Museum Diplomacy Falters in the Face of Iran Sanctions

This article is the third in a five-part series.

• Read Part 1 here

• Read Part 2 here

In 1926, Alexander Upham Pope, an art historian, collector, and dealer who specialized in Iranian art, was contracted by the Iranian government to design the Persian Pavilion at the Sesquicentennial International Exposition in Philadelphia. The centerpiece of the exhibition was a replica of the magnificent Safavid-era mosque Masjid-e Shah from Naqsh-e Jahan square in Isfahan, which sat in what is now the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park and the Sports Complex in South Philadelphia. The interest generated by Persian Pavilion and the precious objects displayed within it led to the convening of the First International Congress for Persian Art and Archaeology. The success of this congress in turn paved the way for an exhibition of Iranian art and antiquities sponsored by the British Royal Academy of Art, held at Burlington House in London several years later.

The Pavilion and subsequent congress captured the imaginations of two brothers-in-law, scions of established Philadelphia families: Fiske Kimball and Horace Howard Furness Jayne, the directors of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, respectively. Together, they sponsored Pope to travel to Iran to participate in the negotiation of a new Antiquities Law in Iran that would allow American archaeologists to conduct surveys and excavations in Iran for the first time. Pope had his own agenda, however, and his feuds with the era’s leading scholar of ancient Iran—Ernst E. Herzfeld—complicated proceedings. So Kimball and Jayne dispatched the explorer, diplomat, and amateur archaeologist Frederick R. Wulsin to Tehran to take Pope’s place. Within six months, an agreement had been reached, and the Law for the Protection of National Vestiges was ratified by the Iranian Parliament in November of 1930.

Wulsin, hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio and educated at Harvard, was one of the heirs of the Baldwin Piano Company fortune, which supported his early travels in China, Mongolia, Tibet, Vietnam, and Laos. In his capacity as the representative of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Wulsin was the first American citizen to apply for a permit to conduct archaeological excavations in Iran, digging for two months with his wife Susanne (née Emery) at the site of Tureng Tepe (Hill of the Pheasants) near the modern city of Gorgan. It was through research on the artifacts and documents that resulted from this excavation that I first became involved in the archaeology of Iran, making him a figure of special significance for me.

This background is important because it demonstrates the meaningful role museums have historically played in the mediation of the relationship between the United States and Iran. These private institutions were among the primary American actors on the Iranian political scene and a key contributor to goodwill between the two countries during the interwar period. As I write in a forthcoming piece, museums and their representatives were in fact seen at the time by State Department officials as the United States’ best chance at improving relations with Iran at the time. Iran’s heritage has long been an important channel of cultural exchange with other countries, and despite current American policy, this has not changed today.

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Recent museum exchanges between Iran and the West, both high and low-profile, have shown the continuing importance of Iran’s heritage in its foreign affairs. These include the international tour of the Cyrus Cylinder (2013), the Louvre exhibition “The Rose Empire: Masterpieces of 19th-Century Persian Art” (2018), the Persepolis Fortification Tablet Archive Return (2019), and the planned show “Epic Iran” at the Victoria & Albert Museum (due to open in February 2021). In each case, sponsors and participants in these initiatives have had to navigate a tangle of sanctions and restrictive financial regulations, which are at least to a degree predictable. They have also had to weather less foreseeable storms, such as political fallout from skirmishes in the Persian Gulf and the assassination of Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.

In 2013, the Iran Heritage Foundation, working together with the British Museum and the Smithsonian institution, undertook an American tour of one of the most famous artifacts of ancient Iran: the Cyrus Cylinder. The Cyrus Cylinder is a 2600-year-old cuneiform document, written in the Babylonian variant of the Akkadian script in 539 BCE, which was excavated at the site of ancient Babylon in 1879 by the Assyrian-British archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam. The object has been in the possession of the British Museum since 1880.

Following Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s formulation, the Cyrus Cylinder is often referred to as the “first declaration of human rights,” a precursor to the modern Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since 1971, a replica has been displayed at the UN headquarters in New York as a symbol of human liberty. This is in no small part because the text of the Cylinder is understood to have encouraged “freedom of worship” within the Persian Empire and allowed the return of peoples, such as the Israelites, deported from their homelands by the Assyrians. It has thus been taken up and promoted as a symbol of “multi-culturalism, tolerance, diversity, and human rights.”

