2600 years of history in one object
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0:00 - 0:02The things we make
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0:02 - 0:05have one supreme quality --
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0:05 - 0:07they live longer than us.
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0:07 - 0:09We perish, they survive;
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0:09 - 0:12we have one life, they have many lives,
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0:12 - 0:15and in each life they can mean different things.
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0:15 - 0:18Which means that, while we all have one biography,
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0:18 - 0:20they have many.
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0:20 - 0:22I want this morning to talk
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0:22 - 0:25about the story, the biography -- or rather the biographies --
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0:25 - 0:28of one particular object,
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0:28 - 0:30one remarkable thing.
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0:30 - 0:32It doesn't, I agree,
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0:32 - 0:34look very much.
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0:34 - 0:37It's about the size of a rugby ball.
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0:37 - 0:39It's made of clay,
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0:39 - 0:41and it's been fashioned
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0:41 - 0:44into a cylinder shape,
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0:44 - 0:46covered with close writing
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0:46 - 0:49and then baked dry in the sun.
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0:49 - 0:51And as you can see,
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0:51 - 0:53it's been knocked about a bit,
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0:53 - 0:55which is not surprising
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0:55 - 0:58because it was made two and a half thousand years ago
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0:58 - 1:00and was dug up
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1:00 - 1:02in 1879.
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1:02 - 1:04But today,
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1:04 - 1:06this thing is, I believe,
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1:06 - 1:08a major player
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1:08 - 1:10in the politics of the Middle East.
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1:10 - 1:12And it's an object
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1:12 - 1:14with fascinating stories
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1:14 - 1:18and stories that are by no means over yet.
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1:18 - 1:20The story begins
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1:20 - 1:24in the Iran-Iraq war
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1:24 - 1:26and that series of events
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1:26 - 1:28that culminated
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1:28 - 1:30in the invasion of Iraq
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1:30 - 1:32by foreign forces,
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1:32 - 1:34the removal of a despotic ruler
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1:34 - 1:37and instant regime change.
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1:37 - 1:39And I want to begin
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1:39 - 1:41with one episode from that sequence of events
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1:41 - 1:44that most of you would be very familiar with,
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1:44 - 1:46Belshazzar's feast --
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1:46 - 1:48because we're talking about the Iran-Iraq war
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1:48 - 1:51of 539 BC.
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1:51 - 1:53And the parallels
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1:53 - 1:55between the events
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1:55 - 1:58of 539 BC and 2003 and in between
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1:58 - 2:00are startling.
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2:00 - 2:02What you're looking at is Rembrandt's painting,
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2:02 - 2:04now in the National Gallery in London,
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2:04 - 2:06illustrating the text from the prophet Daniel
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2:06 - 2:09in the Hebrew scriptures.
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2:09 - 2:11And you all know roughly the story.
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2:11 - 2:14Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar,
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2:14 - 2:17Nebuchadnezzar who'd conquered Israel, sacked Jerusalem
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2:17 - 2:19and captured the people
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2:19 - 2:21and taken the Jews back to Babylon.
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2:21 - 2:24Not only the Jews, he'd taken the temple vessels.
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2:24 - 2:27He'd ransacked, desecrated the temple.
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2:27 - 2:30And the great gold vessels of the temple in Jerusalem
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2:30 - 2:33had been taken to Babylon.
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2:33 - 2:35Belshazzar, his son,
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2:35 - 2:37decides to have a feast.
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2:37 - 2:39And in order to make it even more exciting,
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2:39 - 2:42he added a bit of sacrilege to the rest of the fun,
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2:42 - 2:45and he brings out the temple vessels.
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2:45 - 2:48He's already at war with the Iranians,
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2:48 - 2:50with the king of Persia.
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2:50 - 2:53And that night, Daniel tells us,
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2:53 - 2:55at the height of the festivities
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2:55 - 2:58a hand appeared and wrote on the wall,
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2:58 - 3:01"You are weighed in the balance and found wanting,
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3:01 - 3:03and your kingdom is handed over
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3:03 - 3:05to the Medes and the Persians."
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3:05 - 3:07And that very night
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3:07 - 3:11Cyrus, king of the Persians, entered Babylon
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3:11 - 3:16and the whole regime of Belshazzar fell.
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3:16 - 3:18It is, of course, a great moment
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3:18 - 3:20in the history
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3:20 - 3:22of the Jewish people.
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3:22 - 3:24It's a great story. It's story we all know.
