The Persepolis Fortification Archive Project

FAIN: PW-51344-13

University of Chicago (Chicago, IL 60637-5418)
Matthew W. Stolper (Project Director: July 2012 to August 2016)

Cataloging and digitizing ca. 2,000 administrative documents dating around 500 B.C. from Persepolis, the chief imperial residence of the Achaemenid kings in the homeland of the ancient Persian Empire.

Since 2006, the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project has conducted an emergency program to record tens of thousands of clay tablets and fragments with texts in several languages and with the impressions of thousands of seals, a unique archive from the heart of the Achaemenid Persian empire at its zenith, about 500 BC. Access to these tablets in danger because of a lawsuit against the government of Iran; the digital images, catalogs, text editions, and drawings that the Project compiles and distributes online will preserve the archive's contents for scholars and the public in perpetuity.