Cyrus Cylinder - Exhibition History

Exhibition History

The Cyrus Cylinder has been displayed in the British Museum since its formal acquisition in 1880. It has been loaned three times – twice to Iran, between 7–22 October 1971 in conjunction with the 2,500 year commemorations of the Persian monarchy and again from September–December 2010, and once to Spain from March–June 2006. Many replicas have been made. Some were distributed by the Shah following the 1971 commemorations, while the British Museum and National Museum of Iran have sold them commercially.

The British Museum's ownership of the Cyrus Cylinder has been the cause of some controversy in Iran, although the artifact was obtained legally and was not excavated on Iranian soil but on former Ottoman territory (modern Iraq). When it was loaned in 1971, the Iranian press campaigned for its transfer to Iranian ownership. The Cylinder was brought back to London without difficulty, but the British Museum's Board of Trustees subsequently decided that it would be "undesirable to make a further loan of the Cylinder to Iran."

In 2005–2006 the British Museum mounted a major exhibition on the Persian Empire, Forgotten Empire: the World of Ancient Persia. It was held in collaboration with the Iranian government, which loaned the British Museum a number of iconic artifacts in exchange for an undertaking that the Cyrus Cylinder would be loaned to the National Museum of Iran in return.

The planned loan of the Cylinder was postponed in October 2009 following the June 2009 Iranian presidential election so that the British Museum could be "assured that the situation in the country was suitable." In response, the Iranian government threatened to end cooperation with the British Museum if the Cylinder was not loaned within the following two months. This deadline was postponed despite appeals by the Iranian government but the Cylinder did eventually go on display in Tehran in September 2010 for a four-month period. The exhibition was very popular, attracting 48,000 people within the first ten days and about 214,000 people by the time it closed in January 2011. However, at its opening, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad mingled Islamic Republican and ancient Persian symbology which commentators inside and outside Iran criticised as an overt appeal to religious nationalism.

On 28 Nov. 2013, BBC announced the first USA tour of the Cylinder, titling “British Museum lends ancient 'bill of rights' cylinder to US”, referring to the Museum’s director Neil MacGregor that “The cylinder, often referred to as the first bill of human rights, ‘must be shared as widely as possible’". The tour starting from March 2013, includes Washington DC’s Smithsonian's Arthur M Sackler Gallery, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and it will culminate in the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, in October 2013.