taxation and death : certainties in the persepolis fortiﬁ ...pcxenophon/tuplin-taxation.pdfthey...

293

Taxation and death : certainties in the Persepolis Fortifi cation Archive ?

Christopher Tuplin, University of Liverpool and GDR 2538 (CNRS)

When this colloquium was announced, I thought it a good chance to revisit some of the evidence about taxation or tribute in the Persepolis Fortifi cation Archive. The words “taxa-tion” and “certainty” having thus come together, the word “death” was inevitably close behind. What follows is a paper of modest intent and outcome — an analogue to the old start-of-session school essay “What I did during my holidays”, the holiday in question here being a period of virtual sojourn in the Persepolis archive. Starting with so much to learn, I have surely succeeded in educating myself — though travel does not always broaden the mind, and prolonged engagement with the Persepolis material can seem more likely to suck it into a black hole — and my best hope is that it may prompt others to continue my education by correcting or developing its contents.

1Death

A very great deal of animal death is implicit in the archive, whether in the context of animal sacrifi ce (cf. Henkelman 2005, 2006 : 169-171 ; 2007 : 21-24) or the slaughter of animals for their hides or as food-supply. There is an occasional note that a ration-receiving animal has died and so not received its full allocation (NN 2007 : a horse dies after only twenty days of 21/4), and similar notes also appear in reference to individual ration-receiv-ing humans (e.g., PF 0975, PF 1957 : 15, 20). In neither case is it very common — perhaps not as common as such events will actually have been : there are limits to the punctilious-ness of the bureaucratic record.

1.1 KurtašA larger issue of human death at the lower end of the status scale has been raised by Aperghis (2000), who paints a picture of the conditions of kurtaš in the Persepolis region according to which inadequate rations systematically caused higher mortality among men than women. This view is based partly on an assessment of the energy value of the ration-levels visible in the texts, partly on the global disparity of adult male and female numbers in the totality of kurtaš groups, and partly on analysis of changes over time in particular worker groups. The fi rst two points are well-taken (ration-levels under-feed men more than women ; and there are more women than men among the kurtaš), but the last introduces a note of perplexity. The examples Aperghis cites do not seem to attest a conspicuously different rate of attrition among men as against women, and a brief (impressionistic) foray into unpublished ration-texts does not suggest that the picture would greatly change if they were taken into account as well. Of course, one would need to do a great deal of

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294 Les archives des Fortifi cations de Persépolis

data- collection and statistical calculation really to get to grips with the issue (and to nail any possibility that the data are skewed by the greater recognisability of groups that are relatively stable in make-up), but it looks to me as though the global disparity of men and women may involve other factors than cynical under-feeding of male workers. Perhaps there were simply more female than male kurtaš to start with — whatever, indeed, one might mean by that “to start with” : when would that be ? There may well have been foreign (never mind local) kurtaš in Persis before Darius’ reign (Henkelman & Kleber 2007), so the system visible at the end of the sixth century in principle has some depth of history behind it. But I balk at a picture in which at one time gender balance had been fairly even but there was then differential attrition until a more steady state was achieved in which (the weak having been weeded out ?) men started to survive the rigours of kurtaš-work rather more successfully. The view that Aperghis is arguing — that kurtaš resembled slaves more than they resembled any other category — is not in itself objectionable but I have an uneasy sense that the attempt to produce a “scientifi c” demonstration thereof is in part specious.

1.2 OfficialsFrom the life-experience of kurtaš let us move up the scale to offi cials in the bureaucracy. They too are mortal, and three die in front of us in Persepolis texts. First, Aštiya, a store-keeper at Udarakka (or somewhere within its accounting area), who met his end in Darius year 18 (504/3). He does not recur in the archive and little more can be said about him. We might, however, propose a new reading of a phrase in the relevant text (PF 1978). In Hallock 1969 we read that Aštiya died “and his herd was mini” (aše mini šari). MI is writ-ten over an erasure. Perhaps the correction was itself incorrect and the intended reading was aše inni šari, lit. “and his herd was not” — a phrase found in NN 0776, another text dealing with the consequences of the death of an offi cial to which we shall come shortly. The precise import is less than perspicuous in context (where it is surrounded by a report of the sut transaction carried out by Aštiya’s successor Battiš), but no more so than on Hallock’s reading.

Next, NN 0548 reports that one Parnadadda (“probably an accountant or auditor” : Henkelman 2006 : 82 n. 173) took material relating to the wine account for Dakamanuš carried out in year 17 but then died “and his tablets and sealed documents are not extant” — despite which the text has already supplied an apparently unexceptionable report of wine-expenditure 1. Perhaps the data were recovered from Kampiya, the offi cial who actu-ally did the account. The name Parnadadda reappears at least 14 times in the archive, but none of these occurrences can refer to our man, since all but one certainly date from Year 19 (503/2) or later and there is no particular reason to put the undated item in or before year 17 2. At the same time, if we did not know that our Parnadadda was dead,

1 Absence of sealed documents is noted in various texts in the archive, sometimes (e.g., PF 1988 : 20 ;

NN 0546, NN 0573) but not always (e.g., PF 1957 : 37f, NN 2271 : 10f ) without perceptible

effect upon due completion of the account process.

