An Old Persian text in the Persepolis Fortification Archive
For the first time, a text has been found in Old Persian language that shows the written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display. The text is inscribed on a damaged clay tablet from the Persepolis Fortification Archive, now at the Oriental Institute at The University of Chicago. The tablet is an administrative record of the payout of at least 600 quarts of an as-yet unidentified commodity at five villages near Persepolis in about 500 B.C.“Now we can see that Persians living in Persia at the high point of the Persian Empire wrote down ordinary day-to-day matters in Persian language and Persian script,” said Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute. “Odd as it seems, that comes as a surprise—a very big surprise.”Read the rest
ABF, for the promotion of human rights and democracy in Iran
1 comment:
The same surprise was in store for archaeologists in the Agean trying to decipher Linear B. All these pieces of clay with markings on them and no one could figure out what the writing was... finally a bit of work came up with the answer: it was Greek. Yes, strange thing to find in the Greek Islands, people writing things down in their language to record daily transactions.
Yes, receipts!
And there were even names like Agamemnnon recorded and since bronze was featured in many of them and the layer was from the bronze age, that put some final confirmation on names from the Iliad and Odyssey. Although it was most likely not *the* Agamemnon... still, facinating stuff.
It was that find from the Hittite foreign ministry archive that had duplicates of all their dispatches, pronouncements and treaties in Turkey that was a huge find. So much work to be done out there...
Post a Comment