Scholars petitioning to US President Barack Obama against selling the loaned Persepolis tablets say this move can set a dangerous precedent.

Over 600 archeologists signed a letter to President Obama, asking him to help return the Elamite tablets of Persepolis to their home in Iran.

The dispute broke out when an American Federal Judge ordered the tablets to be confiscated and auctioned in order to compensate the Israeli victims of the 1997 Jerusalem bombing.

The lawyer of the bombing survivors has been trying to confiscate and sell the Persepolis Fortification Archive and other Persian antiquities.

"Historically, foreign nations have been immune from suits ... but in recent years, immunity has not just been chipped away at, but a sledgehammer has been taken to it," says Patty Gerstenblith, a research professor at DePaul University's College of Law and founding president of the Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation.

The 'chipping,' she says, generally protects foreign countries but also provides situations in which they can be sued, The Canadian Press reported.

While the Justice Department has released three statements saying the tablets should not be seized, another lawyer is trying to confiscate the relics to compensate more than 150 families of 241 US service members killed in the 1983 suicide bombing of a Marines barracks in Beirut.

“If Iran wants to protect these things ... they're going to have to do something to pay their judgments," said Thomas Fortune Fay, a lawyer for the families.

Some however believe depriving a nation of its heritage can have no impact on those responsible for the bombing.

"The ones feeling the pain are not the ones behind these terrorist attacks," said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council.

The Persepolis Fortification Archive, which was loaned to the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in 1973, bear cuneiform inscriptions recording administrative details of the Persian Empire from about 500 BC.

"It wasn't just a bunch of guys in bed sheets running around saying thee and thou," said Assyriology Professor of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Matthew Stopler, adding, "These guys were highly civilized people who could operate extremely complicated bureaucracies because, after all, they had conquered an entire continent and what's more important is ... they held on to it."

Stolper and his American and European colleagues are slated to provide the first online installments of a digital photo archive of the Persepolis collection this winter.

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