What Archaeology Can Achieve in US-Iran Relations

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

• Read Part 1 here

• Read Part 2 here

• Read Part 3 here

• Read Part 4 here

In the 1920s, relations between the United States and Iran had reached a low point, marked by the failure of Arthur Millspaugh’s financial mission (1922-27), the murder of Vice Consul Robert Imbrie (1924), and the withdrawal of American financiers from a railroad syndicate (1928-29), among other imbroglios. According to historian James F. Goode, the American chargé d’affairs at the time, Hugh Millard, wrote to the US State Department’s Near East Bureau Chief, Wallace Murray, stating that there had been “one flub after another in American efforts in Persia” but that ‘‘archaeology is about the only thing [the United States] are likely to be interested in which stands much chance of bringing results.” Perhaps the situation today is not so unlike that of the early 1930s, when—despite the accumulated ill will of the previous decade—American interest in Iran’s heritage brought the two countries into more sustained diplomatic engagement with each other.

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Clearly, the past four decades have seen much more acrimonious relations between the US and Iran than the 1920s, with much higher stakes. As historian John Ghazvinian writes in America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present, for the past forty years, the United States and Iran have had few official relations at all. Between America’s support for the Shah, its arms sales to Saddam Hussein, and its policy of isolating Iran on the world stage since the Israel-Palestine Madrid Conference of 1991, a gulf in mutual understanding has opened that appears insurmountable. Decision makers on both sides operate in a context of severe and deleterious ignorance of each other’s motivations and aspirations. Indeed, bilateral relations between the two countries are so strained that they must be mediated indirectly by third parties: Switzerland (American affairs in Iran) and Pakistan (Iranian affairs in America). As Ghazvinian points out, even at the lowest depths of the Cold War, the chasm between American and Soviet leadership was not as wide as that between the US and Iran today.

More concerning still, according to Ambassador John Limbert—who was one of the diplomatic staffers held in the Embassy Seizure of 1979-81—is the fact that, since the 1980s, the American government has lost its cadre of diplomats with Iran expertise. In the past four decades, the US has trained few Persian speakers, and those it has trained have had almost no opportunity to use the language in an immersion setting. As Limbert writes, “those with both language and country expertise have aged and retired, leaving a gap that, with the best will in the world, will take at least a decade to fill.” Even prior to the embassy seizure, however, American foreign policymaking vis-à-vis Iran was sclerotic and ineffective. According to James A. Bill, a professor of international relations and government at William and Mary and an expert on US-Iran relations, the ineptitude of American diplomacy towards Iran in the late 1970s, leading to the deterioration of US-Iranian relations, was due to an institutionalized system of organizational conflict within the State Department. This allowed America’s Iran policy to be captured by special interests, and to be unduly influenced in equal measure by both ideology and ignorance.

William J. Burns—one of the diplomats who ran the Oman backchannel that led to the negotiation of the JCPOA—argues that the Trump administration has repeated and exacerbated many of these mistakes. For Burns, however, Trump’s Iran policy is a bellwether of a broader and more concerning trend. In his view, American diplomacy has slid adrift at a moment in history when American leadership is needed more than ever.

How might America regain its position of moral authority and respect on the world stage in the post-Trump era? Burns argues that American diplomacy will need to be reconstructed, from the individual on upward, requiring years of investment in the fundamentals of the craft: “smart policy judgement, language skills, and a sure feel for the foreign landscapes in which they serve and the domestic priorities they represent.” Wendy Sherman—the chief American negotiator in the P5+1 process that led to the signing of JCPOA—concurs. Sherman contends that diplomacy is most likely to succeed when its agents are not only deeply experienced, but also deployed in positions where they can draw on and that experience and put it to work. For Sherman, negotiation is not a set of stratagems, but rather comprises authentic person-to-person engagement. Unfortunately, as made clear by Limbert and Bill, for too long, the United States government has neglected to honor this principle in its dealings with Iran.

For some observers, renewed engagement with Iran is in fact key to the revival of American diplomacy. As Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett write in “Going to Tehran,” American strategic recovery must start with a thoroughgoing revision of the US Government’s Iran policy. Similarly, Ghazvinian writes there is no problem that the US faces in the Middle East that cannot be tied one way or another to its haphazard and ineffective Iran policy. He argues that the only way that the US and Iran can resolve their differences once and for all is through an unconditional, sustained, and high-level set of negotiations. Like the Leveretts, he believes that what is most needed is an historic summit meeting between the two countries’ leaders, an international peace conference of the same magnitude as Reagan and Gorbachev’s meeting in Reykjavik or Nixon and Mao’s in Beijing. As the Leveretts argue, if America does not do this, it runs the risk of condemning itself to a future as an “increasingly flailing—and failing—superpower.”

