Persepolis Fortification Archive Project

In 1933, Oriental Institute archaeologists working at Persepolis, clearing the ruined palaces of Kings Darius, Xerxes, and their Achaemenid Persian successors, found clay tablets in two small rooms of a bastion in the fortification wall at the edge of the great stone terrace. Most of the Fortification tablets came to the Oriental Institute in 1936, on loan for study and analysis. The results of long, painstaking work—especially the late Richard T. Hallock’s magisterial analysis of 2,087 Elamite texts—were far-reaching. Individually, the documents are mere records of storage and outlays of food, but as a whole, the Persepolis Fortification Archive shows a broader spectrum of Achaemenid Iranian society than any other source, from the lowliest workers to the king’s own family. The PFA has fundamentally changed every aspect of the study of Achaemenid Iranian languages, art, institutions and history.