Persepolis Fortification Archive

The Persepolis Fortification Archive is a body of clay administrative tablets unearthed in the fortification wall at the northeastern corner of the Persepolis terrace during excavations the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago began in the 1930s, led first by Ernst Herzfeld and then by Erich Schmidt. The tablets, most of them written in Elamite cuneiform with nearly a thousand more in Aramaic and smaller numbers in Old Persian, Greek, Akkadian and Phrygian, document more than fifty consecutive years of activity across the reigns of Darius I and Artaxerxes I, from 509 to 457 BC. Historians treat the archive as the single most important surviving primary source for the internal workings of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, since its records touch on the region's geography, economy, administration, religion and society. Most of the tablets remain at the Oriental Institute in Chicago, though some have been returned to Iran.