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3:24 - 3:26"The writing on the wall"
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3:26 - 3:29is part of our everyday language.
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3:29 - 3:31What happened next
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3:31 - 3:33was remarkable,
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3:33 - 3:35and it's where our cylinder
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3:35 - 3:37enters the story.
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3:37 - 3:39Cyrus, king of the Persians,
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3:39 - 3:41has entered Babylon without a fight --
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3:41 - 3:43the great empire of Babylon,
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3:43 - 3:45which ran from central southern Iraq
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3:45 - 3:47to the Mediterranean,
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3:47 - 3:49falls to Cyrus.
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3:49 - 3:53And Cyrus makes a declaration.
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3:53 - 3:56And that is what this cylinder is,
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3:56 - 3:59the declaration made by the ruler guided by God
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3:59 - 4:03who had toppled the Iraqi despot
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4:03 - 4:05and was going to bring freedom to the people.
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4:05 - 4:07In ringing Babylonian --
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4:07 - 4:09it was written in Babylonian --
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4:09 - 4:12he says, "I am Cyrus, king of all the universe,
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4:12 - 4:14the great king, the powerful king,
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4:14 - 4:18king of Babylon, king of the four quarters of the world."
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4:18 - 4:21They're not shy of hyperbole as you can see.
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4:21 - 4:23This is probably
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4:23 - 4:25the first real press release
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4:25 - 4:27by a victorious army
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4:27 - 4:29that we've got.
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4:29 - 4:31And it's written, as we'll see in due course,
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4:31 - 4:34by very skilled P.R. consultants.
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4:34 - 4:37So the hyperbole is not actually surprising.
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4:37 - 4:39And what is the great king, the powerful king,
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4:39 - 4:42the king of the four quarters of the world going to do?
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4:42 - 4:45He goes on to say that, having conquered Babylon,
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4:45 - 4:48he will at once let all the peoples
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4:48 - 4:50that the Babylonians -- Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar --
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4:50 - 4:52have captured and enslaved
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4:52 - 4:54go free.
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4:54 - 4:56He'll let them return to their countries.
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4:56 - 4:58And more important,
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4:58 - 5:00he will let them all recover
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5:00 - 5:02the gods, the statues,
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5:02 - 5:04the temple vessels
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5:04 - 5:06that had been confiscated.
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5:06 - 5:09All the peoples that the Babylonians had repressed and removed
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5:09 - 5:11will go home,
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5:11 - 5:14and they'll take with them their gods.
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5:14 - 5:17And they'll be able to restore their altars
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5:17 - 5:19and to worship their gods
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5:19 - 5:22in their own way, in their own place.
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5:22 - 5:24This is the decree,
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5:24 - 5:27this object is the evidence
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5:27 - 5:29for the fact that the Jews,
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5:29 - 5:31after the exile in Babylon,
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5:31 - 5:34the years they'd spent sitting by the waters of Babylon,
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5:34 - 5:37weeping when they remembered Jerusalem,
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5:37 - 5:40those Jews were allowed to go home.
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5:40 - 5:42They were allowed to return to Jerusalem
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5:42 - 5:44and to rebuild the temple.
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5:44 - 5:46It's a central document
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5:46 - 5:48in Jewish history.
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5:48 - 5:52And the Book of Chronicles, the Book of Ezra in the Hebrew scriptures
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5:52 - 5:54reported in ringing terms.
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5:54 - 5:56This is the Jewish version
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5:56 - 5:58of the same story.
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5:58 - 6:00"Thus said Cyrus, king of Persia,
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6:00 - 6:03'All the kingdoms of the earth have the Lord God of heaven given thee,
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6:03 - 6:05and he has charged me
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6:05 - 6:07to build him a house in Jerusalem.
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6:07 - 6:09Who is there among you of his people?
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6:09 - 6:11The Lord God be with him,
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6:11 - 6:14and let him go up.'"
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6:14 - 6:16"Go up" -- aaleh.
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6:16 - 6:19The central element, still,
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6:19 - 6:21of the notion of return,
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6:21 - 6:23a central part
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6:23 - 6:25of the life of Judaism.
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6:25 - 6:27As you all know, that return from exile,
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6:27 - 6:29the second temple,
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6:29 - 6:31reshaped Judaism.
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6:31 - 6:33And that change,
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6:33 - 6:35that great historic moment,
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6:35 - 6:39was made possible by Cyrus, the king of Persia,
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6:39 - 6:42reported for us in Hebrew in scripture
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6:42 - 6:45and in Babylonian in clay.