2 It is a grain supply text similar in type, though not in seal use or prosopography, to Parnadadda texts

from years 24 and 25.


295C. J. Tuplin . Taxation and death

we could have no way of being sure he was not to be identifi ed with one or more of his homonyms.

The third death, that of Mauparna, the storekeeper at Dazzarakka (also attested in NN 2263, an account for years 14-17), generates two surviving texts. One (PF 1974) is fairly lucid :

The account was made (at) the fortress named Aškamanta for Years 18 and 19. Mauparna,

storekeeper at Dazzarakka, for year 18 withdrew 655.5 qts. From the offi cials(?) (taššup) he

did not collect(?) anything (taššupikmar inni pirru šarašda). Mauparna died and did not keep

his share/possession (aše inni kitiš) 3. And for the 19th year Nuttima and Makuš, a total of

2 storekeepers, withdrew 1,495 qts. From the offi cials(?) they did not collect(?) anything.

With the balance they did not make sut.

The other (NN 0776), an “account made at Dazzarakka the fortress for Years 18 and 19”, is less so, in part because of damage to the tablet (see the annotations below, immediately after the summary that follows).

For the 18th year Mauparna the storekeeper withdrew 1,920 (qts.) of grain. He did not col-

lect anything from the offi cials [1]. He died and aš appini inni šari [2]. In Year 19 Nutina and

Mi ?-x-x (presumably Makuš), a total of two storekeepers, withdrew 3,720 ? (qts.) of grain [3].

From the offi cials [they did not collect anything]… Afterwards 300 (qts.) of grain … upon

(ukku) [4] … he/they made sut. Then … 1 male […] [5], the payment being 2200+ (qts.) of

grain. [6] Balance 1,200 ? (qts.) [grain]. [7] (With) the balance they did not make sut. 300 (qts.)

of grain was entrusted [8] to Mannanda the tumara and the … [9] was given to Amparza the

wine-handler. It was ordered by the King.

1. The same phrase occurs in PF 1974 of Mauparna, but is also applied to his successors and to

other offi cials in PF 1975 and PF 1976 (and a similar phrase, “they did not retain anything

from the offi cials”, occurs in PF 1973 and PF 1977) ; so (pace Koch 1980 : 125) it has no

intrinsic connection with Mauparna’s death (all of these texts relate to places described as

fortresses : can this be more than coincidence ?). It also occurs both in cases where sut does

not follow and in cases where it does.

2. “their share/possession is not extant”, with šari as an equivalent of kiti-, “preserve”, as in PF 1974 :

9 (above) or PF 1980 : 17 (of Zizza), where we have aš inni kitiš appa sut hudamanra = “did

not keep that (with which) he were to make sut”. Statements of the form “they did not keep

that (with which) they were to make sut” appear often (PF 1972, PF 1980 : 28-31, PF 1986 :

27-29, PF 2078 : 9-14, NN 0704 : 12f, NN 1015, NN 2289 : 11f, 20f, NN 2266, NN 2355 : 8f, 17f ).

3. 3720 ? can = 300 + 1200 ? + 2200 ? (the three fi gures appearing immediately afterwards) ; that

would resembles the maths of e.g., PF 1977, except for the 300.

4. Is this a remnant of some statement about that “with” or “upon” (ukku) which the sut was made ?

For other cases where ukku occurs in close proximity to sut cf. NN 2189 : 44 and (esp.)

3 Hallock’s translation of this phrase was “did not expend (the grain for) his herd”. Wouter Henkelman

advises me that he would prefer this alternative translation : cf. Hinz & Koch 1987 : 84,

489-490.



PF 1987 : 30f. Slightly different is NN 2364 : 28, where 60 marriš GEŠTIN.lg h.Anturma m.Bakabada 1 m.ukku MUNUS.lg sut huka (? hutaš) perhaps means “600 qts. of wine (at)

Anturma, on the conto of 1 (man), Bakabada, (with which) a woman was acquired (?) (by)

sut”.

5. Hallock restored ANŠE.lg = “ass”, a type of animal found not uncommonly in sut transactions.

6. One expects “they made sut for 1 male ass, the payment being...” : cf. PF 1977 : 7f, PF 1980 :

25f. But the placing of “then” (m[e¿-ni¿..]) seems wrong.

7. Here we might expect “(as) balance 1200 ? grain was withdrawn” cf. e.g., PF 1977 : 9f,

NN 22848. Compare PF 1979, where grain is entrusted to the tumara Ukšušturra and fruit to the assistant

fruit-handler Maraza, and NN 2289 : 26f, where grain is entrusted to Zaduš the tumara.

In PF 1979 there is no clear sign of the commodity for which one expects the grain or fruit

to be exchanged, whereas in NN 2289 the grain has been exchanged for fruit. Elsewhere

(PF 1976-78, PF 1980, PF 1987 : 33, NN 0704, NN 2284, NN 2289 : 15f ) animal(s) involved

in a sut-exchange are entrusted to named individuals (Bakaparna ; Annamasa the horse-mas-

ter ; Ramašda the herdsman), and this must be part of the reason for Hallock’s introduc-

tion of an ass into the story. But what is going on is not entirely clear or perhaps entirely

standard.

