Cyrus Charter of Human Rights Cylinder First Charter of Human Rights

The charter of Cyrus the Great, a baked-clay Aryan language (Old Persian)
cuneiform cylinder, was discovered in 1878 in excavation of the site of Babylon. In it,
Cyrus the Great described his human treatment of the inhabitants of Babylonia after
its conquest by the Iranians.
The document has been hailed as the first charter of human rights, and in 1971 the
United Nations was published translation of it in all the official U.N. languages. "May
Ahura Mazda protect this land, this nation, from rancor, from foes, from falsehood,
and from drought". Selected from the book "The Eternal Land".