Greetings to the Distinguished Staff of The daily Telegraph Newspaper of England,
A number of my colleagues and students have bought the following article to my humble attention:
Cyrus cylinder’s ancient bill of rights ‘is just propaganda’
A 2500 year old Persian treasure dubbed the world’s ‘first bill of human rights’ has been branded a piece of shameless ‘propaganda’ by German historians.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/2304424/Cyrus-cylinder’s-ancient-bill-of-rights-‘is-just-propaganda’.html
UK’s Daily Telegraph
By: Harry de Quetteville
Date: July 21, 2008
It is rather surprising that the Daily telegraph would choose to print what can at best be characterized as half-truths or “theories” generated by a very select group of revisionists. This has obliged me to respond to Mr. de Quetteville’s citations in items (1) – (5).
The Cyrus Cylinder now housed in The British Museum. The policies advocated by Cyrus in this Cylinder are corroborated by independent Greek and Biblical sources as well as by a number of other archaeological findings in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), Egypt and western Anatolia (in Modern Turkey).
(1) …German historians…claim that the UN is unjustly celebrating the rule of a man [Cyrus the Great] every bit as despotic as any other land-grabbing leader…Klaus Gallas…told Spiegel magazine…that the UN had given the Cyrus scroll false

Read the rest of this entry »