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6:45 - 6:47Two great texts,
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6:47 - 6:49what about the politics?
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6:49 - 6:51What was going on
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6:51 - 6:54was the fundamental shift in Middle Eastern history.
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6:54 - 6:57The empire of Iran, the Medes and the Persians,
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6:57 - 6:59united under Cyrus,
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6:59 - 7:03became the first great world empire.
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7:03 - 7:06Cyrus begins in the 530s BC.
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7:06 - 7:10And by the time of his son Darius,
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7:10 - 7:13the whole of the eastern Mediterranean
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7:13 - 7:15is under Persian control.
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7:15 - 7:17This empire is, in fact,
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7:17 - 7:19the Middle East as we now know it,
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7:19 - 7:22and it's what shapes the Middle East as we now know it.
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7:22 - 7:24It was the largest empire the world had known until then.
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7:24 - 7:26Much more important,
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7:26 - 7:28it was the first
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7:28 - 7:30multicultural, multifaith state
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7:30 - 7:32on a huge scale.
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7:32 - 7:34And it had to be run in a quite new way.
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7:34 - 7:36It had to be run in different languages.
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7:36 - 7:39The fact that this decree is in Babylonian says one thing.
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7:39 - 7:41And it had to recognize their different habits,
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7:41 - 7:44different peoples, different religions, different faiths.
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7:44 - 7:47All of those are respected by Cyrus.
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7:47 - 7:49Cyrus sets up a model
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7:49 - 7:51of how you run
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7:51 - 7:56a great multinational, multifaith, multicultural society.
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7:56 - 7:58And the result of that
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7:58 - 8:01was an empire that included the areas you see on the screen,
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8:01 - 8:04and which survived for 200 years of stability
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8:04 - 8:07until it was shattered by Alexander.
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8:07 - 8:09It left a dream of the Middle East as a unit,
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8:09 - 8:11and a unit where people of different faiths
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8:11 - 8:13could live together.
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8:13 - 8:15The Greek invasions ended that.
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8:15 - 8:18And of course, Alexander couldn't sustain a government
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8:18 - 8:20and it fragmented.
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8:20 - 8:22But what Cyrus represented
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8:22 - 8:24remained absolutely central.
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8:24 - 8:27The Greek historian Xenophon
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8:27 - 8:29wrote his book "Cyropaedia"
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8:29 - 8:31promoting Cyrus as the great ruler.
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8:31 - 8:34And throughout European culture afterward,
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8:34 - 8:37Cyrus remained the model.
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8:37 - 8:39This is a 16th century image
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8:39 - 8:41to show you how widespread
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8:41 - 8:44his veneration actually was.
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8:44 - 8:46And Xenophon's book on Cyrus
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8:46 - 8:49on how you ran a diverse society
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8:49 - 8:51was one of the great textbooks
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8:51 - 8:53that inspired the Founding Fathers
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8:53 - 8:55of the American Revolution.
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8:55 - 8:57Jefferson was a great admirer --
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8:57 - 8:59the ideals of Cyrus
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8:59 - 9:01obviously speaking to those 18th century ideals
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9:01 - 9:03of how you create religious tolerance
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9:03 - 9:06in a new state.
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9:08 - 9:10Meanwhile, back in Babylon,
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9:10 - 9:12things had not been going well.
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9:12 - 9:15After Alexander, the other empires,
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9:15 - 9:18Babylon declines, falls into ruins,
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9:18 - 9:22and all the traces of the great Babylonian empire are lost --
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9:22 - 9:24until 1879
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9:24 - 9:27when the cylinder is discovered
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9:27 - 9:30by a British Museum exhibition digging in Babylon.
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9:30 - 9:33And it enters now another story.
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9:33 - 9:35It enters that great debate
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9:35 - 9:37in the middle of the 19th century:
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9:37 - 9:40Are the scriptures reliable? Can we trust them?
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9:40 - 9:42We only knew
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9:42 - 9:44about the return of the Jews and the decree of Cyrus
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9:44 - 9:46from the Hebrew scriptures.
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9:46 - 9:48No other evidence.
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9:48 - 9:50Suddenly, this appeared.
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9:50 - 9:52And great excitement
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9:52 - 9:54to a world where those who believed in the scriptures
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9:54 - 9:56had had their faith in creation shaken
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9:56 - 9:58by evolution, by geology,
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9:58 - 10:00here was evidence
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10:00 - 10:02that the scriptures were historically true.