The IHF exhibition, which traveled to five cities—Washington DC, Houston, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles—was marketed to American audiences on the basis that Cyrus’ principles of tolerance influenced the American founding fathers, particularly Thomas Jefferson, who owned not one but two copies of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. The reception of the tour at the time is instructive. On the one hand, politicians speaking out of both sides of their mouths hailed the artifact and its message as a way to counter the media narrative of Iran’s nuclear program and regional ambitions. On the other, commentators such as noted religious scholar Karen Armstrong highlighted the power that cultural diplomacy can have where political diplomacy has failed.

This has continued to be the case, though current American policy has made such efforts at cultural diplomacy more difficult. For example, following a French-Iranian cultural exchange agreement signed in 2016, and after two years of painstaking preparations, the 2018 Louvre exhibitions, “The Louvre in Tehran” and “The Rose Empire: Masterpieces of 19th-Century Persian Art,” faced major financial and logistical challenges due to American policy. As reported in The Art Newspaper, would-be exhibition sponsors were concerned about falling afoul of primary and secondary sanctions penalties. Ultimately, both shows went on as scheduled, but because of restrictions on cargo flights between Paris and Tehran, the number of items in the Tehran show had to be considerably reduced. Despite tensions in other domains, the exhibitions were seen, at least by the French foreign ministry, as symbols of a shared ambition to promote positive relations and bring Iran back into the fold of international affairs.

In contrast, the planned exhibition “Epic Iran,” scheduled to open in February 2021 at the V&A in London, hangs in the balance. Even prior to COVID-19, the planners of this exhibition commented publicly on the difficulties they faced due to the exit of the United States from the JCPOA, intensified sanctions, and the assassination of Qassem Soleimani. V&A Director Tristram Hunt believes that the geopolitical situation makes the show all the more significant. Under present conditions, however, there are legitimate concerns that Iran will choose not to lend approximately 40-50 promised objects, potentially compromising forthcoming sponsorship. Nevertheless, despite difficult conditions and difficulties in securing loans, Hunt maintains that, at a time of escalating tensions, the exhibition serves a vital and important purpose in educating British audiences about the art and culture of “one of the world’s greatest historic civilizations.”

The current policy environment and geopolitical standoff between the United States and Iran has also impacted the return of long-term loans of Iranian antiquities stored in the United States, most notably the Persepolis Fortification Archive at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. This collection of 30,000 Achaemenid administrative documents was exported to the United States on loan for conservation and decipherment following its excavation in the mid-1930s by representatives of the Oriental Institute. In keeping with the original agreement that the tablets would eventually be returned, three batches of objects had previously been sent to Tehran, first in 1948 and 1950, and then again in 2004.

The remaining tablets housed in Chicago could only be returned recently. The delay in the continuation of the return of the tablets in the 2000s was in no small part due to a decade-long lawsuit that attempted to wrest control over the objects away from the Oriental Institute, which eventually rose all the way to the Supreme Court. Victims of a terrorist attack in Jerusalem in 1997, carried out by Hamas, but blamed on Iran, were awarded $71.5 million dollars in restitution by an earlier lower-court ruling in 2006, which Iran refused to pay. The victims sought indemnification via repossession of this collection of artifacts in lieu of the awarded settlement, presumably to sell on the art market. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against this petition (Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran), opening the door to the return of the artifacts to Iran.

The reimposition of sanctions under the Trump administration in 2017-18 further complicated the return process, however. The shipment of the tablets and their hand-delivery by personnel from the Oriental Institute had to be thoroughly vetted by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which is a difficult and lengthy process even in the best of times. Despite the expensive legal battles and complicated licensing required to undertake the return, the first batch of tablets in this round were returned in October 2019, to be followed by additional shipments when conditions allow. There is great hope on both sides that despite the difficulties, the broadening of contacts that this project represents could mark a renewed era of scientific collaboration between American and Iranian scholars in the heritage sector.