9. f.UG(?)[.x] is the reading ; Hallock annotates “ANŠE.lg ? not f.li- cf. NN 2355” (for the signifi -

cance of the latter part see below). He had restored ANŠE = ass in line 15 (cf. [5] above).

Evidently the course of events following Mauparna’s death differed at Aškamanta and Dazzarakka, but it is hard to see that his death has in itself been particularly disrup-tive : inclarities in NN 0776 are due to tablet-damage (and sloppy drafting ?) rather than to events being unusual because of the storekeeper’s demise 4. The most startling thing is the sudden statement at the end about something being given to Ampirza the wine-carrier and the worst inclarity the relation between this and the sut operations in the second half of the text. I cannot see that these arise because of Mauparna’s death, but they are inter-esting in their own right, not least because they can and should be taken together with a text (NN 2355) noted in Henkelman 2005 : 151f, the content of which may be rendered as follows :

(1-11) Account of years 18, 19 was made at the village of Putinumanda. Raddukka the tumara

took pirtuka. The account was made. 870 qts. of grain he withdrew. Then they did not

expend it for what they were to make sut. Then 145 šaumarraš were brought in. And again

at that village Rakkakdu the wine-handler took wine (as) pirtuka. Then the account was

made.

(11-17) 1820 qts. of wine were withdrawn. Then sut was made for one slave-girl of prime

quality in the royal domain ; subsequently that slave-girl was given to Ampirza the wine-han-

dler ; it was ordered by the King. 180 of wine is the (her) price for which sut was made.

4 Only three deaths are noted (none after year 18) : the system could handle these things without the

need of much commentary.



(17-20) A balance of 2 marriš of wine was withdrawn. They did not expend it for what they

were to make sut. Then 10 šaumarraš were brought in.

As we have seen (cf. above, note 9 to NN 0776) Hallock noted that NN 0776 cannot naturally be read as referring to a female slave, so it looks as though Ampirza (or Amparza) was getting more than one sort of gift on the orders of the King at much the same time (the date horizon of NN 0776 and NN 2355 is exactly the same), though from (or charged against the account of ) different places 5. The slave-girl is said to come from the royal domain (ulhi) : no such statement appears in NN 0776, so NN 2355 technically remains an “exceptional” (Henkelman 2005 : 152), if not unique, example of transfer between royal and general domain. But I wonder if it is not likely that something similar is happening in NN 0776 : the failure to specify may be just another sign that we are dealing with a document that is not very-well drafted. It is tantalizing that damage to NN 0776 denies us a clear sight of what Ampirza was being given or exactly where it comes from. The mismatch between description of the missing item in line 15 as “male” and the deter-minative in f.UG(?)[.x] adds to the perplexity. Nor, of course, is there any way of know-ing what Ampirza (who does not re-appear in the archive) had done to merit receipt of these things. Perhaps we should not too readily assume that we are here in the territory of royal gift-giving in a heavily loaded sense of the term. Explicit royal orders do not appear often in the Persepolis texts, but the special circumstances that cause it to happen are not uniform and when (for example) rations are issued to ripi-kutip, “lance bearers” (PF 1247) or “those writing the people 6” or “Babylonians who are removing the dead” (PF 1856 7) or people connected with religious ceremonies 8, although the activities of the recipients may for some reason be of special interest to the king (as were the food supplies of his wife : PF 1795, Fort. 6764), we are nonetheless still in essentially bureaucratic territory. Other orders sound pretty mundane (PF 1829, NN 0374, NN 1528), the apparent instruc-tion to some “road-counters” to await the King’s arrival at Hadaran (PFa 30) seems not much less so, and even in PF 2071, an unusual and therefore opaque letter order in which it is apparently claimed that certain people have gone against the orders of the King, we seem to be witnessing a turf-war among administrators. So, returning to NN 0776 and NN 2355, perhaps the king’s role merely refl ects the fact that the royal domain happened to be involved in a transaction designed to provide Ampirza with things he required for the effi cient performance of his job. The presence of royal orders does not prove the conscious personal involvement of the king any more than PF 0692 implies that the King personally took the halter of an ox at Anzamannakka 9.

5 Putinumanda does not seem to recur in the archive. — The word translated “slave-girl” is f.li-ba-um-

me, which literally signifi es “(female) service”.

6 PF 1620, Fort. 3562, with Stolper 1977 : 263.

7 Hinz & Koch 1987 : 1.504 (s.v. ku-ir-ma) for some reason link this with the burning of those who

had died from plague.

8 PF 1827, NN 0087 with Henkelman 2007 : 30, 73 (for “royal rations” for lan cf. PF 0753, NN 0556

with Henkelman 2006 : 164).

9 In texts other than letter orders that mention the king he appears (broadly speaking) as the end- or

start-point of journeys, the issuer of sealed documents, the recipient of foodstuffs (very often

in J-texts or in connection with ukpiyataš = huthut [cf. p. 29], but also in other contexts) and



1.3 Funeral monumentsProbably the most remarkable linkage of death with the Persepolis material in recent scholarship is Wouter Henkelman’s demonstration that the archive contains a number of references to funeral monuments (šumar) for deceased members of the Achaemenid royal family. This prompts a number of observations.

