Tytus Mikołajczak

In 522 B.C. Darius I seized the Persian throne, most likely as a usurper. It appears that he was not related to Cambyses, Cyrus or their family. It seems that Darius and Cyrus differed also in their religion. Despite the fact that the religion of the first rulers of ancient Persia is uncertain, the differences between Darius and his predecessors can be listed. Darius' attachment to Iranian cults can be concluded on basis of his inscriptions, but there is no unambiguous evidence about Iranian religion in case of Cyrus. Cyrus and his son, for example, never invoked the name of Ahuramazda. Furthermore, the art during their reign does not present Iranian motifs; rather, it is more connected with Elamite and Mesopotamian designs. Similarly there are significant differences in tomb architecture between Cyrus and Darius. Introducing the cult of Ahuramazda as the official religion by Darius could have served some political purposes that resulted in legitimizing and strengthening the rule of this king.

The Achaemenids' beliefs are a matter of dispute and discussion. During the reign of Artaxerxes II some significant changes in religious practices were occurring. In sources relating to this period, we find a description of the royal initiation for the for the time (by Plutarch). This subject has been frequently taken up by scholars. The religious aspect is very important in this ceremony in which the Magi appear to have played a major role.
Very debatable is an increase of significance of two deities: Anahita and Mithra during the reign of Artaxerxes II. This is connected with the introduction of a statue cult at the king's suggestion. Reasons for this decision have met with different analysis. The effects of these events were also different. The role of the king and Magi in this process is a matter of debate among scholars.
According to some scholars (mainly M. Boyce) a temple cult of fire was introduced in this period as well. I consider when and if there was the temple cult of fire introduced and the role of the Magi in its development. The results of archaeological excavations were reviewed. They can verify theories about temple cult of fire during this period.
During the reign of the last Achaemenids, perhaps when Artaxerxes II ruled, a new Zoroastrian calendar was introduced officially throughout the empire. The Magi probably played the important role in this event.
All these changes mentioned above could have a significant influence on the priesthood. The role of the Magi is not clear-- were they initiators or only tools in the court's hands during the religious reforms? These problems were described in detail.

The Persepolis Fortification Archive records activities of hundreds of individuals involved in the administration in Fārs, Iran, throughout the period reflected by the documents (509-493 BC). Making sense of the underlying, complex administrative structure is a challenging task. This process can be facilitated by tracing the correlations between seals impressed on the cuneiform documents and their contents. Methods of the social network analysis and visualization are very useful with finding and recognizing such correlations. Preliminary network analysis confirms the results of the study of the texts contents. There is no doubt that the seals impressed on the tablets reflect an organizational structure of the offices producing these documents. The paper discusses the preliminary results and explores possibilities and perspectives for the further use of the social network analysis for the study of the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

A high proportion of the “accounting seals” used on Persepolis Fortification tablets are inscribed. These accounting seals are impressed on late-stage Elamite documents of the kinds called “journals” and “accounts” but rarely on other kinds of Fortification documents. Of ca. 62 accounting seals about 22% have inscriptions (as opposed to ca. 8% of all seals used on Elamite Fortification texts), and the inscriptions are predominantly in Elamite cuneiform script (79%, as opposed to 44% inscribed seals on all Elamite documents). None of the inscribed accounting seals name contemporary users, which highlights the circumstances that seal inscriptions naming contemporary users are rare in the Archive as a whole. This paper also touches on features of the epigraphy of the inscribed accounting seals, which might inform us about procedures of seal cutting and level of literacy among artisans making them.

Ten documents from the Persepolis Fortification Archive (PFA) that have impressions of Persepolis Fortification Seal (PFS) 1155, along with six other documents that have related contents constitute a dossier that represents activities in a district of the territory monitored from Persepolis. This dossier sheds new light on operating relationships between district administration and central accounting, suggesting that district administrators were more directly involved than previously supposed in compilation of final records at Persepolis.

In the course of work on the Achemenet Project, a joint effort of the Oriental Institute and the Musée du Louvre to photograph and document Achaemenid objects in the collection of the Oriental Institute Museum, I have identified fragmentary inscriptions that were previously unpublished, incompletely published, and/or misidentified. Of greatest importance is a fragment of an Elamite version of XPl, a text of Xerxes hitherto thought to be monolingual on the basis of an Old Persian exemplar discovered in 1967, that is, thirty years after the OI’s Elamite fragment was excavated. Also notable are two stone blocks inscribed in Greek, possibly from the reign of Alexander the Great or of Peucestas, the satrap of Persis appointed by Alexander. Greek epigraphers have been aware of these inscriptions, but knowledge of the current location was lost until now. This paper will discuss these inscribed fragments and their archaeological context.

The accounting tablets in the Persepolis Fortification Archive (509–1493 BCE), that is, documents from Categories V and W, are secondary records, including lists, summaries and digests of transactions previously recorded in primary memoranda or intermediate summaries. The seals impressed on these tablets were rarely used on tablets with Fortification texts of other categories. Hence, these seals constitute a distinct group, and the functional relationships between these seals and the associated texts differ from the relationships in other kinds of Fortification documents. Texts on accounting tablets sealed with a particular seal not only refer to the same commodities and geographical locations, but often conform to similar patterns of contents and text structure. In addition, the use of the most frequently occurring seals used on accounting tablets seems to reflect the main organizational elements of the office which produced the accounts. The present paper will show how correlations between seals and text contents improve understanding of the administrative system reflected by the accounting tablets in the Persepolis Fortification Archive.

