News: "The Big Apple Raises $110,000 to Protect the Persepolis Tablets "

The Big Apple Raises $110,000 to Protect the Persepolis Tablets, NIAC, Thursday, 11 June 2009.

Washington, DC - Iranian-Americans from the New York tri-state area exceeded NIAC’s fundraising goals and helped raise over $110,000 to go towards preserving the Persepolis Artifacts on May 30th at the Asia Society in Manhattan...

Special guest, Professor Matthew Stolper who has dedicated his career to studying these tablets, made the gravity of losing just one of these artifacts crystal clear - If there are too many of these tablets being auctioned, their value will drop. So what do people do to ensure that the price remains high? "They destroy a good number of them," he exclaimed to a shocked audience. He also stressed the importance of keeping these items together, in fact, they are really to be seen as one item. Like a dinosaur fossil - if one bone is missing, we lose a sense of what the animal was. The same goes for these artifacts which tell the story of the Persian empire during the time of Darius the Great.

Thanks to our community in the City that Never Sleeps, NIAC is better positioned to ensure that not a single tablet from Persepolis is confiscated, auctioned or destroyed. NIAC is involved through legal, media and policy avenues to preserve the Persepolis tablets

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

News: "Victims of terrorist attack in Israel can proceed with claim for US antiquities"

Victims of terrorist attack in Israel can proceed with claim for US antiquities, The Art Newspaper. From issue 191, May 2008. Published online 1.5.08.

A federal court in Massachusetts affirmed on 31 March that Iranian antiquities at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Harvard University Art Museums might be subject to a claim by the victims of a terrorist bombing allegedly sponsored by Iran...

In the latest round of litigation in Massachusetts, the court declined to reconsider its prior ruling that the plaintiffs might be able to claim the antiquities under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002. The case will now go to the federal appeals court.

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

Blog change

I've made a small change to the blog recently. If you're reading this in a feed reader or by email you may not it, so if that's the case, click the through to the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project blog.

In the righthand side bar is a form allowing you to receive notifications of updates to AWOL by email. This seems useful for those for whom news feeds are not. Your address will be safe. Neither we nor feedburner will send you spam. I have been testing it and I'm satisfied that it works reliably.

A. J. Cave on Cyrus

I am Kurush - part one

They say Alexander III [336-323 BCE], the Macedonian King who had defeated Dâriuš III [336-330 BCE], the Achaemenid Great King, in 3 pitched battles and savagely burned Pârsâ [Persepolis] to ashes, admired Great Kuruš [Cyrus II, the Great, 559-530 BCE] - the first Great King who had brought most of the known world under the sway of the Persians over 200 years earlier...

I am Kurush - part two

Second Isaiah's prophecy that the divine action to release the Judean exilic community in Babylon from bondage was to be through the human hands of the 'Persian Cyrus' must have come as a surprise to Judeans.

This 'Cyrus', the mythic figure of the Holy Bible, was no other than the historical King Kuruš II [559-530 BCE], namesake of his grandfather, King Kuruš I. Kuruš was given the epithet of 'Great' by the Romans of the Roman Empire centuries later and became known throughout the history of the world as the Latinized 'Cyrus the Great'...

A. J. Cave is an Iranian-American writer based in California, USA and a member of Stanford University's World Association of International Studies (WAIS). She is currently working on her second historical novel Cyrus Romance: Kuruš Nâmeh. Information about her first historical novel Roxana Romance: Rošanak Nâmeh is available at www.pavasta.com.

NIAC New York Cocktail Fundraiser to Protect the Persepolis Artifacts and Preserve our Heritage

NIAC New York Cocktail Fundraiser to Protect the Persepolis Artifacts and Preserve our Heritage

Guests of Honor*

Roger Cohen, New York Times
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now
Prof. Matt Stolper, Persepolis Fortification Project

Asia Society and Museum
725 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10021

Saturday, May 30, 2009
Time: 6:30 pm - 9:30 PM

Tickets: $150 per person ($100 is tax-deductible)

Purchase your tickets online before May 26, 2009!

Persepolis in the Oriental Institute 2003-2004 Annual Report

Oriental Institute 2003-2004 Annual Report is now online. It includes the following article:

Persepolis Fortification Tablets, By Gil J. Stein

In late April–early May 2004, I had the privilege of helping to work toward the fulfillment of a seventy-year-old promise made by the Oriental Institute to the people of Iran by returning 300 clay tablets from the larger body of Persepolis Fortification Tablets that had been on long-term loan to the Oriental Institute for study and publication. The texts on these tablets have extraordinary importance for our understanding of the Persian empire and ancient Iran...