First, Ctesias reports that the eunuch Bagapates took Cyrus’ body to Persia for burial (Ctesias 688 F13 [9]) and nearly 30 years later died himself, “having sat at the tomb of Darius for seven years” (Ctesias 688 F13 [23]). Henkelman (2003 : 156) notes other cases in Ctesias of the transport of royal corpses by so-called “eunuchs”, infers from this and the Persepolis texts a general principle that royal tombs were in the care of by high offi cials, and wonders whether the Bakabadda attested in the archive in 503-501 in connection with the funerary monuments at Narezzaš of Cambyses, Phaedyme and an unknown prince called Zišunduš might actually be identical with Ctesias’ Bagapates. This is extraordinarily tempting, of course, especially since (a) lipte kutira = vaçabara (Akk. ustarbaru) are identi-fi ed as a category of people concerned with the guarding of šumar, (b) ustarbaru is the Akkadian successor to the term ša r™ši (Jursa [forthc.]) and (c) the link between sa r™ši (long associated with eunuchs in modern scholarship) and castration remains an open ques-tion 10 — all of which means that the prominent “eunuchs” in Ctesias need not be castrati and that Bagapates could be one of them. Very properly, Henkelman counsels caution, and it is true that the name was probably quite common (it is unlikely, for example, that all its occurrences in the Persepolis archive refer to a single person). But I think we are entitled to look at the problem from the other end. It is, of course, theoretically entirely possible that there was a Bakabadda looking after funerary monuments in Narrezaš in 503-501 and an entirely different one looking after Darius’ tomb in 488-481. But why should we multiply entities like that ? Henkelman observes that Ctesias is “notorious for mixing up and inventing quasi-Persian names” and that his statement that Bagapates sat beside (i.e. was responsible for) Darius’ tomb cannot therefore be relied upon very heavily. But on the face of it the archive material provides some sort of reason for not taking that line in this case. It is, perhaps, another matter whether Ctesias was right to identify (as he presumably did) Bagapates the tomb-guardian with the Bagapates to whom he ascribes a role in the rise and fall of Pseudo-Smerdis (688 F13 [15-16]) — but we should be wary of concluding that this Bagapates’ absence in Herodotus shows that he is not part of a genuine tradition (whether accurate or not).

Another thing that Ctesias tells us (688 F13 [19]) is that Darius’ parents were killed in an accident while visiting the site at which his tomb was being constructed. Henkelman argues that Hystaspes died in 500/499 but that the tomb was not fi nished until at least 494/3, that being the date from which Aspathines, depicted on the facade of the tomb, had the title “garment-bearer” (grand chamberlain) with which he is credited by the adjacent inscription. Since Ctesias does not imply that the tomb was completed at the

as a label for a variety of “royal” people (individuals or groups), places (estates, storehouses and

the like), animals (cattle and equids) and commodities (for fruit and tarmu cf. below n. 129). I

do not think any of this material greatly affects the picture.

10 Pirngruber [forthc.] argues that the term never has to connote “castrated person” in fi rst millennium

texts, but doubts remain. (I am grateful to Karen Radner for her help on this issue.)



time of the accident, this result is consistent with his story, provided that construction of the monument extended over at least fi ve years — which is not too unreasonable : at any rate, the facade decoration (including Aspathines) would be the fi nal element (perhaps always meant to be reserved for post mortem execution ?), while the creation of the rock-cut chamber was a novelty in royal tomb-construction and perhaps warranted a visit from Hystaspes and his wife in itself, especially if two of the burial-spaces inside the chamber were intended for them (Jacobs [forthc]).

Two other chronological matters still require comment. First, in Ctesias’ (sum-marized) narrative the accident at the tomb comes immediately after the story of Darius’ accession, some two decades before his father’s presumed death in 500/499. Has Ctesias, then, made a mistake in implying a much earlier date for that sad event ? I think not, because I do not think we should necessarily conclude he meant the date to be early. The remnants of his treatment of Darius’ reign are sparse and, apart from the story of the acci-dent at the tomb, consist of an account of the Scythian Expedition and of Datis’ attack on Greece. This account seems to treat the two episodes as a continuous whole, since Datis makes for Greece “on his return from Pontus” and Darius either remains in the west until after Datis’ defeat or at any rate returns to Persia while Datis attacks Greece. The period of some 15 years in traditional chronology between Scythia and Marathon thus appears to be elided. I do not propose to defend such an elision as a matter of fact, but as a matter of literary organisation it means that we can either see the tomb accident as something for which the terminus ante quem is in effect only a date in the 490s or suppose that its location in the text was in any case thematic not chronological, linked by the shared pres-ence of priests (and their death) to the immediately preceding succinct allusion to the magophonia.

Second, Henkelman speculates that the stone platform between Persepolis and Naqš-i Rustam known as Takht-i Rustam, often regarded as an aborted tomb for Cambyses or Smerdis, should actually be seen as the completed tomb of Hystaspes and his wife (2003 : 158), since its core contains a double-grave. But this does create a chronological issue, since (as Henkelman notes) the construction of Takht-i Rustam has been placed early in Darius’ reign on the basis of tool-marks and clamp types. Of course, Hystaspes’ tomb (with space for his wife ?) may have been planned two decades ahead of it actual use. Or was the platform (abandoned 20 years earlier) pressed into service when Hystaspes and his wife died suddenly and together ? (That would involve rejecting Jacobs’s view about the use of the nine burial places inside Darius’ tomb-chamber.) I am not sure of the answer, but there is a slight loose-end here in Henkelman’s magisterial treatment of the monuments of death and their presence in the Persepolis archive.

