L'Empreinte des Empire au Proche-Orient Ancient (Hommage F. Joannes, EMMS 3), 2023
Editions and discussion of six previously unpublished Persepolis Fortification texts that record ... more Editions and discussion of six previously unpublished Persepolis Fortification texts that record rations issued to specialized treasury personnel (Elamite kurtaš kapnuškip), at locales around Persepolis. The workers include handlers of wood, carpentry supplies, precious metals, and probably textiles, along with storekeepers, supervisors, and recorders, as well as some identified with titles of unknown meaning. The workers and the storage and production sites to which they were attached were overseen by the district treasurer Baratkama, known also from later Persepolis Treasury texts as a “treasurer at Pārsa,” who issued silver payments to workers at Persepolis itself.
The particular problem to which the first of the texts presented here is a partial remedy is one ... more The particular problem to which the first of the texts presented here is a partial remedy is one that the Muragfi texts raise and form, but do not solve: the proper understanding of a Babylonian title, gaknu of Nippur. The title is significant for the topics of municipal or regional authority in Achaemenid Babylonia, but not in the most obvious way, and this result leads to remarks on some broader concerns: first, an interpretive proposition about the fundamental processes used to establish Achaemenid rule in Babylonia, and second, some observations on the social fabric and the physical setting implicit in routine archival texts. The basis for these remarks is YBC 11551, an archival text of a very routine kind indeed, that achieves significance by bringing new specific information to a familiar context. An appendix contains other texts from Nippur that can be assigned to or connected indirectly with known late Achaemenid archives.' Nippur and its surroundings are the most abundantly documented parts of Babylonia during the interval of a century and a half between Xerxes and Alexander.2 The Murafi texts are the preponderant source, and they
A Companion to the Achaemenid Empire, ed. B. Jacobs & R. Rollinger, 2021
This chapter provides a survey of the use and distribution of pre-Achaemenid Elamite language and... more This chapter provides a survey of the use and distribution of pre-Achaemenid Elamite language and the characteristics of Achaemenid Elamite cuneiform writing; the use of Elamite in Achaemenid royal inscriptions and the relationships among Elamite and other versions; Achaemenid Elamite administrative records and their multilingual context; Elamite monolingual inscriptions on Achaemenid seals and pre-Achaemenid or early Achaemenid heirloom seals; Elamite texts as sources of Old Iranian lexicon and evidence of dialect variation; and contact among Elamite and other spoken and written languages.
Editions of Persepolis Fortification documents that compile multiple records of fruit, a category... more Editions of Persepolis Fortification documents that compile multiple records of fruit, a category (provisionally labeled C1/W) postulated by Henkelman & Stolper Persika 21, p. 169ff.; editions of selected tabular accounts of fruit (Category W) cited in the same article; a hypothesis about connections among C1, C1/W, and W records of fruit in information processing at Persepolis; a hypothesis about underlying practices of fruit production on terms comparable to those of contemporary Babylonia; appendixes on some Elamite words connected with fruit orchards, fruit processing, and wine.
Institutions and Individuals in the Ancient Near East: a Tribte to Ran Zadok (SANER 27), pp. 3-78, 2021
Discussion of about 50 Persepolis Fortification tablets marked as "first″, "second", "third" etc.... more Discussion of about 50 Persepolis Fortification tablets marked as "first″, "second", "third" etc. tablet. Illustrated and annotated editions of 8 examples.
" The Scaffolding of Our Thoughts " Essays on Assyriology and the History of Science in Honor of Francesca Rochberg, ed. by C. Jay Crisosotomo, Eduardo A. Escobar, Terri Tanaka, & Niek Veldhuis, 2018
Surveys current evidence from the Persepolis Fortification Archive and the Persepolis Treasury Ar... more Surveys current evidence from the Persepolis Fortification Archive and the Persepolis Treasury Archives on intercalation: terminology, usage, attestations.
Discusses history and possible provenance of an Achaemenid Elamite tablet in the British Museum c... more Discusses history and possible provenance of an Achaemenid Elamite tablet in the British Museum collection, with extended discussion of seal impression, edition and interpretation of text.
An inscription composed in the Old Persian language and carved in the Old Persian cuneiform scrip... more An inscription composed in the Old Persian language and carved in the Old Persian cuneiform script on the tomb of Phirozshaw D. Saklatvala and his family in the Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City adds to the corpus of known ancientand modern inauthentic Old Persian texts. This article describes and illustrates the tomb, discusses the family for which it was built, presents a full illustrated editionof the text and philological commentary on it, and speculates on the identity ofits composer.
