Volume 65 Number 1, January/February 2012
by Andrew Lawler
The rush to document thousands of ancient texts before they are sent
back to Iran, or sold, reveals the daily workings of the Persian
Empire
Tens of thousands of clay tablets and fragments from Persepolis are
written in cuneiform to express Elamite, an ancient language of
western Iran.
(Courtesy Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, Oriental Institute)
Tensions between Iran and the United States have rarely run higher,
with both governments sparring over alleged terror plots, disputing
the nature of Iran’s nuclear program, and vying to influence the
uprisings across the Arab world. But in Chicago and Boston courtrooms,
the two countries have found rare common ground—neither wants ancient
tablets from the royal palace of Persepolis in Iran to end up on the
auction block. To the relief of scholars, two recent court rulings may
give them their joint wish, preserving open access to what is the most
significant source of information on the ancient Persian Empire
uncovered to date.
In the early 1930s, during excavations of Persepolis, University of
Chicago archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld unearthed tens of thousands of
fragments of fragile clay tablets dating from about 500 B.C. The
fragments were packed into 2,353 cardboard boxes and shipped to the
university’s Oriental Institute. The Iranian government of the day
allowed the export, with the understanding that the tablets would be
translated and then returned. But the task of piecing together and
understanding the vast number of fragments has been under way for more
than seven decades and the majority of the collection remains in
Chicago. Now, fearing loss of the archive, the university has moved
into high gear to create thousands of digital images of the tablets,
which record the day-to-day accounts of the empire during the reign of
Darius the Great (521–486 B.C.) and include records of those traveling
on behalf of the king, lists of workers’ rations, and careful notation
of offerings made to deities.
Researchers hope to have most of this intensive effort completed
within the next two years. To get the job done, the institute has
assembled what Gil Stein, director of the Oriental Institute, calls a
“dream team” of textual scholars, archaeologists, and technical
experts in digital cataloguing to take images of the tablets and make
them available for public use. Translations are also being done,
though it will take much longer to complete that daunting task.
“Whether they are seized for sale or the government of Iran demands
them back, the tablets will be out of the building soon. We all
understand how important and urgent this is,” says Stein.
http://www.archaeology.org/1201/features/persepolis_clay_tablets_iran_elamite_cuneiform.html
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