There is also a more general observation to be made. If it is true that royal funer-ary monuments are to be found in the Archive and that they were the scene of religious ceremonies, what emerges is reminiscent enough of what the Alexander historians say about Cyrus’ tomb for us to feel we have two quite different types of source casting fi tful light on versions of a single institution at 150 years remove from one another. A parallel for this might be royal nomadism (Tuplin 1998a). Greek sources agree the king travelled round his capitals but disagree about details, save that summer was spent in Media. Non-Persepolis documents may support one Greek version, though not decisively. Persepolis documents do not produce uniform results but are consistent with summer in Media, and



do not preclude a long-term nomadic pattern. It and the Greek evidence could be seen as different types of snapshot, over 100 years apart, of broadly the same (perhaps not entirely unchanging) scene. Another example is afforded by the various partial overlaps between Herodotus, Curtius and Xenophon on royal processions and their more shadowy relation-ship to Persepolitan iconography. The relation of the latter to “real” events is debated (with admittedly only tangential intrusions from the Fortifi cation archive), but we certainly have a nexus of disparate sources which justifi es belief in processions as a feature of royal self-representation. If in all these cases we are tempted to feel that Persepolitan material is particularly exciting when and because it interacts with categorically distinct Greek material we should not criticize ourselves for Hellenocentrism but celebrate the diversity of source-material available to the Achaemenid historian.

1.4 The nature of the archiveFinally, in pursuit of death, we come to the “death” of the archive itself. Or do we ? What is the status of the documentation of which the readable texts are our only surviving evidence ? Henkelman has dealt with this question too (2006 : 105-111), and concludes that the archive is neither dead nor alive but dormant. The suggestion is that something occurred in years 23-24 or shortly thereafter that impeded normal processes, with the result that a large back-log of memoranda built up for years 21-24, and especially 22-23. In the context of the bureaucratic operation as a whole this was an administrative blip rather than a major system failure, so things went on as usual for a time in the expectation that the back-log would be dealt with. Eventually, however, it became clear that the back-log would not be dealt with in the ordinary course of events, and what had been a live archive turned dormant. This, at least, is (I think) what is suggested.

The essential datum at the bottom of all this is that dated Fortifi cation texts are not evenly distributed over the time frame that they represent. The archive as a whole and each of the constituent broad categories (memoranda, letters, journals, accounts and so forth) displays a parabolic distribution, the only difference being the shape of the parabola and the date horizon of the peak (letter orders actually have two peaks). A notable fact is that the peak for accounts is earlier than that for journals which in turn is earlier than that for memoranda. Since memoranda were used to create journals and journals were used to create accounts there is a logic in this (the more accounts, the fewer journals and memoranda because the latter will be discarded once their data have informed the fi nal accounting), and everything would be (reasonably) fi ne if the latest archival date horizon corresponded to the peak of memoranda : we should have a live archive in which the journaling-accounting process (a) had never resulted in the complete disappearance of all memoranda and non-account documents (hence the existence of memoranda from early years — there is an irreducible level of “non-weeding”) and (b) had so far had little on the memoranda from the most recent years 11. But that is not what we have — and so a special explanation is needed.

11 Actually, there would still be a slight problem about the record of Accounts. In theory the live

archive should display a steady number of accounts year by year — representing a completed

accounting process — with a decline recently. It is postulated elsewhere (2006 : 83) that ac-

counting could be been done on an annual, biennial or triennial cycle, so theoretically the



The explanation on offer is seductive, though the insistence that it is a blip not a major crisis prevents one from telling stories about the problem in 501-498 being an epi-phenomenon of the abortion of plans for conquest of Greece by the outbreak of rebellion in Anatolia… (now that would be Hellenocentrism). But — as an explanation of the data as they stand — it leaves me uneasy. The essential problem is this : if the explanation were correct and if it is being assumed that the numbers of memoranda surviving for years 25-28 represent an “ordinary” degree of non-weeding, there ought to be more journals and accounts from the years after 22. Even allowing for up to triennial account cycles, if the system was running properly again in Years 25-27, more than 2 journals should surely have been created by Year 28 for years 25-26. Journal and account production should dip for the years that ought to have been fed by memoranda for 21-24, and then improve again : but that is not the shape of the material. Everything tails off after year 24 at the latest (memoranda) and the process has already started for journals and accounts in years 22 and 20. Either the writing and weeding of memoranda and letters continued in years 25-28 as it had done before years 21-24, but the journaling and accounting process produced docu-ments that did not join this archive because they were put somewhere different (literally in a different offi ce or metaphorically in the sense of having been written of parchment not clay or indeed both) or the whole process of feeding the archive (with all categories of document) was winding down. What we would have in that case might well be seen as a dead archive — one whose death throes can still be observed — not a merely dormant one. We could still, of course, believe that some sort of glitch in years 21-24 had a bearing on later decisions that produced the phenomena as we now see them.