While I am sympathetic to these calls for rapprochement through a grand bargain, an October 2019 white paper by Chatham House researchers Sanam Vakil and Neil Quilliam found that foreign policy experts from the US, Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and China were highly skeptical of the possibility of such an agreement under present conditions. A year later, however, with the coming administration of Joe Biden, it appears that good-faith engagement is back on the table.

In this series, I have shown how heritage management—in the form of cultural tourism, museum exchanges, and international scientific cooperation—have suffered under American sanctions. Clearly, renewed diplomacy and sanctions relief would benefit those whose livelihoods have been impacted by these policies. I would like to suggest here that American diplomats attempting to reestablish cordial exchanges with Iran have something to learn from the experiences of archaeologists and cultural heritage professionals. The precedents set by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago—in keeping positive relations between the US and Iran alive even during dark times—should be followed and honored.

Cultural heritage is one of the only fields in which person-to-person contacts between Americans and Iranians have been sustained through these four decades of hostility. For this reason alone, the Biden administration should create space for and leverage cultural exchanges as part of its reengagement strategy. More broadly, however, as all of the experts quoted above make clear: when those with deep knowledge of and investment in each other’s culture and history are involved in diplomatic negotiations, all stand to benefit. On whatever time-scale, no matter the form that renewed engagement between the US and Iran takes—whether a grand bargain, a direct meeting between heads of state, or some other expression of goodwill toward repairing broken ties—it can only be for the good of the people of our two countries.

My hope is that no matter the forum, American leadership chooses to call on envoys who speak Persian, or at the very least have some degree of appreciation for Iranian culture, rather than under-qualified appointees with an axe to grind. May our two governments recognize—as Hugh Millard so presciently did in the 1930s—the special role that archaeologists have played and can continue to play in improving ties between America and Iran and follow our lead in delving into a shared past to bring about a better future.

 Click here to read Part 5 of this five-part series.

Photo: Wikicommons

Iran Archaeology is Awaiting a Sanctions Breakthrough

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

• Read Part 1 here

• Read Part 2 here

• Read Part 3 here

Cooperation in the field of archaeology between Iranian and foreign researchers has a long history. In my academic research, I am currently combing the archives associated with all the major American archaeological expeditions to Iran, beginning in 1930 and continuing until 1978, focusing on the activities of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, the Oriental Institute, the Field Museum, the Boston Fine Arts Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, among others. This record shows intensive contacts between heritage professionals of both nations over a sustained interval in contexts such as field research, museum exhibits, student exchanges, and UNESCO initiatives. As positive as these relations may have been for those who participated in them, heritage collaborations were marked by the same steep power imbalances that characterized the overall midcentury relationship between the United States and Iran. 

In the early days of international collaboration in archaeology, Iranian researchers often participated only as trainees. Iranian leadership in archaeological projects was largely on Iranian projects, in which few foreigners participated. In recent years, this has changed. Since around 2000, all foreign archaeological projects in Iran have been joint endeavors; under current regulations, all cooperative research must be staffed by workers and researchers that are at least at numerical parity. The past two decades have seen major restoration projects at the citadel of Bam (an Italian collaboration), surveys and excavations in the Tehran Plain (British) and in the Mamasani district of Fars Province (Australian, British, and American), continued work at Persepolis and Pasargadae (multi-national, but especially French, German, and Australian), as well as excavations at Konar Sandal (American), and at numerous sites in northeastern Iran (German and Chinese), to name just a few examples. Indeed, one of my sources commented that the period from 2003 to 2016 was a high point for foreign archaeology in Iran.

Since 2017, conditions for foreign involvement in archaeological research in Iran have been less than favorable. However, the work continues. To get a sense of the effect of American policy in shaping archaeological fieldwork in Iran, and specifically joint international collaborative projects, I consulted colleagues and experts from a range of professional and national backgrounds. Given the sensitivity of the topic, all interviews were conducted on background. Most of my sources had worked in Iran as recently as 2018, but several had not been able to travel to Iran since 2014, or even as long ago as 2011. The consensus among these individuals is that conditions have worsened considerably in recent years, taking a particularly bad turn with the Trump administration’s executive orders known as the “Travel Ban,” maximum pressure, and the reimposition of broad-spectrum sanctions in 2018 following the US exit from the JCPOA.