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American foreign policy has complicated the ability of museums—whether University research museums, like the Oriental Institute and the University of Pennsylvania Museum, or major art museums such as the V&A and the Louvre—to conduct the exchanges of objects and personnel required put on exhibitions related to Iranian cultural heritage. Nevertheless, museum professionals in North America, Europe, and Iran recognize the importance of these events for educating the public and for establishing ties between nations. There is much more to be said about the conduct of Western museums in amassing their collections of Iranian antiquities, but that is the subject of a different essay. In the meantime, another domain where American policy has stymied efforts to engage in heritage diplomacy and intercultural dialogues is in international cooperative archaeological field research, which we will consider next week.

 Click here to read Part 4 of this five-part series.

Photo: Wikicommons

For Tourism in Iran, It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This

This article is the second in a five-part series.

• Read Part 1 here

Iran has many enticements for the intrepid foreign traveler. With its culture and history, its cuisine and its arts, Iran is a highly desirable destination. But for many throughout the world, Iran’s negative portrayal in the media has a major impact on how it is viewed. For the past forty years, Iran has been depicted as a rogue state, an international pariah, and a land of religious fanatics chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” From George W. Bush branding Iran as a member of the “axis of evil” to Donald Trump’s designation of Iran as the world’s “leading sponsor of terrorism,” a particular narrative has taken root in Anglophone media that positions Iran as a dangerous, hostile, and unwelcoming country.

Dissenting voices, however, do exist. Most important among them are journalists, such as Dutch New York Times correspondent Thomas Erdbrink, whose 2018 Frontline special feature Our Man in Tehran, provides a much needed corrective on Iranian society, focusing on human-interest stories which show Western audiences slices of life in Iran. In vivid sequences, among many other topics, Erdbrink documents “ordinary Iranians’ love of country, love of travel, of music, of fun, the craving for respect and national stature, fascination with America, hatred of injustice, and reverence for parents.”

But perhaps even more important than journalists are travel-show hosts, who show through their own personal experiences just how transformative actually visiting Iran can be. Take for example, Anthony Bourdain, who captured the effect that being in Iran can have on perception of the place and its people in his CNN show Parts Unknown. He narrates his confusion in a street-scene montage at the beginning of his famous Iran episode: “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Of all the places, of all the countries, of all the years of traveling, it’s here—in Iran—that I’m greeted most warmly by total strangers.” Seated at a kabob restaurant, as he rips apart a piece of noon-sangak, a popular flatbread, he says directly to the camera: “Good to be here, finally—it’s taken some time. Like, a lot of time—like, four years, I’ve been trying. Finally!” Over a shot of meat and vegetable kabobs being prepared and served, Bourdain invites the viewer to “forget about the politics for a moment, if you can,” before extoling the virtues of Iran’s rich, complex cuisine, highlighting Iranian hospitality, and noting that Iranians tend to kill guests with kindness.

While food and hospitality are featured by Bourdain, Rick Steves, another famous travel-show host, highlights the allure of Iran’s other major attraction for travelers and tourists. In the first minute of Steves’ “Iran: Yesterday and Today,” images of Persepolis appear three times, Iran’s 2500-year legacy of civilization is praised, and the viewer is primed for footage of the “splendid monuments of Iran’s rich and glorious past.”

The significance of Iran’s cultural heritage in capturing the imagination of foreign travelers is further reflected in the plot of the 2006 Iranian adaptation of My Big Fat Greek Weeding, titled in Farsi Ezdevaj be Sabk-e Irani (Marriage, Iranian Style). One day while working at her father’s tour agency, the female lead Shirin meets an American, David Howard (Davood), when he comes into the office to schedule a tour to Shiraz. The scene is painfully awkward for both characters—and the viewer, I should add—but through this brief encounter, a budding courtship begins. Shirin’s father is particularly displeased and seeks to distance the two, but her Uncle Mehdi and mother Akram-Khanoum conspire to arrange for Shirin to join the tour as a guide. The first steps of a flirtatious dance between the David and Shirin occur on the tour—upon the Apadana of Persepolis itself no less—and culminate in David’s declaration of his love for Shirin at the Tomb of Hafez. The choice of these settings is far from accidental, connecting the intercultural romance—and by extension, the relationship between the protagonists’ two countries—directly to Iranian heritage.