If Henkelman’s explanation does not work (and in formulating thoughts on the matter at all I feel more than usually queasily conscious of Hallock’s famous aphorism about seal usage), three options remain : (a) to discover some other substantive explanation of the existing data ; (b) to concede that such a variety of interlocking factors are at work that we are not in a position to disentangle them ; or (c) to abandon a key assumption of Henkelman’s analysis — viz that the date-profi le of the surviving texts refl ects the date-pro-fi le of the entire archive of which they are the remnant — and to suppose that the uneven date distribution is an artefact either of a method of storage that exposed some dates to more destruction than others (and dates before 13 to complete destruction) or of a history of damage, recovery and publication that privileged texts in categories other than V and W. The diffi culty of satisfying option (a) and the unattractiveness of option (b) perhaps turn the diffi culties in Henkelman’s analysis as it now stands into an argument in favour of option (c) that carries force in its own right alongside the observations and calculations of Jones and Stolper elsewhere in this volume.

accounting process would not be complete for any year more recent than the fourth previous

one (X-4). The steady number would stop at X-4 and total would decline through X-3, X-2

and X-1, and there would be none for X. But there is no part of the date profi le of accounts

that fi ts that system. Were Accounts gradually removed from the archive to another place (or

destroyed) when a suffi cient number of later accounts for the same place and commodity had

been completed ?



2 Taxation

There are two ways to investigate taxation in the Fortifi cation archive : one is to fi nd and follow words that (might) mean or denote “tax” or “tribute”, the other is to speculate about the processes which brought commodities into the system (so that offi cials can then move them around in various ways). What follows cannot claim to be a systematic treatment of either approach.

2.1 BazišA total of 31 texts use the word baziš, an Elamite equivalent of OP baji-, the word used in royal inscriptions for (what is normally translated as) “tribute” 12. This total of 31 includes 5 texts in which baziš is said to be transported from one place to another, and three in which it appears as part of the occupational designation “baziš-handlers 13”.

Nearly half of the attestations come in C4-category texts dealing with animals “as baziš 14”. There is a further immediate connection between these texts and three W-texts providing accounts of small cattle (received as) baziš. All dated C4 texts seem to belong before year 20 15, they often bear seals associated with Parnaka 16, and some have letter-style colophons 17, another (related) sign that this category of commodity is of some special interest to the highest echelon of the administration 18. There is no prosopographical link

12 See Appendix.

13 Bazika in NN 2039, where it is used of totals of goats, clearly belongs with baziš (Hinz interpreted

it as “zur Viehsteuer gehörig”), but I have nothing more to say of it. Other words etymologically

related to baziš will be noted in due course.

14 Henkelman 2006 : 12 n. 7 ponders an analogy with Babylonian Ωibtu, a levy on temple livestock.

Ωibtu-animals were used for offerings on behalf of the King, whereas the immediate destinations

of baziš-animals seem more varied (see below). Evidence about Ωibtu is sparse, so it is hard for

the comparison to cast much light. See Bongenaar 1997 : 101, 112, 138, 142, Dandamaev 2000.

Sources for the tax (as distinct from references to the rab Ωibti) include YOS 6.130, CT 22.80,

55.567, Cyr.27, TCL 12.123. At fi rst sight CT 22.80 suggests that Iddin-Marduk is subject to Ωibtu

(the writer promises to arrange things so the rab Ωibti does not bother Iddin-Marduk about the

Ωibtu between the two canals), but his engagement with the matter may be indirect. Incidentally,

the report of the contents of CT 22.80 in Abraham 2004 : 128 n. 510 is quite incorrect : she

appears to have confused it with CT 22.43, having mis-read Wunsch 1993 : 1.47.

15 The same goes for two account-of-animals-as-tax texts that bear dates (PF 2008, NN 2678), and

indeed (I think) for all texts that unambiguously refer to animal-baziš. It also applies to a series

of account texts about animals that do not use the term baziš (PF 2009, PF 2010, NN 1480,

NN 2042, NN 2189, NN 2287, NN 2288, NN 2295).

16 PF 0267, PF 0268, PF 0273, PF 02025, NN 0102, NN 0768, NN 1186, NN 1759.

17 PF 0268, PF 02025, NN 0768, NN 1186, NN 1759.

18 Outside letters (T-texts), colophons characteristically occur in H-texts (dealing with receipts by high

offi cials) and in texts clearly linked to Parnaka or Ziššawiš. — There is also a letter, PF 2070,

relating to the activity of tax-handlers (see below). It is one of 11 letters on rectangular tablets



between C4 kurmins 19 and the bazikara-offi cials (of whom more later) 20. The numbers of animals in C4-texts are sometimes quite large 21, and their destinations vary, viz store-house, royal domain, hide-making. As to the last point, there is a sub-category of B texts that deals with supply and slaughter of animals to produce hides, but in the published Fortifi cation texts in Hallock 1969 there is never (I think) an explicit link between this and baziš-animals. That link is supplied from one direction by NN 0167, NN 1628 and NN 2159, and from the other by NN 0880. This latter (date 20/- ; no legible seals) relates to two large batches of hides. The fi rst was received, though exactly what happens to it is slightly obscure (the text is not well articulated) : a possible translation runs thus :

426 hides in the 20th year, Manuka received ; to Makaširiya, the woman Udarakka (and)

Šandupirzana ra¿-na¿ he entrusted (at) Šašukana. The hides are for Naphu (at) Anšar to

be apportioned ?

