Persepolis Fortification Archive
Encyclopedia
The Persepolis Fortification Archive and Persepolis Treasury Archive are two groups of clay administrative archives — sets of records physically stored together - found in Persepolis
(Old Persian: Pârsa, Modern Takht-e Jamshid in Fars near Shiraz
in southwestern Iran
) dating to the Persian
Achaemenid Empire
. The discovery was made during legal excavations conducted by the archaeologists from the Oriental Institute
of the University of Chicago
in the 1930s. Hence they are named for their in situ
findspot: Persepolis (Greek meaning City of Persians
). The archaeological excavations at Persepolis for the Oriental Institute were initially directed by Ernst Herzfeld
from 1931 to 1934 and carried on from 1934 until 1939 by Erich Schmidt
.
While the political end of the Achaemenid Empire
is symbolized by the burning of Persepolis by Alexander the Great (dated 330
/329
BCE), the fall of Persepolis paradoxically contributed to the preservation of the Achaemenid administrative archives that might have been lost due to passage of time and natural
and man-made
causes. According to archaeological evidence, the partial burning of Persepolis did not affect the Persepolis Fortification Archive tablets, but may have caused the eventual collapse of the upper part of the northern Fortification wall that preserved the tablets until their recovery by the Oriental Institute's archaeologists.
Thousands of clay tablets, fragments and seal impressions in the Persepolis archives are a part of a single administrative system representing continuity of activity and flow of data over more than fifty consecutive years (509
to 457
BCE). These records can throw light on the geography
, economy
, and administration
, as well as the religion
and social conditions of the Persepolis region, the heartland of the Persian
' Great Kings from Darius I the Great to Artaxerxes I.
Persepolis administrative archives are the single most important extant primary source
for understanding the internal workings of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. But while these archives have the potential for offering the study of the Achaemenid history based on the sole surviving and substantial records from the heartland of the empire, they are still not fully utilized as such by a majority of historians.
The reason for the slow adoption of study of Persepolis administrative archives can also be attributed to the administrative nature of the archives, lacking the drama and excitement of narrative history.
But before Persepolis archives could have offered any clues to the better understanding of the Achaemenid history, the clay tablet
s, mostly written in a late dialect of Elamite, an extremely difficult language still imperfectly understood, had to be deciphered.
So, in 1935, Iranian authorities loaned the Persepolis Fortification Archive to the Oriental Institute for research and publication. The archive arrived in Chicago
in 1936 and has been under studies since 1937. It was not until 1969 when Richard Hallock
published his magisterial edition of 2087 Elamite tablets Persepolis Fortification Tablets leading to the renaissance of Achaemenid studies in 1970s. The long term project spanning over seven (7) decades is far from completion.
153 tablets, approximately 30,000 fragments and an unknown number of uninscribed tablets were returned to Iran in the 1950s. So far about 450 tablets and tens of thousands of fragments have already been returned to Iran in total.
The narrow content of the Persepolis Fortification Archive, recording only the Achaemenid administration’s transactions dealing with foodstuff, must be taken into consideration in regards to the amount of information that can be deduced from them.
at Persepolis between 1933 and 1934 for the Oriental Institute, discovered tens of thousands of unbaked clay tablets, badly broken fragments and bullae in March 1933. Before attempting to build a pathway for easy removal of debris from the ruins of palaces on the Persepolis terrace, Herzfeld decided to excavate the location first to ensure that building a passage would not harm anything. He found two rooms filled up with clay tablets that were arranged in order, as in a library
. The uncleaned tablets and fragments were covered up with wax and after drying, they were wrapped up in cotton and packed in 2,353 sequentially numbered boxes for shipping.
At the time, Herzfeld estimated that the find included about 30,000 or more inscribed and sealed clay tablets and fragments. Unfortunately Herzfeld himself did not leave precise notes and never published a proper archaeological report.
invasion, both partially destroying the order of the tablets while protecting them until 1933. The entrance to the rooms were bricked up in antiquity.
However, the functional relationships among these components are not still clear.
Size of the original archive for the same period of time could have been as many as 100,000 Elamite tablets. The edited samples to-date may represent no more than five percent of the original Achaemenid archive.
Size of the original archive for the entire reign of Darius I the Great, from 522
to 486
BCE, just for the distribution of foodstuff, could have been as many as 200,000 records.
(2087 tablets in 1969 and 33 tablets in 1978), as well as analysis of 1,148 seals accompanying published Elamite records. About 20 new tablets have also been published after Hallock by various scholars.
Majority of the Elamite records are memoranda of single transactions. The earliest known dated Elamite text was written in month 1, regnal year 13th of Darius I the Great (April, 509 BCE) and the latest in month 12, regnal year 28 (March/April 493 BCE).
The Elamite records mention about 150 places in the region controlled by Achaemenid administration at Persepolis — most of modern Fars, and perhaps parts of modern Khuzestan, including villages, estates, parks and paradises, storehouses, fortresses, treasuries, towns, rivers, and mountains.
and translation
of an Elamite record from Persepolis Fortification Archive by Richard Hallock
:
Almost all Aramaic records are formed around knotted strings. All Aramaic texts have seal impressions and are incised with styluses or written in ink with pens or brushes, and are similar to Elamite memoranda. They are records of transporting or storing foodstuff, disbursal of seed, disbursal of provisions for travelers, and disbursal of rations for workers.