Accountants are mentioned in texts from the Persepolis Fortification Archive (509-493 BC) only very occasionally, usually as individuals who “made,” “checked,” or “reckoned” accounting tablets. By contrast, the more numerous “memoranda” rarely fail to note the names of the individuals involved in the transactions they record. As a result, the accountants are largely anonymous group. Only rarely we can identify their names and say something more about them. The present paper, based mostly on unpublished material, will elaborate on the roles of accountants in the Persepolis Fortification Archive, focusing on several well documented examples.

Registers, that is documents from Categories V and W in the Persepolis Fortification Archive (509-493 BC), are secondary records which include lists, summaries and digests of transactions previously recorded in primary memoranda or intermediate summaries. They were written by a limited group of accountants in Persepolis itself, unlike the records on which they were based, which were composed on the spot at local stations or at subdistrict centers in the surrounding region administered from Persepolis, roughly equivalent to present-day Fārs. The seals impressed on these tablets constitute a distinct group; they were rarely used on tablets with Fortification texts of other categories. Texts on accounting tablets sealed with a particular seal not only refer to the same commodities and geographical locations, but often conform to similar patterns in terms of content and text structure. This paper discusses such patterns in selected groups of registers, concluding with inferences about administrative practices at Persepolis.

Accounting seals on the Persepolis Fortification Archive, that is, the seals impressed on tablets with texts of Categories V (journal) and W (account), form a distinct group in terms of seal placement, sealing protocols, and correlation between text contents and seals. They were used by people working in a part of the central administration that compiled journals and accounts at Persepolis itself, while most of the other seals of the Fortification Archive were used outside of Persepolis, in local administrative centers. It is also possible that accounting seals form a distinct group in terms of iconography. The visual repertoire of this group of seals is in most cases very well preserved, showing spectacular examples of the Achaemenid glyptic art. The present paper will explore the visual aspects of accounting seals in comparison to much broader group of other Persepolis Fortification Seals.

A study of the 76 known seals impressed on Persepolis registers--that is seals belonging to personnel and/or offices of a central accounting agency that compiled and digested information at Persepolis itself--analysing what the composition and distribution of this subcorpus tells about the organization of the office, and giving particular attention to one seal whose owner can be identified by name and followed through a range of administrative activities at Persepolis and in the surrounding region.

"It is now commonly accepted that so called “Median empire” was not the predecessor of the Achaemenid Persia, and the term “empire” for the polity build by Medes is inadequate. Most probably, they were semi-nomadic people, who formed a kind of loose confederation, what is especially evidenced on the basis of cuneiform sources. These opinions, which are generally effect of recent studies on the subject, did not found reflections in the studies on the religion of this ethnic group. In the secondary literature, the old opinion that Medes were Zoroastrians and through their mediation, Persians became followers of this religion, remained unchallenged. Present paper will show that this opinion is obviously out of date, and there is no evidence for serious Median influences on Persian religion.
On the other hand, it seems that Median culture was in a large degree dependant of contacts with Iranian nomadic peoples, like Scythians. In addition, the beliefs of these two ethnic groups appear to be closely related. Certainly, the available sources do not allow for attributing Zoroastrianism to Medes, and even the use of more general term of Mazdaism, that is the cult of Ahura Mazda, should be very cautious. It seems that the beliefs of the Medes were more closely linked to Old Iranian roots. In present paper, the evidence for such a character of Median religion will be presented, and the old theories will be evaluated.
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The first Persian period in Egypt (525-402 BC) significantly impressed itself on culture and history of both Iranians and Egyptians. It was a long enough time for several generations of Persians to live in Egypt and become immersed in its culture. However, around thirty years ago Pierre Grelot wrote that: “Les Perses et autres Iraniens qui séjournent en Égypte pratiquent naturellement le culte de leurs dieux nationaux.” Although such a statement may seem reasonable at first, the sources are ambiguous on this matter. Research on Iranian religion in the time of the Achaemenids has frequently met with difficulties in interpreting sources, which has led some to propose radically different conclusions. Persians who arrived in Egypt from the 6th century onwards clearly came from a multicultural society, in which an awareness of foreign and different gods was not unusual. They brought with them a religion that was probably still uncentered and undogmatic, and that would more than likely accommodate new deities and forms of worship. Thus, Grelot’s claim that Persians arriving in Egypt would have faithfully followed an inherited set of religious traditions must be qualified.

The Persepolis Fortification Archive Project is a new phase in recording and distributing the information that brings about these changes, using electronic equipment and media alongside the conventional tool-kits of philology and scholarship.

Through a partnership with the Achemenet Project in Paris, France, the Oriental Institute will provide online access to new images and documentation of the most significant parts of its Achaemenid period object collections, including seals and sealings, reliefs and sculpture, amulets, tableware, decorations and ornaments, etc. The Achemenet Project is coordinated by the Musée du Louvre (Paris, France), Collège de France (Paris, France), and the team of the site www.achemenet.com (Paris, France).