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The significance of Iran’s cultural heritage sites, beyond their clear symbolic importance to Iran’s national identity, is reflected not just in media representations of the country, but in the fact that tourism and cultural heritage have been coupled administratively in Iran since their merger into a single government agency in 1982. In its various organizational forms, this agency has overseen the development of a network of museums and foundations, academic departments and research centers, contractors, and traditional craft producers, as well as charitable trusts and religious endowments. In 2019, the former Organization for Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism (ICHHTO) was upgraded to the status of an official government ministry (the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts or MCTH). While my sources tell me that this has not resulted in significant changes to the structure of the organization or its personnel, it has increased its prestige, and crucially, its budget. Whatever the motives for and ultimate effects of this administrative reorganization might be, the change reflects the important role that tourism has come to play in Iran’s government, public policy, and economy.

According to Mohammad-Hossein Asgharpour, MCTH’s Director General of the Office of Facilities and Resources, in its first year, the ministry oversaw the execution of approximately 750 projects, representing investments of USD 153.6 million, providing direct employment for 7266 people. These projects include everything from the development of hotels, eco-tourism resorts, guesthouses, and health villages, to supporting museums and restoration/conservation efforts. As indicated by a recent statement from the MCTH’s Director General of the Office for Tourism Studies and Training, considerable investments are being made in capacity-building and human capital. In the first six months of the Iranian year 1399 (2020-21), at least 10,000 stakeholders and professionals attended trainings sponsored by the Ministry in a range of domains. These include workshops on topics such as: facilities management, ecotourism and sustainability, applications of new technologies, quality management, financial management, etiquette and hospitality, and training and retraining tour guides. While it is difficult to ascertain the exact proportion of the ministry’s budget spent on human capital and tourism, as opposed to heritage protection, preservation, restoration, and research, there can be no doubt that archaeological sites and museums are a major draw for tourists and represent focal points of infrastructural investment in the tourism industry.

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With a favorable exchange rate, a famous culture of hospitality, and numerous UNESCO World Heritage Sites, not to mention all the investment outlined above, Iran should by all accounts be a highly sought-after destination for international travelers. Major tour operators targeting foreign tourists are certainly keen to highlight Iran’s cultural heritage on their websites and in their advertising. These firms emphasize above all else the depth of history and culture in Iran, spotlighting ancient monuments as well as Iran’s rich artistic and architectural traditions. One operator currently provides seven main tour packages, three of which are specifically focused on heritage, but all of which involve visiting heritage sites. Another tour leads its pitch with an invitation to experience “the wondrous remains of the ancient capital of Persepolis – the scale and grandeur will leave you in no doubt that this was once the center of the known world.” Welcome to Iran’s Iran Historical Tours describes Iran as a land with an “ancient civilization, rich history, [and] historical monuments,” highlighting Iran’s archaeological heritage as a particular draw for tourists interested in art and history.

English-speaking tourists who might have come into contact with this advertising copy, however, constitute only a fraction of all the tourists traveling to and within Iran. After the United States pulled out of the JCPOA, despite specific targeted attempts to attract foreign tourists to Iran from Europe and China, arrivals from these countries decreased by 25-40%, whereas arrivals from neighboring countries such as Iraq, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan increased substantially. According to MCTH, many of these “tourists” are actually pilgrims, who have come to Iran to experience the country’s Islamic—rather than ancient—heritage. In terms of visas issued, the number of pilgrims exceeded tourists in 1396 (2017-18) by approximately 100,000, and in 1397 (2018-2019) by over 1 million.

Regardless of the origins and motivations of tourists coming to Iran, heritage is clearly a draw and is recognized as potentially big business. Prior to and immediately following the signing of the JCPOA, experts and policymakers had hoped that the tourism industry would not only benefit from the normalization of Iran’s international relations, but in fact become a central part of the Iranian economy, providing a sustainable base for employment and revenue for years to come. By MCTH’s own accounting, nearly 1.3 million people are employed in the tourism industry in Iran. In 2016, the economic activity of the sector represented approximately 2 percent of the country’s GDP and all indicators suggest that it continued to grow until early 2020. Before COVID-19 struck, despite American sanctions, the Iranian heritage and tourism sector was flourishing, attracting 8 million foreign tourists in the Iranian calendar year 1397 (2018-19). This represents significant growth from ten years prior, when Iran recorded only 3 million foreign arrivals.

