Matthew W. Stolper, Jan Tavernier. « From the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, I: An Old Persian Administrative Tablet from the Persepolis Fortification ». ARTA, 2007.001, pp. 1-28.
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1This well-documented article in the electronic journal ARTA is the publication of an administrative tablet (Fort. 1208-101, measuring ca. 40 x 44 x 18 mm) discovered in the Persepolis Fortification Archive in 1933, but identified as written in Old Persian cuneiform and language only in 2006; it is of some importance in that it is the first administrative record in Old Persian language known till now. It is thus inconsistent with the common opinion that the Old Persian writing and language were only used for royal prestige purposes. As for its shape, the Old Persian text is identical with that of the Elamite tablets; it is for the most part legible, but scarcely any word of the text can be understood although it is written in accordance with the orthographic rules. The longest word-form (v-ç-k-a-u-v-a, l. 5) looks like a locative plural (similar to maškāuvā) of a stem *vaçakā- or *Vaçakā- (being a toponym?); x-š-i-t- h ̚-[y-a] in l. 10 seems to be a genitive singular of a man’s name *Xšata- (as in Elam. Šedda, etc.); and from [... x +] 2 ϑ-r ̚-d-a at the end (l. 13) one may infer a date formula or (since one would expect in that case ϑardam or ϑarda) rather a dual form ϑardā « two years » referring to the disbursement (or sim.) of a two-year ration. This isolated Old Persian text may display the strange behaviour of an individual administrative clerk just as it is the case with the one single Greek tablet found here, too. Of course the authors also discuss the consequences and the problems the new text raised as regards the use of the Old Persian, Elamite, Aramaic or else languages in the Achaemenid Empire.
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Rüdiger Schmitt, « Matthew W. Stolper, Jan Tavernier. « From the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, I: An Old Persian Administrative Tablet from the Persepolis Fortification ». ARTA, 2007.001, pp. 1-28. », Abstracta Iranica [En ligne], Volume 29 | 2008, document 24, mis en ligne le 15 septembre 2008, consulté le 13 juin 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/abstractairanica/24402 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/abstractairanica.24402
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