When Cyrus met Cyrus: A six-year-old’s encounter with Persian history at the British Museum

There aren’t many six-year-olds who can walk into the British Museum and find themselves named after one of the most powerful rulers in ancient history. Mine can. So when we visited London, I was determined to introduce Cyrus to the famous clay cylinder associated with Cyrus the Great, the Persian king whose name he carries. I imagined a touching moment of cultural discovery, Cyrus, meanwhile, wanted to know whether he could climb the statues.

I know I was expecting too much. Explaining 2,500 years of Persian history to a child whose immediate concerns revolve around food, toys and whether something can be touched isn’t easy. But this visit really mattered to me and H. With a Persian father and a British mum, Cyrus is growing up between two cultures, and I wanted him to understand something about the history behind his name.

Especially when the child in question is more interested in ancient statues and the whereabouts of the nearest café.

Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Empire in the sixth century BCE, establishing a dynasty that would rule vast territories across the ancient world. His achievements remain an important part of Iranian history, and his name continues to carry considerable cultural significance. Our Cyrus, however, is more concerned with being six, which involves asking difficult questions and expecting answers before I’ve finished my coffee.

At home, his Persian heritage is woven into everyday family life. We celebrate Nowruz, enjoy Persian food and maintain traditions that connect him to his father’s homeland. Yet explaining ancient Persia is rather different from celebrating the Persian New Year around a haft-sin table. I wanted him to see that his name belonged to a story much older than our family, one that extended far beyond the Britain he knows.

The British Museum is an extraordinary place to visit with children, although anyone expecting a peaceful afternoon contemplating ancient civilisation should leave their offspring at home. The galleries are huge, the exhibits fascinating and the opportunities for a six-year-old to ask questions are endless.

We explored the Egyptian collection, where the mummies immediately captured Cyrus’s imagination. The Rosetta Stone attracted his attention too, although the crowds gathered around it made getting a decent look something of an expedition. Everywhere we turned, another sculpture, inscription or object demanded an explanation. I did my best to provide one, sometimes relying on the information boards when my knowledge of ancient history deserted me.

The difficulty with museums, of course, is that almost everything interesting comes with instructions not to touch it. Cyrus couldn’t quite understand why objects had been carefully preserved for thousands of years only to be placed somewhere children couldn’t investigate them properly. I could sympathise, although I wasn’t prepared to explain to museum security why my son had attempted to climb an ancient monument.

Eventually, we reached the object I’d been waiting to show him. Compared with the towering sculptures elsewhere in the museum, the Cyrus Cylinder is quite unassuming. Measuring approximately 22 centimetres long, it is a small, barrel-shaped piece of baked clay covered in cuneiform inscriptions. It was discovered in the ruins of ancient Babylon, in what is now Iraq, by archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam in 1879. The cylinder dates to around 539 BCE, following Cyrus the Great’s conquest of the city.

What makes the cylinder interesting is that it wasn’t written in Persian. Its inscription is in Akkadian, the language used in ancient Babylon, and presents Cyrus as a ruler chosen by the Babylonian god Marduk to restore order after the previous king, Nabonidus, had fallen from favour. It describes the restoration of temples and the return of displaced communities, although historians regard it as a royal proclamation intended to legitimise Cyrus’s conquest rather than an early declaration of human rights.

Try explaining all that to a six-year-old who has only just discovered that a Persian king shares his name. I settled for telling Cyrus that the strange markings were an ancient form of writing and that the object was more than 2,500 years old. He studied the unfamiliar inscriptions through the glass, trying to understand how something so little could be so old.

For a moment, the distance between ancient Persia and our little family life seemed closer. Here was my British-born son, standing in a London museum, looking at something connected to the history of his father’s homeland. I found that really moving, even if Cyrus was already wondering what we might see next.

The traditions that feel familiar to one parent can seem entirely foreign to the other, and you find yourself explaining things you might otherwise have taken for granted. I sometimes wonder how much of his Persian heritage Cyrus will carry into adulthood when so much of his daily life is shaped by growing up in Britain.

Seeing the cylinder also made me think about how much history sits behind museum glass, far from the places where it began. There are complicated questions about how ancient objects came to be displayed in British collections and who gets to tell their stories. Those conversations will come later. At six, I just wanted Cyrus to recognise that Persia was more than somewhere his daddy came from.

After seeing the cylinder, I wanted to buy Cyrus something to remember the occasion. Nothing expensive, just a little reminder of the day he’d encountered a piece of history connected to his name. A children’s book about ancient Persia would have been lovely, or even a fridge magnet featuring the cylinder. At six, Cyrus would have been perfectly happy with something he could stick on the fridge at home, alongside the school photographs and assorted artwork already competing for space.

Unfortunately, the museum shop was a disappointment. During our visit, the only Cyrus Cylinder souvenir I could find was an expensive replica costing hundreds of pounds. Beautiful, but hardly the sort of thing you buy for a six-year-old, especially one whose appreciation of ancient artefacts doesn’t yet extend to keeping them safely on a shelf. I searched for a children’s book, a postcard or even a small magnet celebrating Persian history, but couldn’t find anything. For a museum housing such an important object, it seemed a rather glaring omission.

What bothered me wasn’t just the lack of souvenirs. We’d spent the afternoon introducing Cyrus to a part of his heritage that he doesn’t often encounter in everyday British life. Here was an opportunity to encourage that curiosity, to let him take home something that might prompt another question or conversation about Persia. Instead, the choice appeared to be an expensive replica or nothing. I couldn’t help wondering why other ancient civilisations seemed so much easier to find represented in the shop.

By the time we’d finished exploring, my feet were aching and Cyrus still appeared to have enough energy for another circuit of the museum. We eventually retreated to the café, where cake restored his enthusiasm and coffee restored my ability to answer questions. I wondered what he’d remember about the visit. Perhaps the Egyptian mummies, the enormous statues or the strange writing on the cylinder. Maybe he’d remember that his mum had spent an unreasonable amount of time looking at a piece of clay while she couldn’t even buy him a souvenir.

I hope that one day he’ll understand why I wanted him to see it. His name connects him to a history stretching across centuries and continents, and I want him to feel proud of that connection, even if he doesn’t grow up to become an expert on ancient Persia. For now, Cyrus has met Cyrus, I’ve had my coffee, and we’ve both survived the British Museum. Although I still think a fridge magnet would have been nice.

Have you ever visited a museum hoping to find something that celebrates your family’s culture or heritage, only to leave disappointed? I’d love to hear your experiences.

Occasional stories, experiments, discoveries and questions from Saffron & Cyrus.