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During the early years of the Rouhani administration, before and immediately after the JCPOA rapprochement, conditions for archaeological research were seen to be improving. Nevertheless, all of my sources recognized that even in the best of times, the internal political situation in Iran complicates the regular functioning of archaeological research. I heard again and again that while procedures and protocols sometimes move along in a smooth and timely fashion, as often as not, there can be long delays in receiving permits and visas with little warning or explanation. While a considerable contingent of Iranian heritage professionals actively seeks to promote international collaborations, the shifting winds of both global and Iranian domestic politics can have drastic effects on the possibilities for cooperative research. These conditions are understood to make the conduct of archaeology in Iran a highly risky endeavor for foreign missions.

For example, one researcher I spoke with worked in Iran as recently as January 2020. After a lengthy wait, their visas and permits finally came through in late autumn 2019. Due to the rising tensions and skirmishes in the Persian Gulf, the leader of this team felt obliged to devise an escape plan and carry extra cash, charting routes to the nearest international airport, or failing that, the nearest land border through which they could escape in the event of the outbreak of conflict. The assassination of Qassem Soleimani on the 3rd of January 2020, while they were actively excavating, ultimately did not force the research team to flee, but it did show just how necessary such contingency plans had become.

My sources told me that every year it is a struggle to know exactly when one will be able to go to the field, which makes it difficult to plan work and coordinate the participation of specialists. All of the experts I spoke with expressed concern about health, safety, and professional prospects. The consensus seems to be that junior scholars in the West ought not to try to work in Iran until they have a stable position from which they can ride out the ups and downs of intermittent and unstable conditions of access to the field. Several sources related to me that every time they leave Iran after a fieldwork season, they worry that it might be for the last time.

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Geopolitically speaking, experts agree that archaeology and heritage constitute one of the last remaining channels of good relations between Iran and the West. This has naturally made the field a political football, with foreign specialists in Iranian heritage caught in the crossfire. American archaeologists of Iran have been the most affected. European researchers have had an easier time, but invitations and the processing and issuance of visas are frequently held up by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as retribution for unrelated international disputes. Moreover, Iran’s detainment of dual nationals on charges of espionage in recent years, including in some extreme cases lengthy prison sentences and the threat of the death penalty for field researchers, has caused considerable concern on the part of researchers who hold two passports, especially if their documents are American and/or Iranian.

More directly, American sanctions make funding archaeological research particularly difficult. Archaeology is an expensive and logistically complex endeavor everywhere in the world. Research teams typically involve anywhere from three to twenty scholars and students, and a pricey suite of digital recording instruments, including total stations, GPS devices, photography equipment, laser scanners, geophysical instruments, drones, which naturally arouse suspicion due to their perceived potential for dual use—in addition to the usual trowels, picks, shovels, dustpans, brushes, buckets, and wheelbarrows.

The particular complication in the case of foreign missions in Iran is that it is not possible to conduct bank transfers between international and Iranian banks and international credit cards cannot be used. Therefore, foreign researchers are obliged to carry cash —in some cases amounts approaching EUR 50,000—and exchange it for rials in order to conduct their business. This—in addition to general complications with bank-transfers due to secondary sanctions—is a logistical nightmare for the researchers on the ground, but also a significant concern for funding agencies and university finance departments.

American sanctions extend beyond purely financial matters as well, particularly with respect to the prohibition on the exchange of services. Several experts specifically highlighted issues with the export of scientific samples for analyses that cannot be performed in Iran. After negotiating the already challenging internal bureaucratic regulations governing the shipment of scientific samples within Iran, it is then extraordinarily difficult to transport them safely or predictably to Europe or North America. This can mean, in some cases, years-long delays, which cause particular problems for foreign researchers insofar as their employment or professional advancement may depend on the results of such analyses, not to mention the frustrations of Iranian specialists eager to participate in the international scientific community. American sanctions also prevent the use of basic and routinely-used software packages such as ArcGIS Online, which researchers may be obliged to run through university contracts with the provider of the software, ESRI. This service cannot be accessed in Iran, meaning that a crucial tool in archaeological research is unavailable for both foreign and Iranian researchers.

As it turns out, many of these complications are not due to the actual OFAC regulations themselves, which, strictly speaking, do authorize the use of software, the exchange of services, and even some limited transactions as part of routine academic research. But university lawyers are extraordinarily skittish about permitting and funding fieldwork in Iran, afraid of being sued by the US Treasury. In some cases, these concerns can be allayed through obtaining a specific license to authorize a circumscribed program of research. Due to the complicated, lengthy, and expensive process involved in obtaining such a license, however, in practice this means that it is almost impossible for American citizens to be involved in Iranian projects. This appears to be particularly true of the past five years, when licensing has been much more restricted, and the Trump administration has moved to take power out of the hands of the OFAC bureaucracy.

