Terror victims seeking Persian relics in court

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"The professor opens a cardboard box and gingerly picks up a few hunks of dried clay -- dust-baked relics that offer a glimpse into the long-lost world of the Persian empire that spanned a continent 2,500 years ago.

Matt Stolper has spent decades studying these palm-sized bits of ancient history. Tens of thousands of them. They're like a jigsaw puzzle. A single piece offers a tantalizing clue. Together, the big picture is scholarly bliss: a window into Persepolis, the capital of the Persian empire looted and burned by Alexander the Great.

The collection -- on loan for decades to the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute -- is known as the Persepolis Fortification Archive. These are, to put it simply, bureaucratic records. But in their own way, they tell a story of rank and privilege, of deserters and generals, of life in what was once the largest empire on earth.

For Stolper -- temporary caretaker of the tablets -- these are priceless treasures.

For others, they may one day be payment for a terrible deed.

In an extraordinary battle unfolding slowly in federal court here, several survivors of a suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 1997 sued the government of Iran, accusing it of being complicit in the attack. They won a $412 million default judgment from a judge in Washington, D.C., and when their lawyer began looking for places to collect, he turned to the past.

He decided to try to seize the tablets, along with collections of Persian antiquities at the Oriental Institute and other prominent museums. The goal: Sell them, with the proceeds going to the survivors of the bombing.

His plan, though, has angered many scholars who see it as an attempt to ransom cultural heritage -- the tablets are considered as important a find as the Dead Sea Scrolls -- and fear it could set a dangerous precedent."

more

[oberliner]

1. Hold out for cash

This seems like a dead end.