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10:02 - 10:05It's a great 19th century moment.
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10:05 - 10:10But -- and this, of course, is where it becomes complicated --
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10:10 - 10:12the facts were true,
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10:12 - 10:15hurrah for archeology,
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10:15 - 10:18but the interpretation was rather more complicated.
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10:18 - 10:21Because the cylinder account and the Hebrew Bible account
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10:21 - 10:23differ in one key respect.
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10:23 - 10:25The Babylonian cylinder
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10:25 - 10:27is written by the priests
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10:27 - 10:29of the great god of Bablyon, Marduk.
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10:29 - 10:31And, not surprisingly,
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10:31 - 10:33they tell you that all this was done by Marduk.
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10:33 - 10:36"Marduk, we hold, called Cyrus by his name."
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10:36 - 10:39Marduk takes Cyrus by the hand,
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10:39 - 10:41calls him to shepherd his people
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10:41 - 10:44and gives him the rule of Babylon.
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10:44 - 10:46Marduk tells Cyrus
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10:46 - 10:48that he will do these great, generous things
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10:48 - 10:50of setting the people free.
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10:50 - 10:52And this is why we should all be grateful to
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10:52 - 10:54and worship Marduk.
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10:54 - 10:56The Hebrew writers
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10:56 - 10:58in the Old Testament,
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10:58 - 11:01you will not be surprised to learn,
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11:01 - 11:03take a rather different view of this.
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11:03 - 11:05For them, of course, it can't possibly by Marduk
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11:05 - 11:07that made all this happen.
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11:07 - 11:09It can only be Jehovah.
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11:09 - 11:11And so in Isaiah,
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11:11 - 11:13we have the wonderful texts
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11:13 - 11:15giving all the credit of this,
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11:15 - 11:16not to Marduk
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11:16 - 11:19but to the Lord God of Israel --
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11:19 - 11:21the Lord God of Israel
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11:21 - 11:23who also called Cyrus by name,
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11:23 - 11:26also takes Cyrus by the hand
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11:26 - 11:28and talks of him shepherding his people.
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11:28 - 11:30It's a remarkable example
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11:30 - 11:34of two different priestly appropriations of the same event,
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11:34 - 11:36two different religious takeovers
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11:36 - 11:38of a political fact.
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11:38 - 11:40God, we know,
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11:40 - 11:42is usually on the side of the big battalions.
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11:42 - 11:45The question is, which god was it?
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11:45 - 11:47And the debate unsettles
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11:47 - 11:49everybody in the 19th century
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11:49 - 11:51to realize that the Hebrew scriptures
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11:51 - 11:54are part of a much wider world of religion.
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11:54 - 11:56And it's quite clear
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11:56 - 11:59the cylinder is older than the text of Isaiah,
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11:59 - 12:01and yet, Jehovah is speaking
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12:01 - 12:03in words very similar
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12:03 - 12:05to those used by Marduk.
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12:05 - 12:08And there's a slight sense that Isaiah knows this,
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12:08 - 12:10because he says,
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12:10 - 12:13this is God speaking, of course,
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12:13 - 12:15"I have called thee by thy name
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12:15 - 12:17though thou hast not known me."
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12:17 - 12:19I think it's recognized
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12:19 - 12:21that Cyrus doesn't realize
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12:21 - 12:24that he's acting under orders from Jehovah.
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12:24 - 12:27And equally, he'd have been surprised that he was acting under orders from Marduk.
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12:27 - 12:29Because interestingly, of course,
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12:29 - 12:31Cyrus is a good Iranian
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12:31 - 12:33with a totally different set of gods
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12:33 - 12:35who are not mentioned in any of these texts.
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12:35 - 12:37(Laughter)
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12:37 - 12:39That's 1879.
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12:39 - 12:4140 years on
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12:41 - 12:44and we're in 1917,
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12:44 - 12:46and the cylinder enters a different world.
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12:46 - 12:48This time, the real politics
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12:48 - 12:50of the contemporary world --
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12:50 - 12:53the year of the Balfour Declaration,
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12:53 - 12:56the year when the new imperial power in the Middle East, Britain,
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12:56 - 12:58decides that it will declare
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12:58 - 13:00a Jewish national home,
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13:00 - 13:02it will allow
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13:02 - 13:04the Jews to return.