OFAC licensing was one of the major sticking points in the Persepolis Tablet Archive Return project, mentioned in the previous article. I learned that the process of obtaining the license took almost a year and required extensive documentation of every object being transferred and the particulars of the itinerary of the participants in Tehran. OI representatives felt the need to go so far as to print out English-language exhibit labels in Chicago, rather than run the risk of violating sanctions protocols by printing them in Tehran. Such are the absurdities of the situation. Moreover, the Oriental Institute was advised not to do a press junket in the US, to avoid drawing unwanted attention to the work from powerful Iran-hawks in the federal government that might complicate future OFAC licensing.

Simultaneously, the American policy of maximum pressure is squeezing the Iranian economy as a whole. In practical terms, for Iranian archaeologists, this means that access to equipment and the international scientific community is made all the more difficult. Necessary electronics are far more expensive in Iran, visas and funding for participation in international conferences are difficult to obtain, many artifact conservation supplies are scarce and exorbitantly priced, and certain kinds of routine analysis cannot be performed in Iran. Additionally, as discussed previously, due to the funding structure of the MCHT, there is plenty of money for the conservation of monuments and the promotion of tourism, but very little funding for primary archaeological research. Most of the scientific excavation that occurs is salvage or rescue work, which must occur on an accelerated timeline in order to recover archaeological remains in advance of construction and infrastructure projects. Given these conditions, one of the only avenues to obtain funding for academic archaeological field research is to join with a foreign collaborator who might be able to bring with them funding from abroad.

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Despite all of these difficulties, the expert consensus is that there is huge potential for international scientific collaboration between Iranian and foreign researchers. Those that I spoke to were unanimous in their recognition of the high degree of professionalism among archaeological researchers in Iran, and the quality of their fieldwork. Foreign archaeologists see their Iranian colleagues as partners on an equal footing scientifically, and indeed, many Iranian archaeologists in leadership positions within MCHT, the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research, and in academic departments, have PhDs from the very same universities in France, Germany, the UK, the US, and Canada. Iranian archaeologists are perceived as particularly open to innovation, especially in the use of advanced technologies in archaeological fieldwork, and in archaeometric and laboratory analyses such as geophysics, petrography, metallography, paleoecology, photogrammetry, and radiography, among others. The general view is that the level of scientific work in Iranian archaeology is quite high by global standards, and all that I spoke to felt compelled to relate to me their great sense of privilege when given the opportunity to work in Iran.

The present political situation has forced many foreign archaeologists of Iran to continue their research and publishing collaborations remotely. For some, particularly American and British researchers, this was already the reality for some time. With all of the difficulties in obtaining visas and securing funding to continue cooperative fieldwork in Iran, many of my colleagues have had to come up with creative solutions to keep their work going. In some cases, this takes the form of an active social media presence and online exchanges. In others, it involves remote mentorship of students by virtual means, training them in research methods and guiding their work in data collection and analysis, ideally leading to joint publications and thereby visibility in the international scientific community for those who otherwise would not have access to it.

The question of access is central. To the extent that certain foreign nationals have difficulty accessing the field in Iran, so too do Iranian researchers have difficulty accessing collections of Iranian antiquities stored in Western museums. Several researchers I spoke to expressed strongly that—given the volume of materials stored in institutions such as the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Oriental Institute, the Louvre, and others—Western researchers have a duty to work with these materials and to make them more accessible. Other ideas that were floated include joint projects conducted remotely, in which projects are designed and published collaboratively, with the fieldwork carried out by Iranians on the ground, and the data and analysis shared over the internet. This of course is not an unproblematic proposal, as global power imbalances would still be at play, and there is a legitimate question as to the extent to which this constitutes a sanctionable exchange of services. My reading of the terms of The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control General License G suggests that such work is authorized, but circumspection is strongly advised.

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Regardless of all the difficulties, my sources pointed to several bright spots. To pick just one, the Persepolis Fortification Tablet Archive Return is seen as a model endeavor, and a prime example of how to both keep open and reinforce channels of communication between specialists and stakeholders, both Iranian and foreign. As one of my sources noted, the legal case that opened the door to the 2019 return—Rubin v. Islamic Republic—represents an odd confluence of forces, in which the United States government, the Islamic Republic, and an American institution were all on the same side. How often has this been the case in the general course of the relationship between our two countries over the past four decades? As I have documented in my historical research, despite the poor condition of our bilateral relations today, archaeology and cultural heritage were once seen by US State Department officials as among the best channels for establishing positive ties between the United States in Iran. My hope is that they may someday be so again.

 Click here to read Part 5 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