L'Empreinte des Empire au Proche-Orient Ancient (Hommage F. Joannes, EMMS 3), 2023
Editions and discussion of six previously unpublished Persepolis Fortification texts that record ... more Editions and discussion of six previously unpublished Persepolis Fortification texts that record rations issued to specialized treasury personnel (Elamite kurtaš kapnuškip), at locales around Persepolis. The workers include handlers of wood, carpentry supplies, precious metals, and probably textiles, along with storekeepers, supervisors, and recorders, as well as some identified with titles of unknown meaning. The workers and the storage and production sites to which they were attached were overseen by the district treasurer Baratkama, known also from later Persepolis Treasury texts as a “treasurer at Pārsa,” who issued silver payments to workers at Persepolis itself.
The particular problem to which the first of the texts presented here is a partial remedy is one ... more The particular problem to which the first of the texts presented here is a partial remedy is one that the Muragfi texts raise and form, but do not solve: the proper understanding of a Babylonian title, gaknu of Nippur. The title is significant for the topics of municipal or regional authority in Achaemenid Babylonia, but not in the most obvious way, and this result leads to remarks on some broader concerns: first, an interpretive proposition about the fundamental processes used to establish Achaemenid rule in Babylonia, and second, some observations on the social fabric and the physical setting implicit in routine archival texts. The basis for these remarks is YBC 11551, an archival text of a very routine kind indeed, that achieves significance by bringing new specific information to a familiar context. An appendix contains other texts from Nippur that can be assigned to or connected indirectly with known late Achaemenid archives.' Nippur and its surroundings are the most abundantly documented parts of Babylonia during the interval of a century and a half between Xerxes and Alexander.2 The Murafi texts are the preponderant source, and they
A Companion to the Achaemenid Empire, ed. B. Jacobs & R. Rollinger, 2021
This chapter provides a survey of the use and distribution of pre-Achaemenid Elamite language and... more This chapter provides a survey of the use and distribution of pre-Achaemenid Elamite language and the characteristics of Achaemenid Elamite cuneiform writing; the use of Elamite in Achaemenid royal inscriptions and the relationships among Elamite and other versions; Achaemenid Elamite administrative records and their multilingual context; Elamite monolingual inscriptions on Achaemenid seals and pre-Achaemenid or early Achaemenid heirloom seals; Elamite texts as sources of Old Iranian lexicon and evidence of dialect variation; and contact among Elamite and other spoken and written languages.
Editions of Persepolis Fortification documents that compile multiple records of fruit, a category... more Editions of Persepolis Fortification documents that compile multiple records of fruit, a category (provisionally labeled C1/W) postulated by Henkelman & Stolper Persika 21, p. 169ff.; editions of selected tabular accounts of fruit (Category W) cited in the same article; a hypothesis about connections among C1, C1/W, and W records of fruit in information processing at Persepolis; a hypothesis about underlying practices of fruit production on terms comparable to those of contemporary Babylonia; appendixes on some Elamite words connected with fruit orchards, fruit processing, and wine.
Institutions and Individuals in the Ancient Near East: a Tribte to Ran Zadok (SANER 27), pp. 3-78, 2021
Discussion of about 50 Persepolis Fortification tablets marked as "first″, "second", "third" etc.... more Discussion of about 50 Persepolis Fortification tablets marked as "first″, "second", "third" etc. tablet. Illustrated and annotated editions of 8 examples.
" The Scaffolding of Our Thoughts " Essays on Assyriology and the History of Science in Honor of Francesca Rochberg, ed. by C. Jay Crisosotomo, Eduardo A. Escobar, Terri Tanaka, & Niek Veldhuis, 2018
Surveys current evidence from the Persepolis Fortification Archive and the Persepolis Treasury Ar... more Surveys current evidence from the Persepolis Fortification Archive and the Persepolis Treasury Archives on intercalation: terminology, usage, attestations.
Discusses history and possible provenance of an Achaemenid Elamite tablet in the British Museum c... more Discusses history and possible provenance of an Achaemenid Elamite tablet in the British Museum collection, with extended discussion of seal impression, edition and interpretation of text.