For a report of the progress of the project four years later, see Persepolis Fortification Archive Project Annual Report 2007-2008, by Matthew W. Stolper.

The phonology and morphology of royal Achaemenid Elamite

This classic is now online courtesy of scanning by Google Books and availability via HathiTrust.

The phonology and morphology of royal Achaemenid Elamite

Paper, Herbert H. (Herbert Harry), 1925-.

---

Publication Year:	1955
Type of Material:	Book
Published in:	Hathi Trust Digital Library
Publisher:	University of Michigan
Place of Publication:	Ann Arbor

Ancient Persian Archive Digitized with Support of Mellon Foundation

Since January, 2007, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has supported a collaboration between the West Semitic Research Project (WSRP), at the University of Southern California and the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, making two kinds of very high-quality images of Persepolis Fortification tablets and distributing the images on line. Bruce Zuckerman and his WSRP team brought to the collaboration more than thirty years of experience with high-quality imaging of West Semitic documents and inscriptions, using conventional and digital techniques. WSRP has been distributing images since 2001 via the robust, easy-to-use application InscriptiFact. More than 8,700 images of more than 300 Fortification tablets will soon be available through InscriptiFact, and more will be displayed at frequent intervals. The following announcement and video clip describe some of the work under way at the Oriental Institute. The PFA Project expects to issue another announcement soon, focusing on the work WSRP-PFA/OI collaboration.

The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago is using modern technology to digitally record thousands of tablets that, as they are being pieced together, tell an unusually detailed story of the Persian Empire.

These ancient tablets from the palaces of Persepolis include pieces of language and art from the center of the Persian Empire, all made when it extended from India and Central Asia to Egypt and the Mediterranean. Most have texts in impressed cuneiform characters, many them have inked texts in Aramaic writing and almost all of the tablets have seal impressions. They are now being recorded and distributed with digital processes that will allow scholars and viewers across the world to examine them as if they had picked them up and rotated under a light.

With a substantial grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a team of researchers began work in 2007. Now, with a second Mellon grant, the team will continue this work through 2010. By that time researchers hope to have about 10,000 tablets and fragments recorded.

Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute, where the tablets are kept, is principal investigator along with Matthew Stolper, John A. Wilson Professor in the Oriental Institute. Other team members and co-principal investigators are Annalisa Azzoni at Vanderbilt University, Elspeth Dusinberre at the University of Colorado, Mark Garrison at Trinity University, Wouter Henkelman at the Free University of Amsterdam, and Bruce Zuckerman and members of the West Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California. The team collaborates in person, but also electronically.

The tablets being digitized come from the Persepolis Fortification Archive, some 30,000 administrative tablets and fragments that Oriental Institute archaeologists recovered in 1933 at Persepolis, the ruined palaces where the kings of the ancient Persian Empire held court. Since 1936 they have been on loan from Iran to the Oriental Institute for analysis and recording.

“They were written, sealed and filed in a short span of time, between 509 and 493 B.C., in the middle of the reign of the Achaemenid Persian king Darius I,” Stein said. “The oldest Greek tragedy of Aeschylus, and the first Greek history of Herodotus tell us about the reign of Darius, but they don’t tell us anything like this. The administration that these documents record touched every level of society, from lowly workers through bureaucrats and governors to the royal family itself,” he said.

Part of the collection has been recorded, and many of the tablets have been returned to Iran, but the tablets have challenged scholars since their discovery. Only one other document of its kind had been found before the discovery of the archive, making the comparison, reading and understanding of the archive’s tens of thousands of pieces difficult.

Matthew Stolper, Professor at the Oriental Institute, examines a tablet on loan from the government of Iran that has been digitized.
Oriental Institute professor Richard Hallock devoted his career to the tablets. His work, culminating in the groundbreaking publication of 2,087 texts in 1969, fundamentally changed how scholars look at the Persian Empire.

“It is no exaggeration to say that this knowledge has transformed every aspect of modern study of the languages, history and society, institutions and art of the Achaemenid Persian Empire,” Stolper said. “No serious treatment of the Achaemenid Empire can any longer omit the perspectives provided by the Fortification Archive.”