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13:04 - 13:06And the response to this
-
13:06 - 13:09by the Jewish population in Eastern Europe is rhapsodic.
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13:09 - 13:11And across Eastern Europe,
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13:11 - 13:13Jews display pictures of Cyrus
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13:13 - 13:15and of George V
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13:15 - 13:17side by side --
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13:17 - 13:19the two great rulers
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13:19 - 13:22who have allowed the return to Jerusalem.
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13:22 - 13:25And the Cyrus cylinder comes back into public view
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13:25 - 13:27and the text of this
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13:27 - 13:30as a demonstration of why what is going to happen
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13:30 - 13:33after the war is over in 1918
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13:33 - 13:36is part of a divine plan.
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13:36 - 13:38You all know what happened.
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13:38 - 13:41The state of Israel is setup,
-
13:41 - 13:44and 50 years later, in the late 60s,
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13:44 - 13:47it's clear that Britain's role as the imperial power is over.
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13:47 - 13:50And another story of the cylinder begins.
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13:50 - 13:52The region, the U.K. and the U.S. decide,
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13:52 - 13:55has to be kept safe from communism,
-
13:55 - 13:58and the superpower that will be created to do this
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13:58 - 14:00would be Iran, the Shah.
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14:00 - 14:03And so the Shah invents an Iranian history,
-
14:03 - 14:05or a return to Iranian history,
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14:05 - 14:08that puts him in the center of a great tradition
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14:08 - 14:10and produces coins
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14:10 - 14:12showing himself
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14:12 - 14:14with the Cyrus cylinder.
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14:14 - 14:17When he has his great celebrations in Persepolis,
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14:17 - 14:19he summons the cylinder
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14:19 - 14:22and the cylinder is lent by the British Museum, goes to Tehran,
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14:22 - 14:24and is part of those great celebrations
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14:24 - 14:27of the Pahlavi dynasty.
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14:27 - 14:30Cyrus cylinder: guarantor of the Shah.
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14:30 - 14:3310 years later, another story:
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14:33 - 14:35Iranian Revolution, 1979.
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14:35 - 14:37Islamic revolution, no more Cyrus;
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14:37 - 14:39we're not interested in that history,
-
14:39 - 14:42we're interested in Islamic Iran --
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14:42 - 14:44until Iraq,
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14:44 - 14:47the new superpower that we've all decided should be in the region,
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14:47 - 14:49attacks.
-
14:49 - 14:51Then another Iran-Iraq war.
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14:51 - 14:53And it becomes critical for the Iranians
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14:53 - 14:56to remember their great past,
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14:56 - 14:58their great past
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14:58 - 15:01when they fought Iraq and won.
-
15:01 - 15:03It becomes critical to find a symbol
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15:03 - 15:06that will pull together all Iranians --
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15:06 - 15:08Muslims and non-Muslims,
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15:08 - 15:11Christians, Zoroastrians, Jews living in Iran,
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15:11 - 15:13people who are devout, not devout.
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15:13 - 15:16And the obvious emblem is Cyrus.
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15:16 - 15:19So when the British Museum and Tehran National Musuem
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15:19 - 15:21cooperate and work together, as we've been doing,
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15:21 - 15:23the Iranians ask for one thing only
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15:23 - 15:25as a loan.
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15:25 - 15:27It's the only object they want.
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15:27 - 15:29They want to borrow the Cyrus cylinder.
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15:29 - 15:31And last year,
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15:31 - 15:35the Cyrus cylinder went to Tehran
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15:35 - 15:38for the second time.
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15:38 - 15:41It's shown being presented here, put into its case
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15:41 - 15:44by the director of the National Museum of Tehran,
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15:44 - 15:47one of the many women in Iran in very senior positions,
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15:47 - 15:49Mrs. Ardakani.
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15:49 - 15:51It was a huge event.
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15:51 - 15:54This is the other side of that same picture.
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15:54 - 15:57It's seen in Tehran
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15:57 - 15:59by between one and two million people
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15:59 - 16:01in the space of a few months.
-
16:01 - 16:03This is beyond any blockbuster exhibition
-
16:03 - 16:05in the West.
-
16:05 - 16:08And it's the subject of a huge debate
-
16:08 - 16:11about what this cylinder means, what Cyrus means,
-
16:11 - 16:14but above all, Cyrus as articulated through this cylinder --
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16:14 - 16:17Cyrus as the defender of the homeland,
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16:17 - 16:19the champion, of course, of Iranian identity
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16:19 - 16:21and of the Iranian peoples,
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16:21 - 16:23tolerant of all faiths.
