President Masoud Pezeshkian has returned to Tehran from New York after participating in the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, bringing with him 1,100 historical clay tablets from the Achaemenid

According to The Iran Project, the tablets were repatriated following intensive consultations of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Iranian Vice President for Legal Affairs Majid Ansari with the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago (CEAS), IRNA reported.

The Achaemenid tablets dating to the sixth century BC are among the most important works of Iranian art and history. They contain vital insights into road resource management, social relations, basic necessities of life, wages, and the economy of Achaemenid society. 

The tablets, inscribed in cuneiform, Elamite, and Aramaic languages, provide a unique window into the world of one of the most powerful empires in history. They are mainly about the management of natural resources, roads, social relations, basic necessities of life, wages and the economy of the Achaemenid society during the rule of Darius I, commonly known as Darius the Great.

The Achaemenid Empire was the largest of the empires of the ancient Near East and extended from the Balkans and Egypt to India and Central Asia.

The clay tablets, numbering about 30,000, were discovered by archeologists affiliated with the University of Chicago in the 1930s while excavating in Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire.

About 90 years ago, they were transferred to the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago on a three-year loan.
However, the United States has repeatedly resorted to excuses to put off repatriating the tablets to Iran, according to officials.