As the project continues, scholars will be able to better analyze the information available in the archive. Online presentation of images of the tablets, images of the seal impressions and editions of the texts will allow researchers to be able to look at each piece, compare and connect it with other pieces, and to assemble and work with the archive as a whole system.

How the recording works

The phase of the project supported by the Mellon grants is a close collaboration between the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and the West Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California. This phase captures and distributes two kinds of high-quality images of Persepolis Fortification tablets.

One set of images is made with a high-resolution, large-format scanning camera with polarized and filtered lighting. The lighting compensates for some of the staining, glare and fading that problematic in seeing inked texts.

The second set of images is captured with Polynomial Texture Mapping (PTM) apparatuses, using a technology developed by Hewlett Packard Labs and Cultural Heritage Imaging. Only a dozen or so of these apparatuses exist, and two of them are recording Persepolis tablets in the basement of the Oriental Institute. A computer controls the camera in each device, making a set of 32 distinctly lighted views of each document. Each image set is combined by a software application in such a way that viewers can control the apparent direction, angle and intensity of the light falling on the object, using a computer mouse just as if they were handling the original object under a desk lamp.


Clinton Moyer, senior imaging technician, photographs a tablet for digitization at the Oriental Institute.

High-resolution images of about 200 Persepolis Fortification texts are available on InscriptiFact, on the Web site of the West Semitic Research Project. Several hundred more will be available soon. Images of about 150 more Persepolis tablets, along with editions, and analytical tools, will soon be released on the On-Line Cultural Research Environment (OCHRE), the archaeological and textual database and presentation application developed at the Oriental Institute and maintained by the University of Chicago Library.

Related links:
West Semitic Research Project
On-Line Cultural Research Environment (OCHRE)
Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative at UCLA
Musée Achéménide at the Collège de France

This story is an expanded version of the news item released by The University of Chicago News Office.

Panoramas of Achaemenid sites in Iran

The 360 Cities project offers some interesting panoramas of achamenid sites

The Throne Hall in Persepolis


Apadana Hall in Persepolis


The Gate of All Nations in Persepolis


Pasargadae in Pasargadae


The tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae


The Private Palace of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae


Pasargad Audience Hall in Pasargadae

Visual Representation of the Divine and the Numinous in Early Achaemenid Iran: Old Problems, New Directions

Visual Representation of the Divine and the Numinous in Early Achaemenid Iran: Old Problems, New Directions, by Mark A. Garrison

Text - last updated: 3 March 2009 (1.7 MB)
Illustrations - last updated: 25 February 2009 (4.5 MB)

An electronic prepublication of an entry in ICONOGRAPHY OF DEITIES AND DEMONS IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST, A Research Project of the History of Religions Chair of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in co-operation with Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden, Netherlands

National Iranian American Council Action Alert

The National Iranian American Council is asking people to contact Eric H. Holder,, Attorney General, Acting Attorney General and Barack H. Obama, President of the United States to to prevent the auction of the Perspolis Fortification Archive:

"Ask President Obama to prevent the auction of priceless Persepolis artifacts

At a time of hope when President Barack Obama has commended our heritage, saying "The Iranian people are a great people, and Persian civilization is a great civilization," a court in Chicago is about to confiscate and auction off some of the most powerful symbols of this civilization: priceless artifacts from Takht-e-Jamshid.

By failing to gain reparations from the Iranian government, lawyers for victims of terrorist attacks in Israel are now in turn attacking the heritage of Iranian Americans.

The plaintiff's objective: seize these relics of our heritage and auction them off to the highest bidder like items sold on e-bay. "Maybe they'll end up on coffee tables around the country," one lawyer for the plaintiffs mused.

This must be stopped. Ask President Obama to prevent the auction of our cultural heritage!

The artifacts from Persepolis are part of our heritage and identity. While far too few people know of the glories of our Iranian heritage, even fewer will have a chance to discover our history if these artifacts are taken from the museums and sold to the highest bidder on e-bay.
By sending a letter to President Obama, you are not only saving Iranian-American history and culture, but you are preserving it for your children's education and pride as well.

NIAC sounded the alarm in 2006 after ancient artifacts held by Harvard University were in danger. Now, irreplaceable clay tablets from the rule of Darius the Great on loan to the University of Chicago are under risk.

