Persepolis Fortification Archive in the Encyclopaedia Iranica

The newly (April 9, 2010) relaunched Encyclopaedia Iranica has greatly enhanced search and display functions. It now allows open access to eighty-eight articles referring to the Persepolis Fortification Tablets:

• ĀŠBANAKKUŠ

  M. Mayrhofer

  name of an Iranian in the Persepolis Fortification Tablets.

• BATRAKATAŠ

  H. Koch

  place name, apparently the same as Pasargadae, which appears on the Elamite fortification tablets found at Persepolis.

• ARTAVARDIYA

  M. A. Dandamayev

  Old Persian personal name.

• ĀÇIYĀDIYA

  R. Schmitt

  (a-ç-i-y-a-di-i-y-), name of the ninth month (November-December) of the Old Persian calendar.

• ARTABĒ

  M. A. Dandamayev

  the Greek form of a Median and Old Persian measure of volume.

• ĀÇINA

  M. A. Dandamayev

  son of Upadarma, a rebel against Darius I.

• ANĀMAKA

  R. Schmitt

  name of the tenth month (December-January) of the Old Persian calendar.

• ADUKANAIŠA

  R. Schmitt

  a-du-u-k-n-i-š-), name of the first month (March-April) of the Old Persian calendar.

• GARMAPADA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  name of the fourth month (June-July) of the Old Persian calendar.

• ARTYSTONE

  R. Schmitt

  Persian female personal name.

• BĀGAYĀDIŠ

  R. Schmitt

  name of the seventh month (September-October) of the Old Persian calendar, mentioned in Darius I’s Behistun inscription.

• AMMITMANYA

  M. Mayrhoffer

  an Iranian, to whom were entrusted 215 (?) BAR of grain provided for provisions at Tukraš.

• ARTASYRAS

  M. A. Dandamayev

  Greek rendering of an Old Iranian name.

• ASPASTES

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  Greek form of an Old Persian name attested in the Achaemenid period.

• HALLOCK, RICHARD TREADWELL

  Charles E. Jones and Matthew W. Stolper

  (1906-1980), Elamitologist and Assyriologist, whose magnum opus, Persepolis Fortification Tablets, transformed the study of the languages and history of Achaemenid Persia.

• ARTACHAIĒS

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  Greek rendering of an Old Iranian name.

• ARABĀYA

  M. Dandamayev

  (Arabia), a province of the Achaemenid empire.

• PERSEPOLIS ELAMITE TABLETS

  Muhammad Dandamayev

  administrative records in Elamite inscribed on clay tablets. Parts of two archives of such tablets were discovered in Persepolis in 1933-34 and 1936-38.

• LEWIS, David Malcolm

  Amılie Kuhrt

  (1928-1994), distinguished historian and epigrapher of Greece in the fifth and fourth century BCE and, by extension, of the Achaemenid empire.

  This Article Has Images.

• CYRUS, ii. Cyrus I

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

• CARMANIA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  ancient region east of Fārs province, approximately equivalent to modern Kermān. The Old Persian form is attested only once in inscriptions.

• ASPAČANĀ

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  a senior official under Darius the Great and Xerxes.

• ARTYPHIOS

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  or ARTYBIOS, Greek rendering of an Old Persian name.

• ASPBED

  M. L. Chaumont

  “master of horses, chief of cavalry,” Parthian title attested in the Nisa documents and the inscription of Šāpūr I on the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt.

• ARTABAZUS

  M. A. Dandamayev

  Old Iranian personal name.

• EDUCATION i. IN THE ACHAEMENID PERIOD

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

• ARTABANUS

  M. A. Dandamayev

  Latinized form of an Old Persian proper name.

• ATOSSA

  R. Schmitt

  Achaemenid queen.

• GOBRYAS

  R

  the most widely known (Greek) form of the Old Persian name Gaub(a)ruva.

• FASĀ ii. Tall-e Żaḥḥāk

  JOHN F. HANSMAN

  This Article Has Images.

• ASTYAGES

  R. Schmitt

  the last Median king.

• GANZABARA

  Matthew W. Stolper

  (treasurer), title of provincial and sub-provincial financial administrators in the Achaemenid empire, extended to workers attached to Achaemenid treasuries; title of financial administrators in Parthian and Sasanian provinces; title of temple administra

• HAMĀRAKARA

  Muhammad A.Dandamayev

  (*hmāra-kara-, lit. “account-maker”), “bookkeeper,” an Old Iranian title attested in various sources of Achaemenid and later times.

• DĀTA

  R

  Old Iranian term for “law” attested both in Avestan texts (Old and Younger Av. dāta-) and in Achaemenid royal inscriptions.

• ĀΘRAVAN-

  M. Boyce

  (Avestan) “priest” regularly used to designate the priests as a social “class,” one of the three into which ancient Iranian society was theoretically divided.

• ARACHOSIA

  R. Schmitt

  province in the eastern part of the Achaemenid empire around modern Kandahār, which was inhabited by the Iranian Arachosians or Arachoti.

• HIDALI

  Matthew W. Stolper

  city and region in Elam (q.v.); a residence of Elamite kings in the early 7th century B.C.E., a regional administrative center thereafter.

• JĀMĀSPA

  W. W. Malandra

  an official at the court of Vīštāspa and an early convert of Zarathushtra, who, in the tradition became widely known for his wisdom.

• HERZFELD, ERNST iii. HERZFELD AND PERSEPOLIS

  Hubertus von Gall

  Herzfeld first visited Persepolis in November 1905 during his return from the Assur excavation. He returned to Persepolis during his expedition to Persia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, which lasted from February 1923 to October 1925.

• ĀMĀRGAR

  D. N. MacKenzie, M. L. Chaumont

  a Middle and New Persian word designating a person holding a particular administrative post.

• PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN iii. ACHAEMENID PERIOD

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  Evidence from the Achaemenid period is considerable, but in authentic sources, the inscriptions of the kings themselves, fewer than fifty names are documented in their Old Persian form.

