These were records produced by the operations of a single administrative organization in the years around 500 BC, all strands of a single information system. Most of the Fortification tablets came to the Oriental Institute in 1936, on loan for study and analysis. The results of long, painstaking work—especially the late Richard T. Hallock’s magisterial analysis of 2,087 Elamite texts—were far-reaching. Individually, the documents are mere records of storage and outlays of food, but as a whole, the Persepolis Fortification Archive shows a broader spectrum of Achaemenid Iranian society than any other source, from the lowliest workers to the king’s own family. The PFA has fundamentally changed every aspect of the study of Achaemenid Iranian languages, art, institutions and history.
Mission: 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.