Buttons, coins such as Athenian tetradrachms and Achaemenid darics, or other common objects are also used instead of seals in a few cases.
s and stamp seal
s have been identified, among them scenes of heroic combat, hunting, worship, animals in combat, as well as abstract designs. The number may well increase with study of more records, making Persepolis administrative archives one of the largest collection of imagery in the ancient world, displaying a wide range of styles and skills in the designers and engravers.
More than 100 of the seals have inscriptions identifying the owner of the seal or his superior. Many of the seals on the Elamite tablets can be associated with Persepolis administrative officials named in the archives, such as Parnâkka (Old Persian *Farnaka).
and ancient historians of Alexander the Great and biblical references in Hebrew Bible
, providing a partial and biased view of the ancient Persians.
Persepolis Fortification Archive is a sophisticated and comprehensive administrative and archival system, representing a highly complex and extensive institutional economy resulting from careful, long term and large scale planning. The archive offers unique opportunity for research on important subjects like organization and status of workers, regional demography, religious practices, royal road, relation between the state institution and private parties, and record management. Research is yielding a better understanding of the territory under purview of the Achaemenid administrators of Persepolis and the system that underlied the structuring of the territory. Among Persepolis workers, there are as many women as men recorded in the Persepolis Fortification Archive. Some women receive more rations than any of the men in a work group, probably due to their ranks or special skills. New mothers are also mentioned, where they receive single rations with mothers of boys receiving twice as much as mothers of girls.
Iranian words and names in the Elamite and Aramaic records are the largest source of Old Iranian languages preserved due to their usage in the Persepolis archives, including evidence of lexicon, phonology and dialect variation that are not found elsewhere.
Fragmentary finds with Elamite texts from other sites in the Achaemenid Empire point to similar common practices and administrative activities. Archival records found in Bactria
, one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire, use administrative vocabulary, practice and book-keeping found in the Persepolis administrative archives.
Discovery of a record written in Old Persian for a routine administrative task challenges the previously held notion that Old Persian language was only used for imperial monumental inscriptions.
Persepolis administration treats all the gods equally. Among various gods named in Persepolis administrative archives receiving food offerings are: Elamite Humban, Inshushinak
and Šimat, Mazdean Ahuramazda, Semitic
Adad
and other gods otherwise unknown. No reference to Mithra
has been found in the Persepolis administrative archives.
lawsuit
in the U.S. Federal Court
system.
In 1997 five American tourists were killed and many more were wounded when terrorists set off suitcase bombs in a shopping mall in Jerusalem. The Palestinian
organization Hamas
claimed responsibility for the bombings.
In 2001 the survivors of the attack and their family members brought lawsuit
s against Hamas and Iran
, claiming Iran had provided financial and logistical support to Hamas. The court agreed and awarded $71.5 million in compensatory damages
and $300 million in punitive damages
from Iran to the plaintiff
s.
In order to collect on the judgment
, the plaintiff
s sued a number of U.S. museums in 2004, in an attempt to appropriate various Iranian artifacts
and collections and sell them to satisfy the claim for damages. Oriental Institute and the Persepolis Fortification Archive were among this group.
The case, Rubin v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, is currently in litigation at various courts. At the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
, the case is in the discovery phase during which the plaintiffs have requested information about all Persian artifacts in the Oriental Institute’s collection, as well as all of Iran’s assets in the U.S.
Oriental Institute is ordered by the U.S. federal courts to retain the Persepolis Fortification Archive tablets in place until the end of the litigation.
While the remaining tablets of the Persepolis Fortification Archive at the Oriental Institute are not in any immediate threat of seizure and sale for compensation, this is a very important legal case with far-reaching implications beyond Achaemenid administrative archives.
The majority view of the academic community as well as international institutions such as UNESCO
is the protection of the cultural heritage
, exchange and scholarly research must transcend politics.
, Professor of Assyriology
.
Scholars from various universities, students and volunteers are urgently digitizing the Persepolis Fortification Archive and making it available through online resources for further research worldwide.
The PFA Project editors are:
at Persepolis between 1934 and 1939 for the Oriental Institute, discovered a second group of clay tablets and fragments that became known as the Persepolis Treasury Archive (PTA), also known as Persepolis Treasury Tablets (PTT). They were packed in small metal cigarette boxes, filled with sawdust for shipping to Tehran.
Persepolis Treasury Archive deals mostly with payments of silver from the Persepolis treasury made in lieu of partial or full in-kind rations of sheep, wine, or grain to workers and artisans employed at or near Persepolis. Some records are administrative letters ordering payments to groups of workers and confirmation that such payments were made.