• DEIOCES

  R

  (Gk. Dēïókēs), name of a Median king.

• BYZANTIUM

  Jack Martin Balcer

  (Byzantion): contact with the Achaemenids (ca. 513-439 BCE). The Greek polis of Byzantium, in the European province of Thrace (OPers. Skudra), played a pivotal role in the Greco-Persian wars.

• HINZ, (A.) WALTHER

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  German scholar of Persian and Elamite studies (1906-1992).

  This Article Has Images.

• HYDARNES

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (Gk. Hydárnēs), rendering of the Old Persian male name Vidṛna held by several historical persons of the Achaemenid period.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS i. In the Median and Achaemenid periods

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

• HERZFELD, ERNST v. HERZFELD AND THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT IRAN

  Josef Wiesehöfer

  Herzfeld’s classical education, giving him familiarity with Greek and Latin literature, and his training in Oriental philology as well as in archeology and architectural techniques proved of great benefit in his study of pre-Islamic Iranian history and culture.

• AHURA MAZDĀ

  M. Boyce

  the Avestan name with title of a great divinity of the Old Iranian religion, who was subsequently proclaimed by Zoroaster as God.

• Greece, vii

  R

  vii. Greek Art and Architecture in Iran.

• MALIĀN

  Kamyar Abdi

  an important archeological site in the Kor River basin in central Fārs, identified as ancient Anshan, the highland capital of Elam.

  This Article Has Images.

• COMMERCE ii. In the Achaemenid period

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

• WEIGHTS AND MEASURES i. PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD

  A. D. H. Bivar

  This Article Has Images.

• SUSA iii. THE ACHAEMENID PERIOD

  Remy Boucharlat

  The history of Persia before Cyrus and at the beginning of his reignindicate that Persian elements were present in the plain not far from Susa in the first decades of the 6th century.

  This Article Has Images.

• DATAMES

  R

  Iranian personal name, reflecting Old Iranian *Dātama- or *Dātāma-, either a two-stem shortened form *Dāta-m-a- from a compound name like *Dātamiθra- or an unabridged compound *Dātāma-from *Dāta-ama-“to whom force is given.”

• ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

  Kamyar Abdi

  a major research center devoted to the study of the history, languages, and archeology of the ancient Near East, and Egypt.

• ELYMAIS

  John F. Hansman

  semi-independent state frequently subject to Parthian domination, which existed between the second century B.C.E. and the early third century C. E. in the territories of Ḵūzestān, in southwestern Persia.

• ARIYĀRAMNA

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  Old Persian proper name.

• ARCHEOLOGY ii. Median and Achaemenid

  D. Stronach

  This Article Has Images.

• CUNEIFORM SCRIPT

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  the conventional name for a system of writing ultimately derived from the pictographic script developed by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia (Uruk) around 3000 B.C.E.

• ACHAEMENID RELIGION

  M. Boyce

  Greek writings establish with all reasonable clarity that the later Achaemenids were Zoroastrians; but the religion of the early kings has been much debated.

• ECONOMY iii. IN THE ACHAEMENID PERIOD

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

• ELAM v. Elamite language

  FRANÇOISE GRILLOT-SUSINI

• SHIRAZ i. HISTORY TO 1940

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  The city of Shiraz has been the capital of the province of Fārs since the Islamic conquest, succeeding Eṣṭaḵr (q.v.) of the Sasanian period and Persepolis (q.v.) of the Achaemenid days.

• DASCYLIUM

  Michael Weiskopf

  Achaemenid satrapy in northwestern Anatolia, part of the Persian empire until the 330s B.C.E.

• JAPAN vi. IRANIAN STUDIES IN JAPAN, PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD

  Takeshi Aoki

  Ancient Iranian studies in Japan started at the beginning of the 20th century in Tokyo and Kyoto independently.

• CONTRACTS

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev, Mansour Shaki, EIr

  (usually ʿaqd), legally enforceable undertakings between two or more consenting parties.

• INDIAN OCEAN

  D. T. Potts

  This entry will deal with the role of Indian Ocean in international trade in the following periods:

  i. Pre-Islamic period. ii. Islamic Period. See Supplement.

• EPIGRAPHY i. Old Persian and Middle Iranian epigraphy

  Helmut Humbach

• FĀRS i. History in the Pre-Islamic Period

  Josef Wiesehöfer

• EPIGRAPHY ii. Greek inscriptions from ancient Iran

  Philip Huyse

• COOKING

  Multiple Authors

  i. In ancient Iran. ii. In Pahlavi literature. iii. Principles and ingredients of modern Persian cooking. iv. In Afghanistan.

• PASARGADAE

  David Stronach and Hilary Gopnik

  capital city and last resting place of Cyrus the Great (r. 559-530 BCE), located in northern Fārs.

  This Article Has Images.

• ELAM i. The history of Elam

  F. Vallat

• DARIUS, i.-iii.

  R

  (NPers. Darīūš, Dārā), name of several Achaemenid and Parthian rulers and princes.

• DARIUS, iv.-viii.

  Heleen Sanchisi-Weerdenburg, EIr, R

  iv. Darius II. v. Darius III. vi. Achaemenid princes. vii. Parthian princes. viii. Darius son of Artabanus.

• WOMEN i. In Pre-Islamic Persia

  Maria Brosius

• FIRE ALTARS

  Mark Garrison

  a term adopted by modern researchers to designate the stand upon which sacred fire was placed.

• BABYLONIA i. History of Babylonia in the Median and Achaemenid periods

  M. A. Dandamayev

  The Medes, under their king Cyaxares, first seized the Assyrian province of Arrapha in 614 B.C. Then, in the autumn of the same year, and after a fierce battle, they gained control of Assyria’s ancient capital, Assur. Nabopolassar brought his Babylonian army and joined the Medes after Assur had fallen.