An inscription composed in the Old Persian language and carved in the Old Persian cuneiform scrip... more An inscription composed in the Old Persian language and carved in the Old Persian cuneiform script on the tomb of Phirozshaw D. Saklatvala and his family in the Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City adds to the corpus of known ancientand modern inauthentic Old Persian texts. This article describes and illustrates the tomb, discusses the family for which it was built, presents a full illustrated editionof the text and philological commentary on it, and speculates on the identity ofits composer.
En créant le programme international Achemenet en 2000, l’année où il inaugurait la chaire «Histo... more En créant le programme international Achemenet en 2000, l’année où il inaugurait la chaire «Histoire et civilisation du monde achéménide et de l’empire d’Alexandre» au Collège de France, Pierre Briant avait pour objectif de rassembler les données primaires sur l’Empire perse achéménide à travers les territoires immenses qu’il a couverts en Orient. Vingt ans après, le site achemenet.com met à la disposition des spécialistes, des étudiants et du grand public une dizaine de milliers de textes, des données archéologiques et près de cent mille images d’objets conservés dans une vingtaine de musées du monde entier. À ces vastes corpus documentaires sont venues s’ajouter la collection Persika, en 2001, dont ce volume porte le numéro 21, et une revue en ligne, ARTA (Achaemenid Research on Texts and Archaeology), seul périodique consacré aux études achéménides. Les auteurs de cet ouvrage célèbrent les vingt ans d’Achemenet et rendent, du même coup, hommage à son fondateur. Tous sont des spécialistes dans différents domaines des recherches achéménides et leurs contributions illustrent l’immensité géographique de cet empire-monde et la diversité des disciplines que requiert son étude.
In recent decades, a number of local archives and other primary sources for the history of the Ac... more In recent decades, a number of local archives and other primary sources for the history of the Achaemenid empire have been made available for the first time, or have received new treatment. Foremost among these are the Persepolis Fortification archive and the correspondence between the satraps of Bactria and Egypt and their respective staffs. Several contributors to this volume try to analyze the events and transactions documented by these sources in terms of bureaucratic and administrative protocols and to interpret them within an empire-wide network. Recurring patterns reveal a system of administrative hierarchies and structures. Among other things, the Achaemenid administration managed supplying official travelers, assuring regular communication between the empire’s core and the provinces, and it used some of the same methods and institutions to manage supply, assignment and logistics of workers sent from the provinces to do labor service in the center of Persia. Another approach represented in this volume confronts these primary sources with information about Achaemenid imperial administration in classical sources, the primary material serving both as corrective and as analytical tool. Combined, these complementary approaches lead to a similar assessment: the imperial administration was not characterized by rupture and ad hoc responses to crises but rather by continuity and stability, and these long-term factors were important reasons for the unprecedented scope and endurance of this first world empire.
Summary of the Oriental Institute Persian Expedition (1933-1939) and related research, some ongoi... more Summary of the Oriental Institute Persian Expedition (1933-1939) and related research, some ongoing. (Draft 2010, revised 2013, forthcoming.)
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Papers by Matthew W Stolper
the Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City adds to the corpus of known ancientand modern inauthentic Old Persian texts. This article describes and illustrates the
tomb, discusses the family for which it was built, presents a full illustrated editionof the text and philological commentary on it, and speculates on the identity ofits composer.
the Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City adds to the corpus of known ancientand modern inauthentic Old Persian texts. This article describes and illustrates the
tomb, discusses the family for which it was built, presents a full illustrated editionof the text and philological commentary on it, and speculates on the identity ofits composer.
À ces vastes corpus documentaires sont venues s’ajouter la collection Persika, en 2001, dont ce volume porte le numéro 21, et une revue en ligne, ARTA (Achaemenid Research on Texts and Archaeology), seul périodique consacré aux études achéménides.
Les auteurs de cet ouvrage célèbrent les vingt ans d’Achemenet et rendent, du même coup, hommage à son fondateur. Tous sont des spécialistes dans différents domaines des recherches achéménides et leurs contributions illustrent l’immensité géographique de cet empire-monde et la diversité des disciplines que requiert son étude.
Another approach represented in this volume confronts these primary sources with information about Achaemenid imperial administration in classical sources, the primary material serving both as corrective and as analytical tool. Combined, these complementary approaches lead to a similar assessment: the imperial administration was not characterized by rupture and ad hoc responses to crises but rather by continuity and stability, and these long-term factors were important reasons for the unprecedented scope and endurance of this first world empire.