. A part of the collection has been in the Tablet Hall of the National Museum of Iran
since 1998. 199 sealings without inscriptions were also found during the excavation.
to 457
BCE, from regnal year 30th of Darius I the Great, to regnal year 7th of Artaxerxes I, with largest concentration from regnal years 19th and 20th of Xerxes
.
and translation
of an Elamite record from Persepolis Treasury Archive by George Cameron:
Persepolis Treasury Archive furthermore contributes to the study of economic history
by providing a record of the introduction of coin
ed silver
money
to the regional economy of the Persepolis and its eventual adoption. Persepolis Fortification Archive, a generation before the Persepolis Treasury Archive, only attests to the payment in-kind at Persepolis (wine, beer, grain, flour, sheep, and the like).
From a group of 52 uninscribed sealings, some impressions were similar to the sealings found in the Persepolis Treasury Archive.
Future excavations in the areas currently unexcavated, such as the southeastern part of the Persepolis terrace and mountain fortifications, might yield other archives.
Persepolis
Perspolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire . Persepolis is situated northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid...
(Old Persian: Pârsa, Modern Takht-e Jamshid in Fars near Shiraz
Shiraz
Shiraz may refer to:* Shiraz, Iran, a city in Iran* Shiraz County, an administrative subdivision of Iran* Vosketap, Armenia, formerly called ShirazPeople:* Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet* Ara Shiraz, Armenian sculptor...
in southwestern Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
) dating to the Persian
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
Achaemenid Empire
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
. The discovery was made during legal excavations conducted by the archaeologists from the Oriental Institute
Oriental Institute
Oriental Institute may refer to a number of institutes of Oriental studies:United States* Oriental Institute, Chicago, part of the University of ChicagoEngland* Oriental Institute, Oxford, part of the University of Oxford...
of the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
in the 1930s. Hence they are named for their in situ
In situ
In situ is a Latin phrase which translated literally as 'In position'. It is used in many different contexts.-Aerospace:In the aerospace industry, equipment on board aircraft must be tested in situ, or in place, to confirm everything functions properly as a system. Individually, each piece may...
findspot: Persepolis (Greek meaning City of Persians
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
). The archaeological excavations at Persepolis for the Oriental Institute were initially directed by Ernst Herzfeld
Ernst Herzfeld
Ernst Emil Herzfeld was a German archaeologist and Iranologist.-Life:Herzfeld was born in Celle, Province of Hanover...
from 1931 to 1934 and carried on from 1934 until 1939 by Erich Schmidt
Erich Schmidt
Erich Friedrich Schmidt was a German and American-naturalized archaeologist, born in Baden-Baden. He specialized in Ancient Near East Archaeology, and became professor emeritus at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.When he was young, he fought in the World War I, and was captured...
.
While the political end of the Achaemenid Empire
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
is symbolized by the burning of Persepolis by Alexander the Great (dated 330
330
Year 330 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Gallicanus and Tullianus...
/329
329
Year 329 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constatntinus and Constantinus...
BCE), the fall of Persepolis paradoxically contributed to the preservation of the Achaemenid administrative archives that might have been lost due to passage of time and natural
Natural
Natural is an adjective that refers to Nature.Natural may refer too:In science and mathematics:* Natural transformation, category theory in mathematics* Natural foods...
and man-made
Man-Made
-Personnel:*Norman Blake - Vocals, guitar*Gerard Love - Vocals, bass*Raymond McGinley - Vocals, guitar*Francis MacDonald - Drums*John McCusker - Violin, viola*John McEntire - Piano...
causes. According to archaeological evidence, the partial burning of Persepolis did not affect the Persepolis Fortification Archive tablets, but may have caused the eventual collapse of the upper part of the northern Fortification wall that preserved the tablets until their recovery by the Oriental Institute's archaeologists.
Thousands of clay tablets, fragments and seal impressions in the Persepolis archives are a part of a single administrative system representing continuity of activity and flow of data over more than fifty consecutive years (509
509
Year 509 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Inportunus without colleague...
to 457
457
Year 457 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantinus and Rufus...
BCE). These records can throw light on the geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
, economy
Economy
An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...
, and administration
Administration (government)
The term administration, as used in the context of government, differs according to jurisdiction.-United States:In United States usage, the term refers to the executive branch under a specific president , for example: the "Barack Obama administration." It can also mean an executive branch agency...
, as well as the religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
and social conditions of the Persepolis region, the heartland of the Persian
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
' Great Kings from Darius I the Great to Artaxerxes I.
Persepolis administrative archives are the single most important extant primary source
Primary source
Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied....
for understanding the internal workings of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. But while these archives have the potential for offering the study of the Achaemenid history based on the sole surviving and substantial records from the heartland of the empire, they are still not fully utilized as such by a majority of historians.
The reason for the slow adoption of study of Persepolis administrative archives can also be attributed to the administrative nature of the archives, lacking the drama and excitement of narrative history.
Persepolis Fortification Archive
Persepolis Fortification Archive (PFA), also known as Persepolis Fortification Tablets (PFT, PF), is a fragment of Achaemenid administrative records of receipt, taxation, transfer, storage of food crops (cereals, fruit), livestock (sheep and goats, cattle, poultry), food products (flour, breads and other cereal products, beer, wine, processed fruit, oil, meat), and byproducts (animal hides) in the region around Persepolis (larger part of modern Fars), and their redistribution to gods, royal family, courtiers, priests, religious officiants, administrators, travelers, workers, artisans, and livestock.But before Persepolis archives could have offered any clues to the better understanding of the Achaemenid history, the clay tablet
Clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age....
s, mostly written in a late dialect of Elamite, an extremely difficult language still imperfectly understood, had to be deciphered.