• CAPITAL CITIES

  A. Shapur Shahbazi, C. Edmund Bosworth

  these centers played important diplomatic and administrative roles in Iranian history, closely linked to the fortunes of the ruling families.

• IRAN ix. RELIGIONS IN IRAN (1) Pre-Islamic (1.1) Overview

  Philip G. Kreyenbroek

  From the 2nd millennium BCE until Islam became dominant in Iran, a remarkable number of religious traditions existed there.

• IONIAN REVOLT

  E. Badian

  the unsuccessful uprising of the Greek cities of Asia Minor against Achaemenid control, 499-493 BCE. The main and almost the only source for the Revolt is Herodotus of Halicarnassus.

  This Article Has Images.

• MITHRA i. MITRA IN OLD INDIAN AND MITHRA IN OLD IRANIAN

  Hanns-Peter Schmidt

  Indo-Iranian god, with name based on the common noun mitrá “contract” with the connotations of “covenant, agreement, treaty, alliance, promise.”

• ACHAEMENID SATRAPIES

  Bruno Jacobs

  the administrative units of the Achaemenid empire.

• CALENDARS

  Antonio Panaino, Reza Abdollahy, Daniel Balland

  Although evidence of calendrical traditions in Iran can be traced back to the 2nd millennium b.c., before the lifetime of Zoroaster (see discussion of the Zoroas trian calendar below), the earliest calendar that is fully preserved dates from the Achaemenid period.

• IRAN v. PEOPLES OF IRAN (2) Pre-Islamic

  C. J. Brunner

  This survey focuses on the early phase of the Iranian-speaking peoples’ presence on the plateau, during the early state-building phase.

• ASSYRIA

  M. Dandamayev and È. Grantovskiĭ, M. Dandamayev, K. Schippmann

  i. The Kingdom of Assyria and its relations with Iran. ii. Achaemenid Aθurā. iii. Parthian Assur.

• Greece ii. Greco-Persian Cultural Relations

  Margaret C. Miller

  Here the evidence for receptivity to Persian culture in Greece, the North Aegean, and West Anatolia is addressed, including receptivity on the part of the non-Greek peoples of these regions.

  This Article Has Images.

• JAMŠID i. Myth of Jamšid

  PRODS OKTOR SKJAERVØ

News: Inside Washington: NIAC’s Battle to Save the Persepolis Tablets

Inside Washington: NIAC’s Battle to Save the Persepolis Tablets
Written by NIAC Staff
Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Washington, DC - The campaign to save the Persepolis Tablets is quietly gaining momentum, as NIAC and some of the nation’s top universities work to protect thousands of priceless cultural artifacts at risk of being seized by lawyers and auctioned off to the highest bidder...

...Soon, NIAC will also deploy the Persepolis Center, an online resource that will not only serve as a clearinghouse for background information about the Persepolis Tablets but will also provide a direct connection between NIAC and members with the latest updates on our efforts, new opportunities for members to mobilize, tools for contacting elected representatives, and profiles of endangered collections.If we are successful in our efforts, the Iranian American community can take pride in protecting not only our own cultural artifacts, but all cultural artifacts from the threat of lawsuit in the U.S.

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

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

Lecture at University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Persian Antiquities in Crisis: The Persepolis Tablets at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

Matthew W. Stolper, a professor of Assyriology at the Oriental Institute and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, is the director of the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, an emergency task force now working urgently to record as much information as possible about these documents while they remain available. He will describe the Persepolis Fortification Archive and discuss its value, the lawsuit that could lead to its sale, and what the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project is doing to meet this crisis.

News: Iran’s Cultural Heritage Under Threat

Iran’s Cultural Heritage Under Threat
by Alix McKenna
California Literary Review
March 22nd, 2010 at 12:40 am

...The use of the Iranian antiquities to satisfy the Rubin judgment could also put American cultural property at risk and cause foreign policy complications for the United States. The U.S. Government has filed several statements of interest with the court expressing these concerns. On June 6, 2006 Abbas Salimi-Namin, the former head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization sent a letter to the United Nations that illustrates the potential for problems. The missive demanded the immediate return of the tablets. While the Oriental Institute had previously enjoyed a good relationship with Iran based on a shared interest in gleaning knowledge from the tablets, the letter accused the museum of keeping the objects “on various grounds and pretexts” and ominously suggested that if the antiquities are turned over to the terror victims, American museums with objects in Iran would “face a similar measure from Tehran.”

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

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

News: Should Cultural Heritage Be on the Judicial Auction Block?

Should Cultural Heritage Be on the Judicial Auction Block?
By Laina Catherine Wilk Lopez
Phi Beta Kappa: THE KEY REPORTER
Volume 75, Number 1
Spring 2010

...Consider the following real life case on which I am currently working. In 1997, several persons, including some Americans, were injured in a suicide bombing in Israel for which Hamas later took credit. In 2003, the U.S. victims of that bombing, in a lawsuit entitled Rubin v. Iran, sued Iran in a U.S. federal court in Washington, D.C. pursuant to a section of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in effect at the time. That portion of the law, 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(7), permitted Americans who suffered injury (or death) to sue those nations designated by the United States as “state sponsors of terrorism” for providing “material support” to commit an act of terrorism. At the time of the lawsuit, the nations designated as state sponsors of terrorism were Iran, Cuba, Syria, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Sudan. Today, only Iran, Cuba, Syria and Sudan remain on the list. In the Washington, D.C. case, the Rubin plaintiffs won against Iran a multi-million dollar default judgment, which Iran refused to pay. The plaintiffs, still determined to collect their money, thus registered their judgment in jurisdictions in the United States where the plaintiffs believed Iranian assets were located. They asked the courts in those jurisdictions to permit them to “attach” (a legal term meaning essentially judicial seizure) the various alleged Iranian assets, sell them at judicial auction, and use the proceeds of such sales to satisfy their multi-million dollar judgment.