Not surprisingly, the thought of putting a price tag on 2,500 years of history has caused outrage world-wide. A European group of scholars has already collected hundreds of signatures in their petition to President Obama. Even the Department of Justice has recognized that this case has crossed the line.

By enlisting the help of a major law firm, NIAC has created an avenue to make your voice heard. Mayer Brown LLP is in the process of submitting an amicus brief on behalf of NIAC and the Iranian-American community. But we need your help!

Act now to stop this affront to our rich Iranian heritage. Ask President Obama to intervene to prevent our history and symbols of our identity from falling into careless hands.

Take this opportunity to speak out against the looting of our Iranian culture."

AIA Statement on Attachment of Cultural Objects

The Archaeological Institute of America has issued the following statement concerning cultural objects on loan to U.S. institutions and calls for Congressional action to assure the security of international loans and exhibitions from attachment.

On the Attachment of Cultural Objects to Compensate Victims of Terrorism

Statement

The Archaeological Institute of America believes that loans of cultural objects from foreign nations to U.S. cultural institutions serve the best interests of the people of the United States. We are concerned that legal actions and the threat of legal action on behalf of victims of terrorism now jeopardize the participation of American institutions in international cultural exchanges. These legal actions seek to force the sale of cultural artifacts on loan to or in U.S. institutions to satisfy court judgments obtained by these victims. The AIA strongly condemns all acts of international terrorism and supports efforts by victims of terrorism to obtain compensation. However, we believe that archaeological artifacts should not be sold to satisfy a court judgment, regardless of the actions of a particular regime, and that it should be possible for nations to share their cultural heritage without fear of loss.

In light of our concern that archaeological and other cultural objects should be part of cultural exchanges that benefit the American public, the Archaeological Institute of America calls on the U.S. Congress to enact new legislation to ensure that such cultural exchanges can take place. This legislation should prevent the sale of cultural objects to compensate those who have obtained court judgments under anti-terrorism provisions of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and would apply to cultural objects on loan from other nations to U.S. nonprofit institutions as part of public exhibitions that have a cultural and educational purpose.

Background

In 1996, the U.S. Congress amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), narrowing the traditional immunity that had been granted to foreign sovereigns and allowing individual victims of terrorist acts to sue those countries that the United States has listed as state sponsors of terrorism. In January 2008, the Congress amended the FSIA, in order to facilitate recovery of judgments that had been awarded to terrorism victims. Both before and after the 2008 amendments were enacted, cultural artifacts on loan to or present in U.S. institutions were under threat.

A group of plaintiffs, who were the victims of a Hamas bombing in Jerusalem, won a judgment against Iran, which defaulted in the proceedings. Having difficulty locating Iranian assets in the United States, in 2004 this group sued the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Harvard University, the University of Michigan and the Detroit Institute of Art under both the FSIA and the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. The plaintiffs sought to attach (that is, obtain for purpose of sale to satisfy a judgment) two collections of cuneiform tablets (the Persepolis Fortification Tablets and the Choga Mish tablets) that had been on loan to the Oriental Institute from Iran since the 1930s and the 1960s, respectively. The plaintiffs are also seeking to attach additional artifacts in the collections of these institutions, alleging that the artifacts are stolen property and therefore belong to Iran. While this litigation was ongoing, a second group of plaintiffs, the relatives of U.S. Marines killed in the Beirut barracks bombing, who had also won a default judgment against Iran, intervened in the attachment proceedings and are now also claiming a right to the monetary value of the artifacts.

In fall 2008, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York was organizing its major exhibition “Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.,” Syria gave the museum permission to borrow 55 objects. Under the Immunity from Seizure Act, the U.S. State Department can grant immunity from seizure to objects brought into the U.S. on temporary loan for exhibition purposes. However, when the Metropolitan Museum requested immunity for the objects to be loaned by Syria, there was concern that, in light of the 2008 amendments, even a State Department grant of immunity might not protect the objects from attachment by individuals who have claims against Syria for supporting terrorist activity. According to a statement by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was therefore not possible for these objects to be part of the exhibit.

The ability of nations and institutions throughout the world to loan objects is crucial to achieving international cultural exchange and increasing understanding of different places, different times, and different people. Such archaeological artifacts should not be sold to satisfy claims that are unrelated to the objects themselves. While the earlier litigation related to Iran had already indicated some threat to cultural interchanges, the Metropolitan’s inability to borrow objects from Syria for an exhibition indicates the danger this legislation and litigation pose to cultural exchange. American citizens have been deprived of the opportunity of appreciating and learning from archaeological artifacts and works of art from one of the world’s oldest civilizations. The actions in question therefore pose a serious threat to cultural exchange and cultural diplomacy, which are extremely important in building understanding among peoples.