So, in 1935, Iranian authorities loaned the Persepolis Fortification Archive to the Oriental Institute for research and publication. The archive arrived in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in 1936 and has been under studies since 1937. It was not until 1969 when Richard Hallock
Richard Hallock
Richard Treadwel Hallock was an American Assyriologist and Elamitologist. He reached his Ph.D. degree in Assyriology at the University of Chicago in 1935 , and was editorial secretary of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary...
published his magisterial edition of 2087 Elamite tablets Persepolis Fortification Tablets leading to the renaissance of Achaemenid studies in 1970s. The long term project spanning over seven (7) decades is far from completion.
153 tablets, approximately 30,000 fragments and an unknown number of uninscribed tablets were returned to Iran in the 1950s. So far about 450 tablets and tens of thousands of fragments have already been returned to Iran in total.
The narrow content of the Persepolis Fortification Archive, recording only the Achaemenid administration’s transactions dealing with foodstuff, must be taken into consideration in regards to the amount of information that can be deduced from them.
Discovery
Excavations directed by Ernst HerzfeldErnst Herzfeld
Ernst Emil Herzfeld was a German archaeologist and Iranologist.-Life:Herzfeld was born in Celle, Province of Hanover...
at Persepolis between 1933 and 1934 for the Oriental Institute, discovered tens of thousands of unbaked clay tablets, badly broken fragments and bullae in March 1933. Before attempting to build a pathway for easy removal of debris from the ruins of palaces on the Persepolis terrace, Herzfeld decided to excavate the location first to ensure that building a passage would not harm anything. He found two rooms filled up with clay tablets that were arranged in order, as in a library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
. The uncleaned tablets and fragments were covered up with wax and after drying, they were wrapped up in cotton and packed in 2,353 sequentially numbered boxes for shipping.
At the time, Herzfeld estimated that the find included about 30,000 or more inscribed and sealed clay tablets and fragments. Unfortunately Herzfeld himself did not leave precise notes and never published a proper archaeological report.
Location
Persepolis Fortification Archive was found at the northeastern corner of the terrace of Persepolis, in two rooms in the fortification wall. The tablets had been stored in a small space near the staircase in the tower in the fortification wall. The upper floor of the fortification wall may have collapsed at the time of the MacedonianMacedonians (ethnic group)
The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...
invasion, both partially destroying the order of the tablets while protecting them until 1933. The entrance to the rooms were bricked up in antiquity.
Components
There are three main kinds of clay tablets and fragments in the Persepolis Fortification Archive:- Elamite: the remains of about 10,000 or more original records in the Elamite language, in cuneiformCuneiformCuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot*Cuneiform Records, a music record label...
script. - Aramaic: the remains of about 1,000 or more original records in the Aramaic language and script.
- Uninscribed: the remains of about 5,000 or more original records with only impressions of seals and no texts.
However, the functional relationships among these components are not still clear.
Numbers
As of 2010, about 20,000-25,000 tablets and fragments representing about 15,000-18,000 original records remain at the Oriental Institute.Size of the original archive for the same period of time could have been as many as 100,000 Elamite tablets. The edited samples to-date may represent no more than five percent of the original Achaemenid archive.
Size of the original archive for the entire reign of Darius I the Great, from 522
522
Year 522 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Symmachus and Boethius...
to 486
486
Year 486 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Basilius and Longinus...
BCE, just for the distribution of foodstuff, could have been as many as 200,000 records.
Scope
Persepolis Fortification Archive covers sixteen (16) years, from 509 to 493 BCE, from regnal year 13th to regnal year 28th of Darius I the Great. The chronological distribution of the archive is uneven with largest concentration from regnal years 22nd and 23rd.Elamite records
Current understanding of the Persepolis Fortification Archive is based on a sample of the Elamite records that includes 2,120 published texts by Richard HallockRichard Hallock
Richard Treadwel Hallock was an American Assyriologist and Elamitologist. He reached his Ph.D. degree in Assyriology at the University of Chicago in 1935 , and was editorial secretary of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary...
(2087 tablets in 1969 and 33 tablets in 1978), as well as analysis of 1,148 seals accompanying published Elamite records. About 20 new tablets have also been published after Hallock by various scholars.
Majority of the Elamite records are memoranda of single transactions. The earliest known dated Elamite text was written in month 1, regnal year 13th of Darius I the Great (April, 509 BCE) and the latest in month 12, regnal year 28 (March/April 493 BCE).
The Elamite records mention about 150 places in the region controlled by Achaemenid administration at Persepolis — most of modern Fars, and perhaps parts of modern Khuzestan, including villages, estates, parks and paradises, storehouses, fortresses, treasuries, towns, rivers, and mountains.