In one such instance, the plaintiffs registered their judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The plaintiffs selected that court because there are three collections of ancient Persian artifacts owned by Iran or alleged to be owned by Iran in Chicago. One of the collections is not a true collection but rather a smattering of artifacts at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and the Field Museum of Natural History collectively known as the Herzfeld Collection. The artifacts are so named because, according to the plaintiffs, noted archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld surreptitiously took the items from Iran in the early 20th Century and later unlawfully sold the allegedly stolen items to the University of Chicago and the Field Museum. Iran makes no claim to these artifacts and the university and the Field Museum vigorously defend their lawful ownership of the items. The plaintiffs assert that Iran nonetheless owns the Herzfeld items by operation of an Iranian patrimony law which, according to the plaintiffs, provides that any item unearthed in Iran is owned by Iran. Notably, the Rubin plaintiffs also have sued Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts alleging that those museums also have in their possession several items stolen by Herzfeld and hence are Iran owned. Like the museums in Chicago, however, the Boston museums vigorously defend their lawful ownership of the items.

The other two collections involved in the Chicago litigation, the Persepolis Collection and the Chogha Mish Collection, are housed at the Oriental Institute and are, everyone agrees, owned by Iran. These two collections arrived at the Oriental Institute in the 1930s and 1960s, respectively, following archaeological digs. In the 1930s, the Oriental Institute sent a team of its archaeologists – led by Ernst Herzfeld – to Iran, with the Iranian government’s consent, to excavate the ancient Persian city of Persepolis. Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, was built by Darius I in approximately 515 B.C. and destroyed by Alexander the Great in approximately 330 B.C. Though largely destroyed by Alexander, the site was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979 due to monumental ruins which were left standing. Following the excavation, Iran agreed to loan to the Institute for study a grouping of rare tablet and tablet fragments found in the fortifications. Some of the tablets are written in an ancient text known as Elamite, a now extinct language understood today by a handful of people. The tablets contain administrative records of daily Achaemenid society, such as the amounts and recipients of food rations...

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

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

New Book: L'archive des Fortifications de Persépolis. État des questions et perspectives de recherches

[First posted 2/16/09, updated 2/23/10 with the addition of a link to the Review at BMCR]

A new volume (no. 12) in the Persika series, dedicated to the
Persepolis Fortification archive is out:

P. Briant, W.F.M. Henkelman and M.W. Stolper (eds.),
L'archive des Fortifications de Persépolis. État des questions et
perspectives de recherches.
Actes du colloque organisé au Collège de France par la "Chaire
d'histoire et civilisation du monde achéménide et de l'empire
d'Alexandre" et le "Réseau international d'études et de recherches
achéménides" (GDR 2538 CNRS), 3-4 novembre 2006
Paris, De Boccard, 2008.
570 pp., 127 fig., 11 pl.
117 Euro

The volume contains 16 contributions (13 in English and 3 in french).

Detailed table of contents


The volume can be ordered from De Boccard

And see also the detailed information on the series at the Collège de France

Reviewed by Matthew P. Canepa, College of Charleston and University of Oxford Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2010.02.68.

PFAP at AOS 2010

At the 220th Annual Meeting of the American Oriental Society, 12-15 March 2010, St. Louis, four papers will focus on the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project

Saturday Morning March 13th, in the session:

Ancient Near East III: The Achæmenid and Seleucid Near East. In Honor of Amélie Kuhrt.
Amélie Kuhrt, University College, London, Chair (9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.) Salon A

• Matthew W. Stolper, University of Chicago, Interrogation, Auditing and Exchange according to an Unparalleled Persepolis Fortification Document
• Wouter Henkelman, Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam) & École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris), Exit Atossa, Enter Irdabama: Royal Women in the Fortification Archive
• Mark B. Garrison, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, Archers in Persepolitan Glyptic: A Newly Discovered Scene of Warfare from the Persepolis Fortification Archive
• Tytus K. Mikolajczak, University of Chicago, Seals on Journal and Account Tablets in the Persepolis Fortification Archive

Program of the 220^th Annual Meeting, 12-15 March 2010, St. Louis

Organisation des pouvoirs et contacts culturels dans les pays de l'empire achéménide

A number of important papers related to the Persepolis Fortification Archive appear on this new volume:

Organisation des pouvoirs et contacts culturels dans les pays de l'empire achéménide. Actes du colloque organisé au Collège de France par la "Chaire d'histoire et civilisation du monde achéménide et de l'empire d'Alexandre" et le "Réseau international d'études et de recherches achéménides" (GDR 2538 CNRS), 9-10 novembre 2007, sous la direction de BRIANT (P.) et CHAUVEAU (M.). (20 x 28.5), 428 p., 103 ill., 2009, (1800 g) 95 Euros

Detailed Table of Contents

This and the other volumes in the series Persika are available from De Boccard.

News: The PFA Old Persian tablet makes the cover of Chrisomalis' Numerical Notation

The Old Persian text in the Persepolis Fortification Archive appears on the cover of the new book

Numerical Notation
A Comparative History
Stephen Chrisomalis
Wayne State University, Michigan
Hardback
(ISBN-13: 9780521878180)

It is also discussed on p. 256 ff.

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

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

Audio: Four lectures on Persepolis Glyptic by Mark Garrison

Invited lectures at the Collège de France

Mark Garrison
Professeur à l’Université de San Antonio (USA) :
New Light on Persepolis : The Glyptic Imagery from the Persepolis Fortification and Treasury Archives

1. Seals and archives at Persepolis: an introduction
2. Glyptic Imagery as Social Identity: The Seals of Zi awi
3. The Religious Landscape at Persepolis: New Glyptic Evidence for the So-Called "Fire Altars"
4. Glyptic Imagery and Ideology: The Emergence of a Visual Language of Empire at Persepolis

Ces leçons auront lieu le mercredi 4 novembre et les jeudis 12, 19, 26 novembre 2009, à 11 heures.

