Listed 3 sub titles with search on: Archaeological findings for wider area of: "IRAN Country PERSIAN GULF" .
PERSEPOLIS (Ancient city) IRAN
Large collection of ancient Persian cuneiform administrative texts, written
between 506 and 497 BCE. They are one of the most important sources for the study
of the administration of the Achaemenid empire.
Persepolis was one of the capitals of the ancient Persian empire,
founded by king Darius the Great in 518 BCE. It was excavated by the Oriental
Institute of Chicago: Ernst Herzfeld and F. Schmidt were working in Persepolis
from 1931 to 1939. During the excavations, two archives of cuneiform texts were
discovered.
The smallest set of tablets is called the Persepolis Treasury Tablets.
There are 139 of them, and they describe payments in silver between 492 and 458.
The collection that is known as the Persepolis Fortification Tablets is older
and larger: there are 25,000 to 30,000 of them, of which some 2,000 are published
and an additional 1,500 were read but not really published.
The Persepolis Fortification Tablets were written in Elamite, the
language of the Persian chancellery, and deal with economic transactions (in kind)
up till 493. The men in charge of them were Pharnaces and his deputy Zissawis.
One example: Fortification tablet #798
130 liters of barley from the possessions of Amavrta have been received by
Barik-'El as his rations. Given in the town of Ithema, in the twenty-first year
[of Darius] in the month Shibar [November/December 501].
[PFT 798]
The ration received by Barik-'El was some sort of payment for a service
he had done to his king. Tablets like these help us understand the administration
of the Persian empire. We also know about the issue of passports, orders for payments
of silver and gold to the chief treasurer (ganzabara), and the dispatching of
judges, accountants, caravans and teams of country laborers.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