Sample
A sample transliterationTransliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
and translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
of an Elamite record from Persepolis Fortification Archive by Richard Hallock
Richard Hallock
Richard Treadwel Hallock was an American Assyriologist and Elamitologist. He reached his Ph.D. degree in Assyriology at the University of Chicago in 1935 , and was editorial secretary of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary...
:
- PF 53
- 2 w.pi-ut kur-min m.Šu-te-na-na Ba-ir-ša-an ku-ut-ka hu-ut-ki+MIN-nam
- Ba-ka-ba-da Na-ba-ba du-iš-da be-ul 21-na
- 2 (BAR of) figs, supplied by Šutena, was taken (to) Persepolis, for the (royal) stores.
- Bakabada (and) Nababa received (it). 21st year.
Aramaic records
About 680 Fortification tablets and fragments with monolingual Aramaic texts (also called Imperial Aramaic) have been identified.Almost all Aramaic records are formed around knotted strings. All Aramaic texts have seal impressions and are incised with styluses or written in ink with pens or brushes, and are similar to Elamite memoranda. They are records of transporting or storing foodstuff, disbursal of seed, disbursal of provisions for travelers, and disbursal of rations for workers.
Uninscribed records
About 5,000 or more tablets and fragment have only impressions of seals and no texts. Almost all such records are formed around knotted strings. It is noted that none of the uninscribed tablets and fragments bear the seals of high ranking officials of the Achaemenid administration.Buttons, coins such as Athenian tetradrachms and Achaemenid darics, or other common objects are also used instead of seals in a few cases.
Seals
More than 2,200 distinct cylinder sealCylinder seal
A cylinder seal is a cylinder engraved with a 'picture story', used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. Cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in the Near East, at the contemporary site of Susa in south-western Iran and at the early site...
s and stamp seal
Stamp seal
The stamp seal is a carved object, usually stone, first made in the 4th millennium BC, and probably earlier. They were used to impress their picture or inscription into soft, prepared clay....
s have been identified, among them scenes of heroic combat, hunting, worship, animals in combat, as well as abstract designs. The number may well increase with study of more records, making Persepolis administrative archives one of the largest collection of imagery in the ancient world, displaying a wide range of styles and skills in the designers and engravers.
More than 100 of the seals have inscriptions identifying the owner of the seal or his superior. Many of the seals on the Elamite tablets can be associated with Persepolis administrative officials named in the archives, such as Parnâkka (Old Persian *Farnaka).
Records in other languages
Persepolis was inhabited by a multitude of people speaking different languages. There are unique archival records in other languages that attest to the usage of many languages by the administration at Persepolis, such as:- One tablet written in GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
recording only the amount of wine and an Aramaic month-name. - One tablet written in Old Persian recording disbursement of some dry commodity among five villages.
- One tablet written in Babylonian dialect of AkkadianAkkadian languageAkkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
is a legal document recording the purchase of a slave at Persepolis in the reign of Darius I the Great, among parties and witnesses with Babylonian names. The legal record conforms to Babylonian conventions. - One tablet written in PhrygianPhrygian languageThe Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, spoken in Asia Minor during Classical Antiquity .Phrygian is considered to have been closely related to Greek....
has not been interpreted. - One tablet written in unknown cuneiform.
Significance
Until the discovery of the Persepolis administrative archives, the main sources for information about the Achaemenids were the Greek sources such as HerodotusHerodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
and ancient historians of Alexander the Great and biblical references in Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
, providing a partial and biased view of the ancient Persians.
Persepolis Fortification Archive is a sophisticated and comprehensive administrative and archival system, representing a highly complex and extensive institutional economy resulting from careful, long term and large scale planning. The archive offers unique opportunity for research on important subjects like organization and status of workers, regional demography, religious practices, royal road, relation between the state institution and private parties, and record management. Research is yielding a better understanding of the territory under purview of the Achaemenid administrators of Persepolis and the system that underlied the structuring of the territory. Among Persepolis workers, there are as many women as men recorded in the Persepolis Fortification Archive. Some women receive more rations than any of the men in a work group, probably due to their ranks or special skills. New mothers are also mentioned, where they receive single rations with mothers of boys receiving twice as much as mothers of girls.
Iranian words and names in the Elamite and Aramaic records are the largest source of Old Iranian languages preserved due to their usage in the Persepolis archives, including evidence of lexicon, phonology and dialect variation that are not found elsewhere.
Fragmentary finds with Elamite texts from other sites in the Achaemenid Empire point to similar common practices and administrative activities. Archival records found in Bactria
Bactria
Bactria and also appears in the Zend Avesta as Bukhdi. It is the ancient name of a historical region located between south of the Amu Darya and west of the Indus River...
, one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire, use administrative vocabulary, practice and book-keeping found in the Persepolis administrative archives.
Discovery of a record written in Old Persian for a routine administrative task challenges the previously held notion that Old Persian language was only used for imperial monumental inscriptions.
Persepolis administration treats all the gods equally. Among various gods named in Persepolis administrative archives receiving food offerings are: Elamite Humban, Inshushinak
Inshushinak
Inshushinak was one of the major gods of the Elamites and the protector deity of Susa. The ziggurat at Choqa Zanbil is dedicated to him.-References:* ISBN 0-521-563585*...
and Šimat, Mazdean Ahuramazda, Semitic
Semitic
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...