The second batch is apparently described as consisting of damaged items that had not been received. “Then, 828 which he did not receive were bad, it was said”. The text ends “they had brought as baziš”, referring (presumably) to both sets. NN 0880 is unlike the 42 standard (B-category) hide-texts not only in using the term baziš but also in the numbers involved : standard texts deal with the delivery of relatively small number of hides or of animals which are then slaughtered for their hides (the eventual destination being the treasury), and the largest groups — by some way — are 91 in NN 0617 and 102 in PF 0075, whereas the two batches in NN 0880 consist of 426 and 828 hides respectively. Something unusual is going on here, but the C4 hides texts already suggest that the baziš status of the animals need not be part of what is unusual.

The four texts dealing with baziš-handlers are rather disparate.

(PF 1856-1860, PF 2070-2071, PFa 28, NN 0394 and two others) : all have unusual contents,

and seven (the only such) do not deal with food transfers.

19 The word seems to point to commodities being entrusted to, rather than allocated by, suppliers

in these texts, judging from the fact that it is sometimes replaced by PN (= supplier) kurmaka,

“allocated to PN”. The connection in the role of Makama between PF 2025 and C4-768 sug-

gests the same.

20 There are nine kurmin names (one, Makama, appears as son of Wuntiš, son of Nappunda, and

without patronymic). Two names are damaged and one is otherwise absent from the archive.

Of the remaining six, Appišiyatiš (attested elsewhere once as a C1 account-holder) and Umizza

have no other animal connection (unless the Hiumizza associated with horses in a number

of S1 and T documents is relevant ; the form Umizza is otherwise unattested). The other four

are the names of animal kurmins or (in the case of Umakka) an animal storekeeper (techni-

cally we cannot be sure that both Makama, son of Wuntiš, and Makama, son of Nappunda,

are relevantly attested). There is only slight and insignifi cant attestation of the four names in

non-animal-related roles.

21 NN 1186 relates to a group of 563 sheep. PF 2025 has 574 animals. The two largest C4 groups in

PFT are 476 (PF 2067) and 382 (PF 0268), both (like NN 1186) with a Parnaka seal (9). The

other two large items in PFT (C4) are 241 and 239 animals (PF 0269-0270) with seal 244 (also

NN 2302).



PF 2070 (a letter addressed to Parnaka) inter-relates with the content of PF 2025, and the two together have least two aspects of interest. First, they show that a group of people at Hiran provided 48 head of cattle in two successive years, perhaps because this was a fi xed tax-quota. Those 48 animals go to a royal herdsman. Briant 2002 : 466 infers that less than 10% of the animal baziš went to the royal domain, but that claim has to be set against the fact that the whole group of 574 of which the 48 are part in PF 2025 is described as baziš of the king. Of course, the king was no doubt at liberty to allow his baziš to go where he chose. I shall come back to this briefl y later on.

The two texts also show that so-called baziš-handlers can be people connected with the animal baziš, but their precise role in the story of PF 2025 + PF 2070 is not made explicit : Herrenschmidt 1989 : 110f believed they actually selected the animals from those supplying them, but did not explain why PF 2070 twice speaks of them being sent to Parnaka. In our next text NN 2616 the term is used of a group of 71 mixed-gender-and-age Skudrian kurtaš at Baktiš in year 22, who were certainly something different from the relatively authoritative persons imagined by Herrenschmidt. Of course, that is not impossible : the Skudrians may be “tax-handlers” because they do work to assist higher status tax-handlers 22. There is no proof that they are concerned with animals — or that they are not. A fourth text, PF 1065, reveals a single anonymous tax handler receiving beer from Irtuppiya in an unknown year : this is a person of at least some status (Koch 1989 :122 - “eine gehobenere Position...aber keine ausgesprochen hohe”) : again nothing can be said about his connection with animals.

Next, the transporting of baziš. Five texts are involved, one an A-text, the rest Q-texts (i.e. travel documents), from dates in years 21-23. None as it stands is explicitly about animals. The A-text (57) refers to 4 items or measures of an unidentifi ed commodity as tax being taken from Maturban to Susa. Hallock assumed them to be UDU.NITÁ.lg (small cattle) because that is the normal association of the word baziš — perhaps with a slight danger of petitio principii. The four Q-texts (PF 1495, NN 1898, NN 2149, NN 2580) involve transport of baziš (in two cases labeled as “of Udana” and “of Humana” respec-tively) over sometimes long distances (Barrikana or Arachosia to Susa in the same two cases). Just two different people are named as responsible for the transport, Miššabadda (in the cases of baziš of PN) and Bakadadda (in the other cases). It is possible that Bakadadda might be associated with homonyms attested variously as “horseman”, “lance-bearer” and investigator (cf. Henkelman 2002 : 27, 2003 : 164) — a person of some offi cial status, therefore. The possible extension of baziš beyond animals becomes a real issue here : otherwise we shall have to imagine Miššabadda driving a herd of sheep and goats from Arachosia to Susa. That being so, I suggest that we do not over-hastily write sheep into PF 0057 either.