écouter les conférences

News: DOJ Urges 7th Circuit to Shield Iranian Artifacts From Seizure by Terrorism Victims

DOJ Urges 7th Circuit to Shield Iranian Artifacts From Seizure by Terrorism Victims
Arguments focus on foreign sovereign immunity
Lynne Marek
The National Law Journal
November 02, 2009

While the United States and Iran heatedly battle over nuclear disarmament on the world stage, they joined forces last week before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals...
...At oral argument, the 7th Circuit panel seemed to favor the arguments of the United States, Iran and the institutions, questioning the lower court's authority to disregard the artifacts' apparent statutory immunity. The artifacts "enjoy presumptive immunity" under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, said Judge Diane Sykes. "It can hardly be interpreted otherwise -- that's what it says.

Go to the chronicle of news on Persepolis.

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

Persepolis Fortification Archive (PFA) Project Annual Report 2008-2009

[The following is a very slightly altered (addition of hyperlinks) version of the text of an 

article appearing in Oriental Institute 2008-2009 Annual Report]

PERSEPOLIS FORTIFICATION ARCHIVE PROJECT
2008-2009 Annual Report

Matthew W. Stolper

When we began to learn about the legal emergency that puts the Persepolis Fortification Archive in peril, a colleague couldn’t resist quoting Samuel Johnson’s old saw: “The prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully.” The prospects of the Archive are still perilous, and the Persepolis Fortification Archive (PFA) Project’s attention is still concentrated wonderfully on its emergency priorities: to make thorough records of the Archive and to distribute the records widely, freely, and continuously.

The PFA Project’s collaboration with the West Semitic Research Project (WSRP) at the University of Southern California captures two sets of very high-resolution images of Persepolis Fortification tablets and fragments. One set is made with high-resolution BetterLight scanning backs and with polarized and filtered lighting (fig. 1); another set is made with polynomial texture mapping (PTM) technology and software that allows a viewer to manipulate the angle, intensity, and focus of the apparent lighting. A two-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supporting this work came to an end, but a second two-year Mellon grant keeps the work going, expands it, and accelerates it by adding another, larger PTM dome (fig. 2). Clinton Moyer (Ph.D. 2009, Cornell), Joseph Lam (Ph.D. candidate, NELC), Miller Prosser (Ph.D. candidate, NELC), and John Burnight (Ph.D. candidate, NELC) are now making these images.

Figure 1. BetterLight scans of an Aramaic Persepolis Fortification tablet. Left, with natural light; right, with infrared filter

Figure 2. Miller Prosser (foreground) and Clinton Moyer process high-quality images of Persepolis Fortification tablets. Foreground: the new, larger PTM dome; middle: the veteran PTM dome; in alcove at rear: BetterLight scanning camera

By mid-2009, this phase of the project has made images of about 660 monolingual Aramaic Fortification tablets, about 900 uninscribed, sealed Fortification tablets, and about 200 Elamite Fortification tablets. Now that almost all the Aramaic tablets are captured, the next targets are Aramaic epigraphs on Elamite cuneiform tablets (figs. 3 and 6), more uninscribed, sealed tablets, and selected Elamite cuneiform tablets.

During 2008–2009, the crew capturing and editing conventional digital images of Elamite Fortification tablets included undergraduates Trevor Crowell, Fay Kelly, and Madison Krieger (all Classics), graduate students Lori Calabria, Paul Gauthier, Megaera Lorenz, Elise MacArthur, Tytus Mikolajczak (all NELC), and Glenn Garabrant and Gregory Hebda, often working five at a time (fig. 4). This phase of the project has also accelerated since Calabria partially automated the editorial process. As of mid-2009, digital photography of the more than 2,500 PF-NN tablets (that is, Elamite documents that the late Richard T. Hallock edited in preliminary form, but did not publish) is nearly complete, photographs of about 425 new Elamite Fortification tablets (Elamite documents that I have edited in preliminary form) is underway, and photography of the approximately 2,000 Elamite tablets that Hallock published in Persepolis Fortification Tablets (OIP 92 [1969]) will soon resume.

Figure 3. BetterLight scans of an Aramaic epigraph on an Elamite Persepolis Fortification tablet. Left, with polarized light; right, with red filter

We are providing the photographs of the Elamite tablets to our collaborators at the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) at the University of California, Los Angeles, to supplement the fast flat-bed scans made for CDLI’s online presentation, and the revised transliterations of the texts being completed by graduate students Andrew Dix, Seunghee Yie (both NELC), and Wayne Munsch (Divinity). (See http://cdli.ucla.edu/ ; click on “CDLI Search” and enter “OIP 092” in the form under “Primary Publication.”) Edited images of all categories of Persepolis Fortification documents are being copied to a server at the Collège de France for release on Achemenet and its companion site, the Musée Achéménide.

Images, editions, and cataloging information all flow into the On-Line Cultural Heritage Research Evironment (OCHRE), where PFA Project manager Dennis Campbell (Ph.D., NELC) coordinates, connects, and smoothes the data compiled by PFA Project editors, and prepares it for public release. Campbell and Internet Data Specialist Sandra Schloen have added many refinements to the PFA interface on OCHRE. Graduate students Seunghee Yie and Wayne Munsch are tagging and linking photographs to transliterations and the transliterations to the glossary and parser. As of mid-2009, OCHRE users can view about 750 Persepolis Fortification documents: about 500 Elamite Persepolis Fortification tablets, with interlinked transliterations, translations, notes, seal information, Elamite-English glossary, topical English-Elamite glossary, morphological parsing, and conventional digital images; about 30 Aramaic tablets, with interlinked transliterations, translations and notes, seal information, glossary, scans of the late Raymond Bowman’s draft copies and editions, and selected high-resolution BetterLight scans, and live screen-resolution PTM images; a sample of 110 uninscribed, sealed Fortification tablets with interlinked seal catalog information, seal drawings, and live screenresolution PTM images (fig. 5).