Adad
Adad
Adad in Akkadian and Ishkur in Sumerian and Hadad in Aramaic are the names of the storm-god in the Babylonian-Assyrian pantheon. All three are usually written by the logogram dIM...
and other gods otherwise unknown. No reference to Mithra
Mithra
Mithra is the Zoroastrian divinity of covenant and oath. In addition to being the divinity of contracts, Mithra is also a judicial figure, an all-seeing protector of Truth, and the guardian of cattle, the harvest and of The Waters....
has been found in the Persepolis administrative archives.
Landmark lawsuit
Persepolis Fortification Archive is caught in the middle of a landmarkLandmark
This is a list of landmarks around the world.Landmarks may be split into two categories - natural phenomena and man-made features, like buildings, bridges, statues, public squares and so forth...
lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
in the U.S. Federal Court
United States federal courts
The United States federal courts make up the judiciary branch of federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government.-Categories:...
system.
In 1997 five American tourists were killed and many more were wounded when terrorists set off suitcase bombs in a shopping mall in Jerusalem. The Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
organization Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
claimed responsibility for the bombings.
In 2001 the survivors of the attack and their family members brought lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
s against Hamas and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, claiming Iran had provided financial and logistical support to Hamas. The court agreed and awarded $71.5 million in compensatory damages
Damages
In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...
and $300 million in punitive damages
Damages
In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...
from Iran to the plaintiff
Plaintiff
A plaintiff , also known as a claimant or complainant, is the term used in some jurisdictions for the party who initiates a lawsuit before a court...
s.
In order to collect on the judgment
Judgment
A judgment , in a legal context, is synonymous with the formal decision made by a court following a lawsuit. At the same time the court may also make a range of court orders, such as imposing a sentence upon a guilty defendant in a criminal matter, or providing a remedy for the plaintiff in a civil...
, the plaintiff
Plaintiff
A plaintiff , also known as a claimant or complainant, is the term used in some jurisdictions for the party who initiates a lawsuit before a court...
s sued a number of U.S. museums in 2004, in an attempt to appropriate various Iranian artifacts
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
and collections and sell them to satisfy the claim for damages. Oriental Institute and the Persepolis Fortification Archive were among this group.
The case, Rubin v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, is currently in litigation at various courts. At the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, the case is in the discovery phase during which the plaintiffs have requested information about all Persian artifacts in the Oriental Institute’s collection, as well as all of Iran’s assets in the U.S.
Oriental Institute is ordered by the U.S. federal courts to retain the Persepolis Fortification Archive tablets in place until the end of the litigation.
While the remaining tablets of the Persepolis Fortification Archive at the Oriental Institute are not in any immediate threat of seizure and sale for compensation, this is a very important legal case with far-reaching implications beyond Achaemenid administrative archives.
The majority view of the academic community as well as international institutions such as UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
is the protection of the cultural heritage
Cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations...
, exchange and scholarly research must transcend politics.
PFA Project
The threat of losing the Persepolis Fortification Archive to scholarly research as a result of the litigation since 2004, prompted the Oriental Institute to accelerate and enlarge the PFA Project in 2006, headed by Dr. Matthew StolperMatthew Stolper
Matthew Wolfgang Stolper is Professor of Assyriology and the John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago....
, Professor of Assyriology
Assyriology
Assyriology is the archaeological, historical, and linguistic study of ancient Mesopotamia and the related cultures that used cuneiform writing. The field covers the Akkadian sister-cultures of Assyria and Babylonia, together with their cultural predecessor; Sumer...
.
Scholars from various universities, students and volunteers are urgently digitizing the Persepolis Fortification Archive and making it available through online resources for further research worldwide.
The PFA Project editors are:
- Annalisa Azzoni, Aramaic texts, Vanderbilt UniversityVanderbilt UniversityVanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...
, Nashville - Elspeth Dusinberre, seal impressions on Aramaic texts, University of ColoradoUniversity of Colorado at BoulderThe University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
, BoulderBoulderIn geology, a boulder is a rock with grain size of usually no less than 256 mm diameter. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive.... - Mark Garrison, seal impressions on all components, Trinity UniversityTrinity University (Texas)Trinity University is a private, independent, primarily undergraduate, university in San Antonio, Texas. Its campus is located in the Monte Vista Historic District and adjacent to Brackenridge Park....
, San Antonio - Wouter Henkelman, Elamite texts, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and École pratique des hautes étudesÉcole pratique des hautes étudesThe École pratique des hautes études is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions....
, ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... - Charles Jones, Elamite texts, Institute for the Study of the Ancient WorldInstitute for the Study of the Ancient WorldThe ' is a center for advanced scholarly research and graduate education that cultivates comparative and connective investigations of the ancient world from the western Mediterranean to China. It is a discrete entity within New York University, independent of any other school or department of the...
, New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east... - Matthew Stolper, Elamite texts, Oriental InstituteOriental InstituteOriental Institute may refer to a number of institutes of Oriental studies:United States* Oriental Institute, Chicago, part of the University of ChicagoEngland* Oriental Institute, Oxford, part of the University of Oxford...
, ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
Persepolis Treasury Archive
Excavations directed by Erich SchmidtErich Schmidt
Erich Friedrich Schmidt was a German and American-naturalized archaeologist, born in Baden-Baden. He specialized in Ancient Near East Archaeology, and became professor emeritus at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.When he was young, he fought in the World War I, and was captured...
at Persepolis between 1934 and 1939 for the Oriental Institute, discovered a second group of clay tablets and fragments that became known as the Persepolis Treasury Archive (PTA), also known as Persepolis Treasury Tablets (PTT). They were packed in small metal cigarette boxes, filled with sawdust for shipping to Tehran.
Persepolis Treasury Archive deals mostly with payments of silver from the Persepolis treasury made in lieu of partial or full in-kind rations of sheep, wine, or grain to workers and artisans employed at or near Persepolis. Some records are administrative letters ordering payments to groups of workers and confirmation that such payments were made.
Location
Persepolis Treasury Archive was found on the southeastern part of Persepolis terrace in the block of buildings identified as the "Royal Treasury" where small pieces of gold leaves were found, hence the name Persepolis Treasury Archive.Components
There are two main kinds of clay tablets and fragments in the Persepolis Treasury Archive:- Elamite: records in in Elamite language and cuneiform script.
- Uninscribed: objects of various shapes with impressions of stamp seals, cylinder seals and seal rings. Many of them have marks of strings that secured bags or boxes and/or attached the sealings to containers.
- One tablet written in the Babylonian dialect of AkkadianAkkadian languageAkkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
, is the Treasury records of taxes paid in silver by three (3) individuals at an unknown location in regnal years 19th and 20th of Darius I the Great.
Numbers
A total find of 746 clay tablets and fragments were reported by the excavators - 198 tablets and large fragments and 548 smaller fragments. 46 clay tablets were given to the Oriental Institute by the Iranian authorities and the rest were sent to the Iran Bastan Museum (modern National Museum of Iran) in TehranTehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
. A part of the collection has been in the Tablet Hall of the National Museum of Iran
National Museum of Iran
The National Museum of Iran is a museum in Tehran, Iran. It is the combination of two museums, the old Muze-ye Irân-e Bâstân , and the modernistic white travertine National Arts Museum , inaugurated in 1972...
since 1998. 199 sealings without inscriptions were also found during the excavation.
Scope
Persepolis Treasury Archive covers thirty five (35) years, from 492492
Year 492 was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Anastasius and Rufus...
to 457
457
Year 457 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantinus and Rufus...
BCE, from regnal year 30th of Darius I the Great, to regnal year 7th of Artaxerxes I, with largest concentration from regnal years 19th and 20th of Xerxes
Xerxes
Xerxes is a male name. Most notably, it may refer to Xerxes I of Persia . It may also refer to:-People:*Xerxes II of Persia, reigned 424 BCE*Xerxes of Armenia, Armenian king, assassinated around 212 BCE...
.
Sample
A sample transliterationTransliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
and translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
of an Elamite record from Persepolis Treasury Archive by George Cameron:
- No. 1957:5
- ma-u-ú-iš kán-za-bar-ra tu-ru-iš ir-da-tak-ma na-an KI.MIN 2 kur-šá-am KÚ.BABBAR şa-ik pír-nu-ba-ik
- gal-na SÌ.SÌ-du gal ruh mu-ši-in sìk-ki-ip i-ia-an-uk-ku-ma ma-u-ú-iš da-ma gal
- Edge [ITU ha-ši-ia-ti]-iš-
- Reverse n [a be-ul] 19-um-me-man-na 4 ruh un-ra [Lines 12-15 completely destroyed li]-ka du-me
- ba-ka-gi-i-a(sic!)-ik-mar
Vahush the treasurer speak, Artataxma says: 2 karsha silver, the remaining half of the wage,
- give as wages to men, accountants at the court, sub-ordinate to Vahush. the wage for the month Açiyadiya(?) of the 19th year.
- 4 men, each...
- Lines 12-15 destroyed.
- [This sealed order] has been given. The receipt (came) from Bagagiya.
Pronunciations of transliteration
- ç s as in mason
- ş sharp as in less
- š sh as in shall
Significance
Persepolis archives are a rich resource for the study of all the official languages used in the Persian Achaemenid Empire, both individually and collectively in connection with each other.Persepolis Treasury Archive furthermore contributes to the study of economic history
Economic history
Economic history is the study of economies or economic phenomena in the past. Analysis in economic history is undertaken using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and by applying economic theory to historical situations and institutions...
by providing a record of the introduction of coin
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
ed silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
money
Money
Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
to the regional economy of the Persepolis and its eventual adoption. Persepolis Fortification Archive, a generation before the Persepolis Treasury Archive, only attests to the payment in-kind at Persepolis (wine, beer, grain, flour, sheep, and the like).
