Thursday, February 22, 2018

Supreme Court rules on Persepolis archives

THE PERSEPOLIS ARCHIVES CASE: US Supreme Court blocks Hamas bomb victims’ claim to Iran artifacts (Mark Sherman, AP).

For the basics of the Persepolis archives case, which has been going on for years, see here. Subsequent related posts are here and here. The archives are not directly relevant to ancient Judaism, but they provides us with background information on scribal practice and Aramaic in Iran in the Persian Period. And the case has raised some difficult questions about balancing the rights of terrorism victims to compensation with our obligation to preserve records from antiquity as responsibly as possible.

Follow the links here (cf. here) for many past posts on ancient Persepolis, as well as on the archives case and my own comments on it.

The Supreme Court has been busy lately. As before, I assume this is the end of this case, but I am not a lawyer and I don't know for sure.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.