Iran repatreates 1,800 artefacts from University of Chicago

On Tuesday, the Iranian government declared that it had repatriated 1,800 artefacts that had remained in the US for decades.

The government said these artefacts were part of the several masterpieces Iran had lent to the University of Chicago 80 years ago.

The government’s website indicated that these masterpieces arrived in Tehran on Monday, accompanied by two of the university’s academics.

This is the fourth shipment of antiquities returning since 2004. Other shipments also arrived in 1948 and 1950.

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Iran had lent the antiquities to the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago 80 years ago for the sake of research, translation and classification. They were found by archaeologists from the university in the 1930s at the site of Takht-e-Jamshid city (Persepolis). Other 17,000 pieces belonging to the first batch of artefacts remain in the US.

Takht-e-Jamshid, located 70 kilometres northeast of Shiraz, includes monuments belonging to the capital of the Achaemenid who ruled between 550 to 330 BC and founded the Persian Empire in ancient times.

Iran and the US cut diplomatic ties in 1979.