The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period

The Persian Empire
A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period
By Amelie Kuhrt
List Price: $320.00
* ISBN: 978-0-415-43628-1
* Binding: Hardback
* Published by: Routledge
* Publication Date: 12/14/2007
* Pages: 736

This lavish set of books contains the most complete collection of raw material for reconstructing the history of the Achaemenid Persian Empire to date.

Studying Achaemenid history has been difficult in the past because original sources include texts from hugely disparate origins, many different languages and various periods in history; the risk is to rely too heavily on biased and often inaccurate Greek and Roman sources.

Amelie Kuhrt presents here an unprecedented collection of key texts to form a balanced representation of all aspects of the Empire, in translations from their original Greek, Old Persian, Akkadian, Hebrew, Aramaic, Egyptian or Latin.

Kuhrt selects from classical writers, the Old Testament, royal inscriptions, administrative documents and Babylonian historical writing, as well as the evidence of monuments, artefacts and archaeological sites. All material is accompanied by a detailed introduction to the sources and guidelines to their interpretation.

A truly monumental achievement, this collection will prove to be a major resource for any student of Persian history, from undergraduate level to the advanced scholar.

The volume includes translations of a large number of Persepolis Fortification Texts.

"Lettre ouverte à Alexandre le Grand"

Lettre ouverte à Alexandre le Grand - Pierre Briant
Actes Sud
Parution : 05 Novembre 2008
230 pages, 21.7 X 11 cm, 260 grammes
9782742780259

The Other Gods Who Are

Wouter F.M. Henkelman, The Other Gods Who Are. Studies in Elamite-Iranian Acculturation Based on the Persepolis Fortification Texts (Achaemenid History XIV), Leiden, Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2008.

xxx + 670 pp.

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"The Other Gods Who Are" presents four larger case studies in Elamite-Iranian acculturation, more specifically in the realm of religion, and does so largely on the basis of the Persepolis Fortification Archive, the richnesses of which had not been fully explored for this important subject. Treating the debated 'lan' sacrifice, the Elamite-Iranian background of the pantheon, the role of the god Humban and the older background of Persian 'paradise', the monograph aims to pave the way for a different understanding of Persian identity as a cultural construct that emerged in the Iranian highlands from a large-scale dynamic in which the Elamite state as well as the Elamites of eastern Khuzestand and of the highlands played a pivotal part. The four case studies are preceded by a survey and discussion of recent developments in Neo-Elamite history, and by a long introduction into the Persepolis Fortification Archive, which can be used separately by scholars interested in this material. Annotated translations of relevant Fortification texts are given in an appendix. Indices of proper names, text passages and Elamite and other ancient words complete the volume.

Click on the images below for a detailed table of contents