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16:23 - 16:25And in the current Iran,
-
16:25 - 16:28Zoroastrians and Christians have guaranteed places
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16:28 - 16:31in the Iranian parliament, something to be very, very proud of.
-
16:31 - 16:34To see this object in Tehran,
-
16:34 - 16:36thousands of Jews living in Iran
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16:36 - 16:38came to Tehran to see it.
-
16:38 - 16:40It became a great emblem,
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16:40 - 16:42a great subject of debate
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16:42 - 16:45about what Iran is at home and abroad.
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16:45 - 16:48Is Iran still to be the defender of the oppressed?
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16:48 - 16:50Will Iran set free the people
-
16:50 - 16:53that the tyrants have enslaved and expropriated?
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16:53 - 16:56This is heady national rhetoric,
-
16:56 - 16:58and it was all put together
-
16:58 - 17:00in a great pageant
-
17:00 - 17:02launching the return.
-
17:02 - 17:05Here you see this out-sized Cyrus cylinder on the stage
-
17:05 - 17:08with great figures from Iranian history
-
17:08 - 17:10gathering to take their place
-
17:10 - 17:13in the heritage of Iran.
-
17:13 - 17:15It was a narrative presented
-
17:15 - 17:18by the president himself.
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17:18 - 17:20And for me,
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17:20 - 17:22to take this object to Iran,
-
17:22 - 17:24to be allowed to take this object to Iran
-
17:24 - 17:26was to be allowed to be part
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17:26 - 17:28of an extraordinary debate
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17:28 - 17:30led at the highest levels
-
17:30 - 17:32about what Iran is,
-
17:32 - 17:35what different Irans there are
-
17:35 - 17:37and how the different histories of Iran
-
17:37 - 17:40might shape the world today.
-
17:40 - 17:43It's a debate that's still continuing,
-
17:43 - 17:45and it will continue to rumble,
-
17:45 - 17:47because this object
-
17:47 - 17:49is one of the great declarations
-
17:49 - 17:51of a human aspiration.
-
17:51 - 17:55It stands with the American constitution.
-
17:55 - 17:58It certainly says far more about real freedoms
-
17:58 - 18:00than Magna Carta.
-
18:00 - 18:03It is a document that can mean so many things,
-
18:03 - 18:06for Iran and for the region.
-
18:06 - 18:08A replica of this
-
18:08 - 18:10is at the United Nations.
-
18:10 - 18:13In New York this autumn, it will be present
-
18:13 - 18:15when the great debates
-
18:15 - 18:18about the future of the Middle East take place.
-
18:18 - 18:20And I want to finish by asking you
-
18:20 - 18:22what the next story will be
-
18:22 - 18:24in which this object figures.
-
18:24 - 18:26It will appear, certainly,
-
18:26 - 18:28in many more Middle Eastern stories.
-
18:28 - 18:30And what story of the Middle East,
-
18:30 - 18:32what story of the world,
-
18:32 - 18:34do you want to see
-
18:34 - 18:36reflecting what is said,
-
18:36 - 18:38what is expressed in this cylinder?
-
18:38 - 18:40The right of peoples
-
18:40 - 18:42to live together in the same state,
-
18:42 - 18:44worshiping differently, freely --
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18:44 - 18:46a Middle East, a world,
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18:46 - 18:48in which religion is not the subject of division
-
18:48 - 18:51or of debate.
-
18:51 - 18:54In the world of the Middle East at the moment,
-
18:54 - 18:57the debates are, as you know, shrill.
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18:57 - 18:59But I think it's possible
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18:59 - 19:03that the most powerful and the wisest voice of all of them
-
19:03 - 19:05may well be the voice
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19:05 - 19:07of this mute thing,
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19:07 - 19:09the Cyrus cylinder.
-
19:09 - 19:11Thank you.
-
19:11 - 19:15(Applause)
- Title:
- 2600 years of history in one object
- Speaker:
- Neil MacGregor
- Description:
-
A clay cylinder covered in Akkadian cuneiform script, damaged and broken, the Cyrus Cylinder is a powerful symbol of religious tolerance and multi-culturalism. In this enthralling talk Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, traces 2600 years of Middle Eastern history through this single object.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 19:16
TED edited English subtitles for 2600 years of history in one object | ||
TED added a translation |