If the United States is in the practice of confiscating artifacts that belong to other nations, then other nations will be unlikely to lend objects to U.S. cultural institutions. In addition, the U.S. will make itself vulnerable to the confiscation of its own cultural objects on loan in foreign nations. In the suit against the Oriental Institute, the Justice Department has, in fact, recommended against attachment of the tablets, presumably in part because of the bad precedent it would set for U.S. interests elsewhere. We call on Congress to enact legislation to preserve the principle that 
cultural heritage should be made available for public viewing and cultural exchange in the 
interest of promoting greater understanding of our shared past.

Download pdf of statement

News from Achaemenet

Livres récents
Peter Calmeyer, Die Reliefs der Gräber V und VI in Persepolis (Archäologie in Iran und Turan 8), Mainz 2009.

ARTA
John Hyland, “Pharnabazos, Cyrus' Rebellion, and the Spartan War of 399”.

Sous presse
Olivier Casabonne, “De la Cappadoce à la Cilicie : deux notes anatoliennes”, in: O. Tekin (ed.), Ancient History, Numismatics and Epigraphy in the Mediterranean World, Studies in Honour of Clemens E. Bosch, Sabahat Atlan and Nezahat Baydur, Istanbul (forthcoming).

For details go here.

Persepolis Fortification Archive Project in Facebook

[Originally posted 12/4/08, updated 1/22/09]

Readers who have facebook accounts can read this blog also at the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project Facebook Application

There are also two groups about the Persepolis Fortification Archive

Stop the Sale of the Elamite Tablets!!

and

Save Persepolis Artifacts!

Petition to the President: Persepolis Fortification Archive

Members of the Societas Iranologica Europea request that colleagues read and consider signing the following petition:

To the President of the United States of America

Mr President,

It has been reported by the Press and confirmed by authoritative scholarly sources that an important part of the Elamite clay tablets forming the archive of the Achaemenid center of Persepolis, found during excavations at Persepolis (Iran) and presently on loan to the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, are currently involved in a lawsuit in the US courts, and face the threat of confiscation and sale in order to compensate a legal case brought by private persons against the Government of Iran.

Without entering the matter of the legal case, we the undersigned archaeologists from different countries of Europe, Oceania and America, remark that the Elamite tablets, being cultural property, should not be considered as a common property, whose financial value can be exploited for the purpose of legal compensation.
The antiquities belong to the cultural heritage of Iran on behalf of human kind and should therefore remain in public hands.

We therefore, well aware of the separation of powers, nevertheless apply to you in order that this unconscionable decision with irreversible consequences should be avoided.

A country such as the United States should not be complicit in the sale of the world’s cultural heritage.

Sign the Petition


For a chronicle of networked stories relating to the Persepolis Fortification Archive and the lawsuit see: Persepolis Tablets in the News.

Oriental Institute Publications on Iranian Civilization

The following list includes those publications of the Oriental Institute which are currently available either in print, or in the OI Electronic Publication Initiative, ordered stratigraphically (i.e. most recent at the top)

• OIP 130. Chogha Mish, Volume II. The Development of a Prehistoric Regional Center in Lowland Susiana, Southwestern Iran: Final Report on the Last Six Seasons of Excavations, 1972–1978. Abbas Alizadeh. 2008.

Purchase Book or Download PDF


• OIMP 26. Daily Life Ornamented: The Medieval Persian City of Rayy. Tanya Treptow. 2007.

Purchase Book or Download PDF


• OIP 128. The Origins of State Organizations in Prehistoric Highland Fars, Southern Iran: Excavations at Tall-e Bakun. Abbas Alizadeh. 2006.

Purchase Book or Download PDF


• OIP 120. Excavations at the Prehistoric Mound of Chogha Bonut, Khuzestan, Iran, Seasons 1976/77, 1977/78, and 1996. Abbas Alizadeh. 2003.

Purchase Book or Download PDF


• OIP 117. Seals on the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, Volume I: Images of Heroic Encounter. Mark B. Garrison and Margaret Cool Root. 2001.
  