Ultimately, it appears that American sanctions did not significantly slow the arrival of foreign tourists to Iran, though it may have had an impact on who visited Iran and from where. In the first three months of 1399 (2020-21), however, only 74 foreign tourists visited Iran, and with inter-provincial travel subject to stiff restrictions, the tourism industry has been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, with estimates of losses across the industry exceeding two billion dollars in the first six months of 1399. Regardless of the pandemic, however, because of the pressure of sanctions, the MCTH’s long-term strategic outlook was already focused on fostering the growth of domestic tourism as a pillar of sustainable development. Between 1397 (2018-19) and 1398 (2019-20), domestic tourism reportedly increased by 20 percent. Two European colleagues related that between 2016-2018, while there were increased numbers of Italian, French, German, and Chinese tourists visiting the sites where they were working, the overwhelming majority of tourists were Iranian. It is important to note, however, that while there is substantial domestic demand, spending by Iranian nationals is seen to be lower than that of foreign visitors, even though foreign tourists must travel with cash as it is presently impossible to make payments using international credit cards. Despite obstacles to capitalizing on the available opportunities and the Coronavirus pandemic, this sector is still seen by policymakers as one with great potential for growth.

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At the present juncture, however, it is difficult to gauge the direct and specific effect of American sanctions on the economics of the Iranian cultural heritage management sector. But by recognizing the importance of Iranian cultural heritage to the tourism industry and examining the impact of American policy on that sector, we can obliquely approximate the consequences of maximum pressure on heritage management. Currently, it appears that American sanctions have had two outcomes: first, there has been a decrease in foreign tourists from Europe and China coupled with an increase in foreign tourists from neighboring countries, presumably for pilgrimage; and second, policymakers have shifted their attention to stimulating demand for domestic tourism. By all measures, however, the industry has been severely handicapped by the COVID-19 pandemic, suffering job losses estimated at around 13,000 by August 2020 among tour guides alone, not to mention in hotels and travel agencies. Prognoses for the future remain bleak, as demand is not likely to rebound soon, and promised government support for the industry has been slow to materialize.

Yet, the importance of tourism for improving Iran’s image on the world stage is clear. According to the results of MCHT-internal surveys, tourists reported a “very positive view” of Iran after visiting, noting how much their opinion of the country had changed after seeing it with their own eyes, rather than through the lens of the media. Ali Asghar Mounesan, the Minister in charge of MCTH, recently observed that tourists are cultural ambassadors all over the world, but nowhere more so than in Iran. Indeed, according to Mounesan, tourism has the ability to bring nations closer together. Iran’s heritage plays a role in cultural diplomacy that goes far beyond tourism, however. In the next article in this series, we will explore in greater depth the impact of American sanctions on museum exchanges and inter-institutional cooperation in the heritage sector.

Click here to read Part 3 of this five-part series.

Photo: Wikicommons

American Policy Casts a Shadow Over Persepolis

This article is the first in a five-part series.

Five years ago, I traveled to Iran to attend a conference in Tehran, The International Congress of Young Archaeologists (ICYA). It was my second time participating in this biannual event, which was and is the most important conference for students and early career researchers specializing in Iranian archaeology. On my first trip in 2013, I was one of only three Americans who made the journey; on the second, there were more than twenty. The difference was largely due to the atmosphere of openness in the immediate post-Nuclear Deal era. I, like many of my colleagues, was guardedly optimistic about the opportunity and the possibilities that this conference and the sideline meetings surrounding it represented. In a meeting with the then director of archaeological research at the Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, the message conveyed to those of us assembled was one of welcome and excitement. It seemed at the time that American archaeology in Iran, a field that had lain mostly dormant for four decades, was perhaps being reborn.

