Tajik leader wants treasure from British Museum

DUSHANBE (Reuters) - Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov has ordered academics to seek the return of a collection of ancient Persian artefacts known as the Oxus Treasure from the British Museum.

Rakhmonov's official Web site, www.president.tj, said he had made the comments during a visit this week to Takhti-Sangin which lies on the Amu Darya (or Oxus) River on the Tajik-Afghan border. The treasure was found at nearby Takht-i Kuwad.

"He underlined that measures should be taken to organise an exhibition of the Oxus Treasure and for its subsequent return from London to its homeland," the Web site said.

According to the British Museum, the treasure dates from the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. and is the most important surviving collection of Persian metalwork from the time of the Achaemenid empire, which stretched from Egypt to Afghanistan.

It was not clear whether Rakhmonov intended to make a formal demand for the artefacts to be brought to Tajikistan.

Rakhmonov, in power since 1992, has lately sought to emphasise his Persian roots, announcing that he planned to change his name to "Rakhmon" and urging compatriots to follow suit by cutting Russian-style endings like -ov from their surnames.

Greece has long urged the British Museum to return the Elgin or Parthenon marbles, a collection of friezes and sculptures removed from the Acropolis above Athens by the British diplomat Lord Elgin 200 years ago.

The gold and silver of the Oxus Treasure was bequeathed to the British Museum in the 19th century by a British major-general from the Archaeological Survey of India and a collector and former curator of the museum.