  Purchase Book or Download PDF
  


• OIP 101. Chogha Mish, Volume 1: The First Five Seasons, 1961-1971. Helene Kantor and P. Delougaz. 1996.
  
  Purchase Book or Download PDF Download PDF


• SAOC 47. Essays in Ancient Civilization Presented to Helene J. Kantor. A. Leonard, Jr. and B. B. Williams, eds. 1989.
  
  Purchase Book
  


• OIP 108. The Holmes Expeditions to Luristan. E. F. Schmidt, et. al. 1987.
  
  Purchase Book
  


• OIP 105. Prehistoric Archeology Along the Zagros Flanks. L. S. Braidwood, et. al. 1983.
  
  Purchase Book or Download PDF
  


• MSKH 1. A Catalogue of Cuneiform Sources Pertaining to Specific Monarchs of the Kassite Dynasty. J. A. Brinkman. 1977.
  
  Purchase Book
  
  
• OIP 91. Aramaic Ritual Texts from Persepolis. R. A. Bowman. 1970.

Purchase Book or Download PDF


• OIP 92. Persepolis Fortification Tablets. R. T. Hallock. 1969.
  
  Purchase Book or Download PDF
  


• SAOC 41. Ecology and Empire: The Structure of the Urartian State. P. E. Zimansky.
  
  Purchase Book
  
  
• SAOC 31. Prehistoric Investigations in Iraqi Kurdistan. R. J. Braidwood and B. Howe. 1960.

Purchase Book or Download PDF


• OIP 70. Persepolis III: The Royal Tombs and Other Monuments. E. F. Schmidt. 1970.

Purchase Book or Download PDF


• OIP 69. Persepolis II: Contents of the Treasury and Other Discoveries. Erich F. Schmidt with contributions by Sydney P. Noe et al., Frederick R. Matson, Lawrence J. Howell, and Louisa Bellinger. 1957.

Download PDF


• OIP 68. Persepolis I: Structures, Reliefs, Inscriptions. Erich F. Schmidt with contribution by F. R. Matson. 1953.

Download PDF


• OIP 65. Persepolis Treasury Tablets. George G. Cameron. 1948

Download PDF


• OIP 59. Tall-i-Bakun A: Season of 1932. Alexander Langsdorff and Donald E. McCown. 1942.

Download PDF


• Flights Over Ancient Cities of Iran. Erich F. Schmidt. 1940.

Download PDF


• OIC 21. The Treasury of Persepolis and Other Discoveries in the Homeland of the Achaemenians Erich F. Schmidt.
  1939.
  
  Download PDF


• SAOC 5. A New Inscription of Xerxes from Persepolis Ernst E. Herzfeld. 1932.
  
  Download PDF

Useful Tools: Hellenistic Babylonia: Texts, Images and Names

hbtin: Hellenistic Babylonia: Texts, Images and Names, part of the Cuneiform Digital Library, is being developed under the direction of Dr. Laurie Pearce at the University of California, Berkeley.

More than 3,000 cuneiform clay tablets document the intellectual, religious, scientific, legal and economic activities in Hellenistic Mesopotamia. Originating primarily from Uruk and Babylon, these texts show that although Alexander the Great and his successors transformed much of the cultural landscape of western and central Asia, they left many native practices and institutions intact. Hellenistic Babylonia: Texts, Images and Names presents to Assyriologists, Classicists, ancient historians and others the evidence necessary for study of Mesopotamia at the time when traditional culture came under the powers of the Hellenistic world. The three linked areas of this website include up-to-date and readable publication of the materials necessary for an integrated study of Hellenistic Mesopotamia. Texts: transliterations and translations into English of texts from the major sites of Uruk and Babylon. Images: photographs of seal impressions on the archival documents. Names: prosopographical data and family trees of the great lineages of the major sites.

At the moment hbtin includes a small corpus of Achaemenid Legal texts Uruk, in transliteration and translation.

Review of: Pierre Briant and Francis Joannès (edd.), La transition entre l'empire achéménide et les royaumes hellénistiques

Pierre Briant and Francis Joannès (edd.), La transition entre l'empire achéménide et les royaumes hellénistiques. Persika, 9. Paris: De Boccard, 2006. Pp. 476. ISBN 978-2-7018-0213-8. €75.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Paola Ceccarelli, Durham University in Bryn Mawr Classical Review.

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