These two trips were marked by a pair of major diplomatic events. The first was the famous phone call between Hassan Rouhani and Barack Obama after the UN General Assembly in September 2013, which occurred, auspiciously, the same day that I received my visa invitation to attend the ICYA for the first time. The second trip coincided with “Adoption Day,” October 18, 2015, when the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, a.k.a. the “Nuclear Deal”) became binding, transforming the deal from an agreement on paper to a policy reality. With a sense of occasion, I rushed out to the nearest kiosk and purchased a copy of every paper they had for sale. Headlines that day announced, among other things, the first foreign capital investment permit issued after the JCPOA, for a German-Iranian joint venture in a chalk mine in Fars province. While Adoption Day was not celebrated in the streets the way the signing of the deal in July had been, that day in October was seen, at least by reformist-leaning newspaper editors, as the beginning of the end of sanctions.

For me personally, that day in October 2015 appeared to be the beginning of a career as an archaeologist working in Iran. I had just returned from a short excursion with a potential collaborator after the conference. The trip went well, resulting in an invitation for me to participate in his project, so long as I was able to pay my own way over the years that it would take to conduct my dissertation research and write it up. In the end, of course, this did not come to pass. I returned to the US and set to work designing a research proposal and preparing grant applications. The annual application deadline for the main funding source for archaeological field research in my discipline is the first of November. In 2016, a week after applications were due, Donald Trump was elected president. Among his first policies after inauguration was Executive Order 13769, officially titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” but popularly known as the “Muslim Ban.”

I have not been back to Iran since. I knew that specializing in Iranian archaeology was a risky career move, even at the best of times, but I had expected the majority of difficulties to come on the Iranian side, in the form of red tape around visa applications and permissions to access sites and collections. In the end, it turned out to be American policy that upended my carefully laid plans. Ultimately, Trump’s Iran policy forced me to completely reshape the trajectory of my academic research. While I continued to work on Iranian archaeology, I had to use different materials and methods, focusing instead on museum collections and satellite imagery to collect the data I had intended to pursue in the field. But more than this, the experience imparted to me a deep awareness of the impact of geopolitics on the field of archaeology. More broadly, these events have given me insight into the human toll of American policy toward Iran. This article, with the four that will follow, represent a moment of pause and reflection on the past five years, an attempt to make sense of the challenges and opportunities that the field of archaeology in Iran faces as a result of American foreign policy.

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American sanctions and the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign have not only failed to achieve their stated objectives to choke off revenues to the so-called regime, but have also caused considerable collateral damage in Iran’s economy. While American policy-makers rail against Iran’s “malign activities” and regional footprint, Iranian officials have entrenched themselves in a defensive posture, promoting a “resistance” economy to overcome the imposed restrictions on the country’s participation in the global market. Ordinary Iranians are caught in the crossfire of this geopolitical stand-off. They face difficulties ranging from disruptions in accessing medicine and humanitarian aid to natural disaster relief. Partisans and detractors alike agree that American sanctions are strangling the Iranian economy and threatening the livelihoods of millions of civilians.

One area of Iran’s economy and society which has been little discussed in conversations on the impact of maximum pressure sanctions is the cultural heritage sector. Cultural heritage is significant for any country’s national identity, and this is nowhere more true than in Iran, which has 24 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, a robust set of heritage institutions, and a public deeply invested in its history. The importance of Iran’s national patrimony is clearly reflected in Donald Trump’s January 2020 threat to strike 52 Iranian heritage sites if Iran were to target American troops, citizens, or assets in Iraq in retaliation for the assassination of Qassem Soleimani. The specific number of targets is no accident—it was the number of Americans held in the embassy seizure of 1979—nor is the threat to strike Iranian heritage sites in particular a coincidence. Iran’s cultural heritage is viewed as among the nation’s greatest contributions to world civilization and its most effective ambassador in a time of international isolation.

Beyond matters of cultural identity and geopolitics, however, cultural heritage has become more important than ever in Iran over the past five years. This is in no small part due to the close relationship between Iranian cultural heritage management and the tourism industry. Tourism and heritage are linked explicitly in the public relations messaging of the newly formed Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism (MCHT). MCHT Minister Ali Asghar Mounesan recently stated that “tourism is the most important channel for the transmission of Iranian culture to the world.” Iran’s heritage is seen by policymakers not only as an important part of Iran’s foreign relations, but also as an indispensable resource for an industry viewed as a potential growth engine in an economy hamstrung by sanctions. Under the current regime of sanctions, the promotion of tourism—both domestic and foreign—has come to be seen as a key component of the Iranian resistance economy. This in turn calls for an analysis of the sector’s condition and current prospects under American sanctions and maximum pressure.

