TEHRAN -- The director of the Judicial Office of Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization said that it is unclear when the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute will return the ancient Iranian tablets in its possession.

“We can not say exactly when the tablets will be returned. Maybe very soon or maybe it will take ten years,” Omid Ghanami told the Mehr News Agency on Tuesday. However, he added, “The documents are all in favor of Iran, and we are sure that the ruling will be overturned by the court and the tablets will be returned to the country.”

Last spring, U.S. District Court Judge Blanche Manning ruled that a group of people injured by a 1997 bombing in Israel could seize the 300 clay tablets loaned to the University of Chicago and the university cannot protect Iran's ownership rights to the artifacts.

Following Iranian officials’ protests against the ruling, the court was slated to reexamine the case on December 21, but the court session was postponed to January 19, allegedly due to the fact that Iran had not provided all the documents necessary to the court.

The tablets were discovered by the University of Chicago archaeologists in 1933 while they were excavating in Persepolis, the site of a major Oriental Institute excavation.

The artifacts bear cuneiform script explaining administrative details of the Achaemenid Empire from about 500 BC. They are among a group of tens of thousands of tablets and tablet fragments that were loaned to the University’s Oriental Institute in 1937 to be studied. A group of 179 complete tablets was returned in 1948, and another group of more than 37,000 tablet fragments was returned in 1951.