InscriptiFact, the online application of the WSRP, makes the PFA Project’s high-resolution images public with a very robust and user-friendly interface that allows viewers to manipulate, compare, and download them. As of mid-2009, InscriptiFact users can view almost 9,000 images of about 370 Persepolis Fortification documents (mostly Aramaic and uninscribed tablets and fragments). WSRP has developed an elegant stand-alone viewer for PTM images that can be run as a Java application on PC or Macintosh computers, currently available to PFA Project staff and soon to be generally available (fig. 6). WSRP is testing an online version of this viewer to be incorporated into the InscriptiFact application. The capabilities, speed, design, ease of use, and platform independence of these viewers are a great advance over the previously available DOS-based viewer, allowing users to see and manipulate PTM imagery at a choice of resolutions, and to make side-by-side comparisons with high-resolution flat scans.

Figure 4. Working at two photography stations, two photo editing stations, and one station cataloging scans, all in a single Oriental Institute office, from left, Tytus Mikolajczak, Lise Truex, Glen Garabrant, Trevor Crowell, Lori Calabria. Background, right: storage boxes of still unprocessed Persepolis Fortification tablets

Figure 5. OCHRE views of Persepolis Fortification tablets. Top: Elamite document, showing transliteration, translation, seal information, glossary look-up, and another tablet opened from a reference in the glossary look-up, also with transliteration, translation, and tagged photograph, and highlighting the signs of the word found in the glossary. Bottom: Aramaic document with two texts, one incised and the other in ink, showing transliteration, translation, seal information, autographed copy by Raymond A. Bowman, BetterLight image (with orange-filtered lighing) and live PTM image

During three extended visits to the Oriental Institute in the past year, PFA Project editor Wouter Henkelman (Amsterdam and Paris) has prepared collated, revised, and annotated editions and translations of about 1,000 Elamite PF-NN documents. These are being brought online category by category in OCHRE, fully glossed and parsed, along with linked and tagged images. Revised editions of comparable previously published Elamite Fortification documents and preliminary editions of comparable newly recorded Elamite Fortification texts will accompany these releases.

During nine trips to the Oriental Institute in the past year, PFA Project editor Mark Garrison (Trinity University, San Antonio) has verified and revised identifications of seal impressions on about 850 of these PF-NN documents. He has set up an OCHRE-based catalog of about 1,150 seals identified from impressions on published Elamite Fortification tablets, incorporating collated drawings of those that he and Margaret Root have published in the first volume of their magisterial work on Persepolis Fortification tablet seals (Images of Heroic Encounter [OIP 117]) and drawings of those to be published in succeeding volumes. He has added approximately 225 more distinct seals from impressions on new Elamite tablets and about 200 more distinct seals from impressions on uninscribed Fortification tablets, making working drawings of about 100 of them. Sabrina Maras (Ph.D., Berkeley), supported by a Levy Foundation postdoctoral fellowship, now works with Garrison on seals on the uninscribed tablets. Garrison has systematically surveyed almost 30 percent of the storage boxes of previously unedited Fortification tablets and fragments, selecting, boxing, and labeling uninscribed tablets for high-quality imaging, cataloging, and study, building a sample that already amounts to about 1,400 items as of mid-2009.

Figure 6. WSRP’s stand-alone PTM viewer, showing obverse and reverse of a previously unedited Elamite Fortification tablet (the text is a summary accounting of grain stored and disbursed at one of the sub-stations around Persepolis during three years), with seal impression and Aramaic epigraph on the reverse

During four trips to the Oriental Institute in the past year, PFA Project editor Annalisa Azzoni (Vanderbilt University, Nashville), after reviewing the approximately 680 monolingual Aramaic Fortification tablets and most of the about 180 Aramaic epigraphs on Elamite Fortification tablets, is populating OCHRE databases with cataloging and epigraphic information, and preparing advanced editions for release on OCHRE. PFA Project editor Elspeth Dusinberre (University of Colorado, Boulder) has processed more than 4,000 conventional digital images of the seals on the Aramaic tablets, uploaded them to the Project’s server to be added to OCHRE displays of the tablets, and is populating a descriptive and analytical catalog of about 500 distinct seals on these tablets that she and Garrison set up on OCHRE.

I have suspended detailed cataloging of the boxes of unedited Fortification tablets in favor of selecting the best-preserved or most promising individual tablets and fragments for conservation and recording. By mid-2009, I have added preliminary editions of about 425 new Elamite texts to OCHRE. Project conservators Monica Hudak and Jeanne Mandel have cleaned and stabilized about 650 Fortification tablets, about 325 of them during the last year. The speed and results of their painstaking work improved markedly after the Compact Phoenix laser cleaning system (known to PFA Project staff as the “Death Ray”) came on line in November 2008 (see Oriental Institute News & Notes, Winter 2008) (fig. 7).

Some Project work slowed or stopped in July/August 2008 while third-floor offices of the Oriental Institute received badly needed upgrades in electrical wiring and data connections. The hiatus provided an occasion for Wouter Henkelman, Mark Garrison, and student workers to put all the tablets that have been published and all those that are in process into new boxes and to file them in new storage cabinets, and an occasion for me to consolidate storage of the boxes of unprocessed tablets and fragments and to reorganize and enlarge Project work space in my
office (fig. 4).

Figure 7. Conservator Monica Hudak cleans a Persepolis Fortification tablet with the Compact Phoenix laser, a.k.a. the “Death Ray”

During the reorganization of tablet storage, we moved most of Richard Hallock’s manuscripts, notes, and files on Persepolis materials to Humanities Division Research Computing to be scanned and made available to off-site project staff. Volunteer Greg Hebda and graduate student Lise Truex (NELC), working with Lec Maj at Humanities Computing, began to scan and catalog photographic negatives and prints of Persepolis Fortification tablets made in 1940 –41 under a grant from Works Progress Administration (WPA). We expect to display these pictures eventually online, alongside modern digital images of the same tablets and fragments.

