Why Iranian dissidents love Cyrus, an ancient Persian king

The cylinder is owned by the British Museum which is due to send it to Jerusalem on loan later this year. This has outraged Iran’s rulers. In January Hadi Mirzaei, head of the General Office for Museums in Tehran, threatened the British Museum with legal action. An object of such cultural significance to Iran could not, Mr Mirzaei suggested, be trusted to Israel, a country against which the Islamic Republic has recently carried out air strikes.