureaucracy, they’re wizard record keepers. And then the temple goes ahead. More money comes, on orders from the Persian King and the Second Temple gets completed. CA: Is there also a dispute as to whether the Cylinder really is a human rights document? NM: I suppose it depends on what you mean by human rights. It’s clearly about the rights of peoples. I mean we now tend to think about human rights being the rights of individuals. The Cylinder is about the rights of communities to organize themselves in their own way, live where they choose, and worship their own gods. So, that’s also a very important aspect of human rights. In
‘What’s extraordinary about Cyrus, is that he appears as a paragon of princely statesmanship in the two pillars of Western cultures, that is the Greco-Roman tradition and the Bible .... The story of Persia, Iran, is part of the story of modern United States’ —JULIAN RABY Director of the Sackler Gallery.
that sense it is probably the oldest document we have of an articulated statement by a ruler that the communities over which he rules will have certain rights and privileges that he will defend. CA: And what do you hope to achieve by taking it on a five-city U.S. tour [in D.C through April 28, then Houston, NYC, SF and LA]? NM: There are two real values in it. Firstly, it’s more important now than ever to understand Iran. And one can only understand a country by understanding its history and how it views its own history. And most of us are not taught very much about Iranian history in school. So I hope it’ll allow a large public to think, again, about what it means to be an Iranian. The second is that I hope it will help us all think about how we tackle the question of great diversity of ethnicities and faiths
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