When floods of data produced by the various parts of the PFA Project overwhelmed the hospitable resources of Humanities Division Computing, the Oriental Institute acquired a dedicated server for the Project, still maintained and managed by Lec Maj and his colleagues at Humanities Computing. In addition to holding raw data in process, finished files, working databases, scanned documents, and online tools — sixteen terabytes of material in live storage so far — the server shares data with collaborating projects elsewhere. Information capture still outstrips information processing, and many Project participants rely on direct access to fresh raw data, so even the current 22.5 terabyte capacity of this server will be a tight fit for some time ahead.

Despite stressful economic times, supporters of the PFA Project have continued to step up to meet the emergency. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded a second two-year grant, larger than the first, to support expanded high-resolution imaging work. An award from the Iran Heritage Foundation of London made it possible to set up a computer for in-house post-processing of the PTM image sets. The generous response to a fund-raiser in Los Angeles, organized by the Farhang Foundation (Iranian-American Heritage Foundation of Southern California), made possible an award that supports conservation of Persepolis tablets.

We try to convey to wider audiences the unique importance of the PFA and to describe the accomplishments and aspirations of the PFA Project. I discussed the Archive and the Project in lectures at the University of Vienna, Harvard, Tufts, Yale, and New York University, in presentations to the Visiting Committee of the Oriental Institute and to the docents and volunteers of the Oriental Institute Museum, and in remarks at fund-raisers for the National Iranian-American Council in Washington and New York. Oriental Institute Director Gil Stein and I described the Archive, the Project, and the emergency in which we operate at a panel discussion in Chicago organized by the Iranian-American Bar Association. Mark Garrison lectured on the Fortification seal impressions at the University of Michigan; Elspeth Dusinberre spoke on the seals on Aramaic tablets at the Archaeology Day of the Boulder and Denver societies of the Archaeological Institute of America.

The situation of the PFA also attracts continuing journalistic attention. An article by Gwenda Blair in the December 2008 issue of Chicago Magazine describes the progress and current status of the lawsuit (Paying with the Past). N. Beintema interviewed Wouter Henkelman on the circumstances of the Archive and the Project for the science and research section of the leading Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. The article by Marlene Belilos in the French online journal Rue89 connected the circumstances of the PFA with the legal travails of recent museum exhibitions (Indemniser les victimes d'attentats en vendant de l'art?). Sharon Cohen’s article for the Associated Press was widely published (for example, in the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Enquirer, the San Francisco Examiner, and Le Nouvel Observateur; see FOCUS: Terrorism impacting archaeology), as was a release prepared by the University News Office (Ancient Persian Archive Digitized with Support of Mellon Foundation;
the accompanying video presentation has not gone viral on YouTube; see The Persepolis Fortification Tablets).

Most significant for the larger intellectual and cultural missions of the Oriental Institute is the note by Sebastian Heath and Glenn Schwartz in American Journal of Archaeology 113 (2009), discussing the PFA in the broader context of recent legal troubles affecting museum exhibitions and cultural exchanges (Legal Threats to Cultural Exchange of Archaeological Materials).
Most of this information, along with many other articles about the PFA and about Achaemenid archaeology and epigraphy, can be followed through the PFA Project’s Weblog (where readers can now sign up to receive e-mail notification of new postings). PFA Project editor Charles E. Jones (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York) reports a substantial increase over last year’s traffic: the blog has been viewed almost 20,000 times in the twelve months beginning July 1, 2008, by almost 12,500 distinct visitors, about 12,000 of whom made repeat visits. All told, the blog has been viewed more than 50,000 times since it debuted in October 2006.

This year saw the publication of the symposium on the PFA held in Paris near the beginning of the PFA Project, in 2006, where PFA Project editors discussed the early stages of research that is now bearing fruit, and other scholars discussed the broader context of the PFA (L’archive des fortifications de Persépolis: État des questions et perspectives de recherches, edited by P. Briant, W. Henkelman, and M. Stolper, Persika 12 (Paris: De Boccard, 2009); despite the title, most of the volume is in English). The year also saw the publication of Henkelman’s work on Achaemenid religion in light of the Persepolis Fortification texts, a landmark in the use of the PFA to expound complex historical phenomena, including the most up-to-date, most thorough, and most accurate description of the Archive to be found anywhere (Other Gods Who Are: Studies in Elamite-Iranian Acculturation Based on the Persepolis Fortification Texts, Achaemenid History 14 (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2008); see especially “Chapter 2: The Fortification Archive,” pp. 65–179). Forthcoming presentations of Project-related scholarly results include an article by Henkelman and Stolper on ethnic identity and labeling at Persepolis, a paper by Azzoni and Stolper first given at the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society on a recurrent Aramaic epigraph on the Elamite tablets, and an article by Garrison and Robert Ritner on the Egyptian-inscribed seal impressions on Fortification documents.

The greatest value of the PFA lies in its combination of integrity and complexity — integrity in that these tens of thousands of pieces were found together and fit together in meaningful ways; complexity in that the pieces take many forms bearing many kinds of information. The greatest value of the record that the PFA Project is struggling to make and distribute lies in the interconnections among the pieces, forming a structure of data and inference that grows steadily in scope, depth, and reliability. By now, most of the new data is of a familiar kind, so most of the thrills of fresh discovery are things that only real PFA nerds can appreciate — new bits of vocabulary, grammar, paleography, iconography, or new documents that fill in old gaps. Even so, as we sift the tablets and fragments, real surprises still appear from time to time. Most gratifying for me during the last year was an Elamite Fortification tablet with a text of a completely new type, though it refers clearly to known administrative procedures. Without the integrated context of the whole archive, it would have been all but incomprehensible. It records an internal investigation of some administrative activity in the years immediately before the oldest preserved texts of the Archive. It reminds us that although the structure of interconnected information that we are building looks static, like the mounted skeleton of an extinct creature, the ancient reality that it represents was dynamic. When it was a living archive, it changed constantly as information moved through the system, and the people who compiled and filed these records also consulted them, used them to investigate and assess their own circumstances.

