Five Americans who won judgments against Iran in an American court have adopted an unusual tactic to collect on their claims. They are “laying claim to some 2,500-year-old cuneiform tablets that are on loan from Iran to the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute. The survivors are demanding that the university sell the tablets, unearthed by American archaeologists at the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis in the 1930’s, and compensate them with the proceeds.”