TEHRAN -- In the late summer of 1933, at the edge of the ruins of Persepolis, a discovery was made that should have remained one of the proudest chapters in Iran’s archaeological history. Instead, it would become one of its most heartbreaking.
Excavations at the Achaemenid capital were then under the direction of German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld. When Herzfeld temporarily left Iran to secure funding in Germany, his assistant, Friedrich Krefter, found himself with an opportunity to test a lingering hypothesis. 
Krefter had noticed cavities in the northwestern and southwestern corners of the wall of the Apadana Palace and suspected they had once held foundation deposits—objects ritually placed within monumental structures. If those corners had been looted in antiquity, he reasoned, perhaps the corresponding northeastern and southeastern corners still concealed something intact.
He ordered excavations beneath the opposite corners. What emerged from the earth was extraordinary.
In each corner lay a rectangular stone box, about 45 centimeters long and 15 centimeters wide. Inside each box were two tablets—one of gold and one of silver—measuring roughly 33 centimeters in length. Four precious tablets in total, each inscribed with a proclamation of Darius I, the Great King of the Achaemenid Empire.
The inscription, written in Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite cuneiform, declared:
“This is the kingdom which I hold, from the Scythians who are beyond Sogdiana to Kush, from India to Lydia, which Ahura Mazda, the greatest of gods, bestowed upon me. May Ahura Mazda protect me and my royal house.”
Iranian archaeologist Muhammad-Taqi Mostafavi witnessed the moment of discovery and later documented it in detail. Photographs from the time show the young Krefter smiling—a man fully aware that his name would forever be linked to a singular archaeological triumph.
When Herzfeld returned to Persepolis, the tablets were presented to Reza Shah. Two—one gold and one silver—were transferred to the National Museum of Iran. The remaining two were retained by the Shah. Years later, they were displayed publicly at the Shahyad Tower Museum (today known as Azadi Tower) before eventually being moved, after the 1979 Revolution, into storage at the National Museum.
And there, the story darkens.
For years, little was publicly known about the fate of the two tablets that had once been kept at the royal palace. A brief and almost casual footnote by archaeologist Ali Mousavi hinted at uncertainty: he had been unable to see them and noted simply that their whereabouts were unknown. It was a passing remark that concealed a deeper and more disturbing reality.
In 1998, a young archaeologist named Shahrokh Razmjou was tasked with organizing the inscriptions in the National Museum’s treasury. The storage conditions were chaotic; records were incomplete. As he worked through the Achaemenid holdings, he made a startling discovery: only two of the four original tablets were present.
Further investigation revealed that the missing gold and silver tablets had indeed been transferred years earlier from the Marble Palace to the museum. But where were they now?
The museum’s former director of collections, Nosratollah Motamedi—an archaeologist who had previously excavated at Ziwiyeh and briefly served as director of the National Museum in the early 1980s—was summoned for questioning. Motamedi insisted the tablets were in the location he indicated. They were not.
As law enforcement entered the case and interrogations began, a confession emerged. Motamedi produced the silver tablet. But regarding the gold tablet, he claimed something almost unimaginable: he said he had melted it down years earlier and sold it—reportedly for one million tomans—to purchase a Paykan automobile.
The statement stunned the cultural community. Could a trained archaeologist truly have melted a 2,500-year-old royal inscription—an artifact of immeasurable historical value—for personal gain?
Motamedi was imprisoned. Yet questions lingered.
Was the golden tablet truly melted? Or was it smuggled out of the country, its destruction claimed to conceal a more calculated crime? Some cultural heritage advocates remain skeptical, arguing that the full truth may never have been disclosed.
What is certain is this: the four Achaemenid foundation tablets discovered in 1933 are no longer four. One is gone.