————————————————————

This Annual Report is republished here with the kind permission of the Oriental Institute Membership Office. The Oriental Institute Annual Reports are available for members as one of the privileges of membership. They are not for sale to the general public. They contain yearly summaries of the activities of the Institute’s faculty, staff, and research projects, as well as descriptions of special events and other Institute functions.

———————————————————— 

See linked data for Persepolis via awld.js 

• 2010 - 2011 Annual Report
• 2009 - 2010 Annual Report
• 2008 - 2009 Annual Report
• 2007 - 2008 Annual Report
• 2006 - 2007 Annual Report

Report of PFAP 2009 Event in Palo Alto: The Story of the Persepolis Fortification Archive

Report of PFAP 2009 Event in Palo Alto: The Story of the Persepolis Fortification Archive

Matthew Stolper, Head of the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, kicked off the event by discussing the languages of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, as a symbol of inclusiveness of the empire of many people and many languages

Cracking the Code: using language to unlock ancient history

The Persepolis Fortification Archive Project at the AIA

[Originally posted 10/08/09. Corrected 10/22/09]

The Persepolis Fortification Archive Project at the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), Anaheim CA, January 6-9, 2010

Preliminary Schedule of Paper Sessions

Session: 1D: The Persepolis Fortification Archive Project: Current Research
Type: Colloquium

Timeslot: Thursday, January 7, 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Organizer(s): Mark B. Garrison, Trinity University

Session Papers

1.	The Persepolis Fortification Archive: Elamite Documents Matthew W. Stolper, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
2.	The Persepolis Fortification Archive: Aramaic Documents Annalisa Azzoni, Vanderbilt University
3.	Seal Impressions on the Persepolis Fortification Aramaic Tablets Elspeth Dusinberre, University of Colorado
4.	The Persepolis Fortification Archive: Uninscribed Documents Mark B. Garrison, Trinity University
5.	Imaging and Image Distribution of the Persepolis Fortification Archive Marilyn Lundberg, West Semitic Research and Bruce Zuckerman, University of Southern California
6.	On-Line Cultural Heritage Research Environment Dennis R.M. Campbell, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

Mark Garrison's lectures at the Collège de France

Les professeurs du Collège de France, sur la proposition du Professeur Pierre Briant,
vous prient de leur faire l’honneur d’assister aux leçons qui seront données par

M. Mark GARRISON
Professeur à Trinity University, San Antonio (USA)
sur le sujet suivant :

New Light on Persepolis: The Glyptic Imagery from the
Persepolis Fortification and Treasury Archives

1. Seals and Archives at Persepolis: An Introduction
2. Glyptic Imagery as Social Identity: The Seals of Ziššawiš
3. The Religious Landscape at Persepolis: New Glyptic Evidence
for the So-Called "Fire Altars"
4. Glyptic Imagery and Ideology: The Emergence of a Visual
Language of Empire at Persepolis

Ces leçons auront lieu le mercredi 4 novembre et les jeudis 12, 19, 26 novembre 2009, à 11 heures.

salle 5
11, place Marcelin-Berthelot, 75005
www.college-de-france.fr

The PFAP '09 Event to raise awareness and funds for the Persepolis/Parsa Fortification Archive Project [PFAP] at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago on October 11th, 2009, is only a week away:

Friends of Persepolis Fortification Archive Project (PFAP)
&
World Association of International Studies (WAIS)

cordially invite you for an informative evening

to hear the story of the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

PFAP '09
Sunday, October 11^th, 2009
16:00 – 22:00
Four Seasons Hotel
Silicon Valley at East Palo Alto
CA, USA

Friends of Persepolis Fortification Archive Project

The PFAP '09 Event to raise awareness and funds for the Persepolis/Parsa Fortification Archive Project [PFAP] at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago on October 11th, 2009, is only a week away:

Friends of Persepolis Fortification Archive Project (PFAP)
&
World Association of International Studies (WAIS)

cordially invite you for an informative evening

to hear the story of the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

PFAP '09
Sunday, October 11^th, 2009
16:00 – 22:00
Four Seasons Hotel
Silicon Valley at East Palo Alto
CA, USA

Tickets*

Couple	$75
Single	$50
Academia	$30
Student	$15

*Non-profit Organizational Friends Rate: $30

Cocktail Attire

Further details will be available soon...
Limited seating.
Please email PFAP-09@pavasta.com for availability.

All proceeds will benefit

Persepolis Fortification Archive Project

at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

Planning is underway to create and post an educational video on YouTube, Google Video, etc., suitable for K-12 level audience,
therefore we graciously limit the attendance of PFAP ‘09 event to 18+ age group.

Speakers

Matthew W. Stolper
Head of Persepolis Fortification Archive Project
the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

Nema Milaninia
President of the Iranian American Bar Association

Glenn Schwartz
Professor of Archeology
Johns Hopkins University
Representative of Archaeological Institute of America

Followed by:

Roundtable Discussion
Moderated by:
Richard Saller
Dean of Humanities and Sciences
Stanford University

Partial List of Roundtable Participants:

Touraj Daryaee
Professor of the history of Iran and the Persianate World
University of California, Irvine

Renée Dreyfus
Curator in Charge of Ancient Art and Interpretation
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honor Museum

Babak Hoghooghi
Executive Director
Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA)

Fredun Hojabri
Former Academic Vice-President of Sharif (Aryamehr) University of Technology

Gita Kashani
Board Member
National Iranian American Council (NIAC)

Sabrina Maras
Visiting Scholar in Near Eastern Studies
White-Levy Award Recipient-Persepolis Fortification Seal Project

Dr. Ali Mousavi
Assistant Curator of Ancient Iranian & Near Eastern Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Member of Academic Committee of Farhang Foundation

Martin Schwartz
Professor of Iranian Studies
University of California, Berkeley

Related lecture...

Matthew W. Stolper

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
16:00 - 18:00
Department of Near Eastern Studies
250 Barrows Hall
University of California, Berkeley
nes@berkeley.edu