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The articles in this series will therefore investigate the impact of American policy on cultural heritage management in Iran, in particular as it relates to the three domains of tourism, heritage diplomacy, and international scientific cooperation. Generally, American sanctions and maximum pressure have created extreme challenges for those working in these areas at every level, from government ministers and policymakers to museum directors, from archaeology professors to tour guides and hospitality workers.

Several trends have arisen in response to these policies. In the case of heritage and tourism, the industry was growing rapidly in Iran prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. As it turns out, most of this growth was from domestic tourists and religious pilgrims from neighboring countries. After the signing of the JCPOA, policymakers in MCHT had hoped to attract more European and Chinese tourists, who are perceived as bigger spenders than domestic and regional tourists. Between 2015 and 2017, there did seem to be growing numbers of these tourists, but they dwindled after the US backed out of the Nuclear Deal, and appear to have bottomed out after the reimposition of broad-spectrum sanctions in 2018.

With regard to intergovernmental and interinstitutional heritage diplomacy, Iran’s cultural heritage has historically played an important role in its foreign relations. From the Persepolis Celebration of 1971, to the Cyrus Cylinder’s tour of American and Iranian museums in 2013 (the cylinder is held by the British Museum), and more recent joint exhibitions at the Victoria & Albert and the Louvre, Iran’s heritage has been used to position the country as an important member of the world community. American policy toward Iran has created an extraordinarily unstable environment for such exchanges, complicating the delivery of objects and the travel of personnel. In a time when American policy seeks to isolate Iran on the global stage, heritage professionals and diplomats are at great pains to highlight Iran’s contributions to world history and to educate their audiences and stakeholders about Iran’s civilizational legacy. The current sanctions regime means that exchanges of objects are not only expensive and logistically complex, but also vulnerable to interruption due to rising tensions and fears about the potential for armed conflict. Nevertheless, despite many challenges and difficulties, heritage diplomacy is seen as a potential avenue for rapprochement and the improvement of ties. Such exhibitions have managed to continue for now, but at great expense and risk. It appears unlikely that an event such as the Cyrus Cylinder’s tour of the US will be possible in the near future, despite the fact that such exchanges are exactly what is needed in these times.

There is another form of heritage diplomacy made complex by American policy: international cooperative research in the field of archaeology. While foreign scientists face a range of difficulties in conducting joint expeditions with their Iranian counterparts due to American policy, these pale in comparison to the obstacles faced by Iranian scholars. In addition to pressuring the Iranian economy in general, sanctions, travel bans, and related policies are squeezing the lifeblood out of this profession. My sources—both Iranian and foreign—tell me that while there is money available for investment in tourism infrastructure and heritage restoration, there is very little funding for basic archaeological research beyond rescue and salvage operations to recover materials that would otherwise be destroyed by development activities. Consequently, Iranian archaeologists have little choice other than to seek out international collaborators to gain access to the funding needed to conduct question-driven field research and perform laboratory analyses. Under present conditions, however, it is extraordinarily difficult to engage in the joint labor of performing the field research necessary to produce archaeological knowledge. This has serious downstream consequences. Without the work of archaeologists and related specialists—including conservators, curators, and other museum professionals—neither tourism initiatives nor high-level diplomatic exchanges would be possible.

Despite the present nadir in US-Iranian relations, there are signs of hope. There is great will among the invested stakeholders, professionals, and researchers to continue to cooperate across borders regardless of American policy. How are they faring and what are their prospects? Could Iran’s past be the key to its future? Heritage workers will be the first to tell you that international engagement with Iran’s heritage has previously been an important vector for establishing and improving ties, even under difficult circumstances. By maintaining relations in the face of maximum pressure, heritage professionals are doing what they can to keep open one of the last remaining channels of communication between Iranian civil society and the global community. Hopefully, these connections will survive current conditions and Iran’s cultural heritage could yet again be a well-traveled bridge between nations.

Click here to read Part 2 of this five-part series.

Photo: Wikicommons