Other Achaemenid records from Persepolis
Excavations directed by Akbar Tajvidi at Persepolis between 1968 and 1973, recovered more clay tablets. Excavating the upper towers of the fortification wall on top of Kuh-e Rahmat (Mountain of Mercy), excavators found sealed uninscribed Achaemenid Bullae.From a group of 52 uninscribed sealings, some impressions were similar to the sealings found in the Persepolis Treasury Archive.
Future excavations in the areas currently unexcavated, such as the southeastern part of the Persepolis terrace and mountain fortifications, might yield other archives.
Online resources
- OCHRE – The Online Cultural Heritage Resource Environment – at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago is the main online database for the Persepolis Fortification Archive (PFA) Project, where all the components of the Persepolis Administrative Archives – Elamite, Aramaic, glyptic, and miscellany – can be seen, linked and searched.
- InscriptiFact - The West Semitic Research Project – at the University of Southern California (USC) is a site that produces two kinds of high resolution online images of the Persepolis Fortification Archive tablets in collaboration with the Oriental Institute, allowing online handling of the images.
- CDLI - The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative – at the University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA), is a site that provides fast, low resolution online images of the Persepolis Fortification Archive Elamite tablets.
- Achemenet and MAVI – at Collège de France is a site for Achaemenid studies, providing full editions and translations of Persepolis Fortification Archive components. These editions are linked to MAVI interface to view high resolution online images on the Virtual Achaemenid Museum.
- ARTA – Achaemenid Research on Texts and Archaeology – at Collège de France is the site for Achaemenid studies online journal, providing periodic bulletins on the discoveries made in the course of studying Persepolis Administrative Archives.
See also
- Achaemenid EmpireAchaemenid EmpireThe Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
- Aramaic
- Chicago's Persian heritage crisisChicago's Persian heritage crisisChicago's Persian heritage crisis refers to a threat to seize invaluable Persian antiquities kept at the University of Chicago by the United States federal courts and also a threat to numerous other Persian antiquities kept in the Field Museum in Chicago...
- Darius I the Great
- Elamite cuneiformElamite CuneiformElamite cuneiform was a logo-syllabic script used to write the Elamite Language.- History and Decipherment:The Elamite Language is the now extinct language spoken by Elamites, who inhabited the regions of Khuzistān and Fārs in Southern Iran...
- Elamite languageElamite languageElamite is an extinct language spoken by the ancient Elamites. Elamite was the primary language in present day Iran from 2800–550 BCE. The last written records in Elamite appear about the time of the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great....
- Old Persian cuneiform
- Old Persian languageOld Persian languageThe Old Persian language is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages . Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, and seals of the Achaemenid era...
- PersepolisPersepolisPerspolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire . Persepolis is situated northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid...
- XerxesXerxesXerxes is a male name. Most notably, it may refer to Xerxes I of Persia . It may also refer to:-People:*Xerxes II of Persia, reigned 424 BCE*Xerxes of Armenia, Armenian king, assassinated around 212 BCE...
English
- Arfaee, Abdolmajid: Persepolis Fortification Tablets, Fortification and Treasury texts, Ancient Iranian Studies v. 5., The Center for The Great Islamic Encyclopedia, Tehran, Iran, 2008.
- Briant, Pierre: From Cyrus to Alexander, a History of the Persian Empire, Winona Lake, 2002.
- Briant, Pierre, Wouter Henkelman, and Matthew Stolper (eds.): L’archive des Fortifications de Persépolis: État des questions et perspectives de recherches, Persika 12, Paris, 2008.
- Brosius, Maria: Women in Ancient Persia 559-331 B.C., Oxford, 1996.
- Brosius, Maria (ed.): Ancient Archives and Archival Traditions. Concepts of Record-Keeping in the Ancient World, Oxford, 2003.
- Curtis, John and Tallis, Nigel (eds.): Forgotten Empire: the World of Ancient Persia, London, 2005.
- Henkelman, Wouter F.M.: The Other Gods Who Are: Studies in Elamite-Iranian Acculturation based on the Persepolis Fortification Texts, Achaemenid History 14, Leiden, 2008.
- Kuhrt, Amélie: "Bureaucracy, Production, Settlement" in Kuhrt, Amélie: The Persian Empire, a Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period, 2 Vols., London, 2007.
Persian
- Rahimifar, Mahnaz: "Mo‘arafī-ye barxi az barčasbhā-ye geli-ye Taxt-e Jamšīd", Bāstān Šenāsī, 1:72-76, 2005.
- Tadjvidi, Akbar: Dānistānihā-ye nuvīn dar barāh-e hunār va bāstānšināsi-ye asr-e Hakhāmaniši bar bunyād-e kāvushā-ye panj sālah-e Takht-e Jamshīd, Tehran, 1976.
External links
- Persepolis Fortification Archive Project
- Persepolis Fortification Archive Project Blog
- What are the Persepolis Fortification Tablets?
- Persepolis Fortification Archive Project: Preserving the Legacy of the Achaemenid Persians
- Overview of Legal Issues and Latest Legislative Developments
- Persepolis Fortification Tablets Jona Lendering, livius.org
- Cuneiforme elamita Enrique Quintana, University of Murcia, click on CARTAS , then click on Persépolis, for transliteration and SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
translation of some Elamite tablets