Smithsonian Displaying Cyrus Cylinder, an Artifact With Long History and Many Meanings

THE WASHINGTON POST
By Philip Kennicott

The Trustees of the British Museum - Since its discovery in 1879, the Cyrus Cylinder has functioned rather like a snowball, gathering layers of meaning as it has been appropriated by different groups with different agendas.

WASHINGTON, DC --- The Cyrus Cylinder, now on view at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, should be considered in the same league as the Rosetta Stone, one of the greatest treasures of the British Museum, according to Neil MacGregor, the London institution’s director. Created almost 2,600 years ago to glorify Cyrus the Great, conqueror of Babylon and founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the cylinder intersects with Western and Persian history through the ages, amplifying the accomplishments of an emperor who figures in the Bible and the writings of the ancient Greeks and who has been used and misused ever since by petty tyrants, merciless autocrats and earnest Enlightenment proponents of democracy and tolerance. [link]