TEHRAN -- President Masoud Pezeshkian here on Tuesday unveiled a collection of ancient clay tablets, recently returned to Iran from the United States.
A ceremony took place at the National Museum of Iran, attended by Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Reza Salehi Amiri and Jebrael Nokandeh, the museum’s director.
During the event, Pezeshkian emphasized the importance of increasing public knowledge about Iran’s rich civilizational heritage and identity.
The newly unveiled collection consists of 1,100 clay tablets from the reign of Darius I, the third king of the Persian Empire (550-330 B.C.). They were returned to Iran in late September on Pezeshkian’s plane after his visit to New York for the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
These tablets were discovered in the 1930s by German archaeologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld during excavations at Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire. They were later taken to the United States for research at the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia, and North Africa.
Previously, five batches have been sent back, including a collection of over 3,500 pieces returned in September 2023 by late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi after his visit to New York for the 78th session of the General Assembly.
According to IRNA, approximately 8,100 clay tablets remain in the United States and are expected to be returned to Iran within the next five years.
The tablets are among the most important works of Iranian art and history. They contain vital insights into road resource management, social relations, basic necessities of life, wages, and the economy of Achaemenid society. 
The tablets, inscribed in cuneiform, Elamite, and Aramaic languages, provide a unique window into the world of one of the most powerful empires in history. They are mainly about the management of natural resources, roads, social relations, basic necessities of life, wages and the economy of the Achaemenid society during the rule of Darius I, commonly known as Darius the Great.
The Achaemenid Empire was the largest of the empires of the ancient Near East and extended from the Balkans and Egypt to India and Central Asia.
The clay tablets, numbering about 30,000, were discovered by archeologists affiliated with the University of Chicago in the 1930s while excavating in Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire.
About 90 years ago, they were transferred to the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago on a three-year loan. However, the United States has repeatedly resorted to excuses to put off repatriating the tablets to Iran, according to officials. 
In 2006, a U.S. federal court ruling sought to seize and auction the invaluable collection of ancient clay tablets. However, an appeals court later overturned the ruling, and in 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the subsequent ruling that the collection cannot be taken away.
Iran says the tablets are part of its culture and history and belong to the people of Iran, and that all of the loaned articles must be delivered to the Iranian government intact. 
“The United States postpones this every time under a pretext, while the Americans themselves acknowledge that these tablets came to the United States on loan but were not fully returned,” Iran’s then ambassador to the UN Majid Takht-Ravanchi said in January 2022. 
According to the Oriental Institute, the tablets illustrated the “support of the king and court, deployment of workers, practice of religion, the development of seal art, the interplay of languages, and more.”