THE CYRUS CYLINDER, as I noted in an earlier post, is being loaned by the British Museum to the Tehran National Museum. This article in the Art Newspaper tells the remarkable story of its loan to Iran once before, during the Shah's celebration of the 2500th anniversary of the establishment of the Persian monarchy under Cyrus in 1971. Much cloaking and daggering seems to have been involved. The article concludes:

British Museum director Neil MacGregor is astonished at the revelations in the Foreign Office file and is keen to stress that relations between British and foreign museums have changed profoundly since 1971. �In the space of a generation there has been an unprecedented sharing of cultural heritage on the international exhibition circuit. The idea of objects going out and coming back is now completely normal; in those days it was more of a big deal. Today it is done on a museum-to-museum basis, not at governmental level. I have informed the Foreign Office about our plans to lend the Cyrus Cylinder and told our ambassador in Tehran, but that is all�. Looking back, Mr MacGregor is horrified at suggestions that the Cyrus Cylinder might have been given to the Shah for short-term political and military gains. The BM�s current Keeper of the Ancient Near East, John Curtis, is convinced that it is right to lend the cylinder again to Tehran. He also points out that the cylinder was inscribed by a Babylonian scribe and discovered in Babylon, now part of modern Iraq. �The Cyrus Cylinder is just as much part of the cultural heritage of Iraq as Iran. In due course, we might consider lending it to the National Museum in Baghdad�.