The possibility of associating transported baziš with something other than animals prompts mention of two further pairs of texts in which the word baziš does not appear.

Henkelman 2003 : 133 has re-interpreted PFa 14 as the record of boys being brought (as a sort of tribute, one might say) from Kerman to Susa by a treasury master. This is a tempting reading, not least because PFa 14 as read by Hallock would provide a unique example of co-operation between (the) Abbamuš and Irtašduna in the shape of a joint

22 One may compare the small group of kurtaš bazikara in PT 041 (Xerxes year 19).



already-extant group of “boys of Abbamuš and Irtašduna” : normally the two royal ladies have quite different work profi les (Brosius 1996 : 126f ) 23. The same re-interpretation could and presumably should apply to NN 0809, giving us Hindukka the treasury-master bring-ing boys from Kurman to Susa in the fi nal month of year 22. Here, too, there is a royal connection : in PF 1377, which relates to the same travellers later on their journey (the date is the fi rst month of year 23), the boys are described as “of Bagiya”, a high-ranking member of the royal family (Henkelman 2003 : 133) 24.

The other pair of texts refers, rather more banally, to silver (PF 1342 : year 22) or Babylonian treasure (PF 1357 : year 23 ?) being brought to Matezziš and Persepolis respec-tively. Two interesting prosopographic links present themselves. One is relatively straight-forward. Manuya, the treasurer carrying silver in PF 1342, is homonymous with someone attested in year 19 (PF 1942) as a bazikara — a title clearly connected with baziš (cf. below p. 21). The other is slightly more complicated. Batteša, who receives fl our in PF 1357 while carrying Babylonian treasure, shares his name with an individual encountered in PF 1942 (year 19 : month 12) and NN 1656 (year lost : month 1). In the fi rst of these texts he is des-ignated dasaziya, is travelling with ber horses from the King (by whom he is assigned and from whom he has a sealed document) to a person whose name is lost, and receives rations for 40 gentlemen, 11 boys and 5 horses. In the other text he appears to receive rations for 11 “royal dasaziyaš horses” (11 ANŠE.KUR.RA.lg dasaziyaš m.sunkina) as well as 8 horsemen and 22 boys. Here too he is carrying a royal sealed document, and this time is travelling from Susa to Persepolis. It seems highly unlikely that these two texts are not dealing with the same individual engaged in a similar task, but it is at fi rst sight rather disconcerting that the term dasaziya(š) is applied in one case to the man and in the other to his horses. Hinz & Koch 1987 : 294 interpreted dasaziya as “Zehnten-Einheber(?)” (tithe-collector) and dealt with NN 1656 by understanding the text to mean that Batteša was receiving rations for “11 Pferden [sowie] Zehten-Einhebern(?) des Königs” (sc. the 8 horsemen and 22 boys), while Koch 1989 : 123 took it that the horses in both texts constituted a form of “Tribut- oder Steuerabgabe”. The insertion of a connective between ANŠE.KUR.RA.lg and dasaziyaš might be thought a trifl e arbitrary, and Wouter Henkelman has suggested to me a couple of alternative ways of dealing with NN 1656, both of which would make the horses’ status as tithe-levies (even tithe-baziš) quite explicit 25. Since Greek sources reveal that horses would be a form of phoros or dasmos and the Apadana offerings include

23 Another quasi-exception might be NN 2657, an undated text in which (according to a summary by

David Lewis) 216 boys of (the woman) Irdubama are go from Mataš (pres. Media) to Persepolis

under a sealed document of Irtašduna. I do not have a copy of the Hallock transcript so cannot

check the female determinative in front of Irdubama. Elsewhere “Irdubama” is generally male.

Oddly Irtašduna here has a male determinative, if Lewis’s summary is reliable.

24 Further references to the group appear in PF 1399 (23/1) and NN 2139 (at Mištukraš as in

PFa 14).

25 Dasaziya might be a contraction of *datha-bajiya, i.e. “pertaining to tithe-baziš”, giving “horses as

tithe-baziš”. Or it might be a hybrid verb *dasa-ziya, i.e. “he saw/inspected/selected as a tithe”,

giving “horses (that) he selected as a tithe for the king”. On the face of it the fi rst explanation

has the advantage of being reasonably straightforwardly applicable to PF 1942 as well : Batteša

pertains to the tithe as (presumably) a collector thereof, the horses as its objects.



horses, these approaches are plainly tempting. But, if so and if (as is also plainly tempt-ing) we identify this Batteša with the man in PF 1357, it will hardly seem likely that the “Babylonian treasure” of the latter document consisted of horses. What it did consist of we cannot tell. Koch claims that the smallness of the group involved shows how safe the roads were assumed to be and that what was carried was something highly attractive to thieves such as silver, but that need not be the case. We might recall another category of treasury- and tax-related objects making a long journey to the imperial heartland, viz the green stone vessels 26.

One fi nal observation about the texts dealing with transport of baziš, boys, silver or treasure is that they display a strong association with the turn of year : of the six relevant texts that have accurate dates, fi ve belong in months 12 or 1 27. The same phenomenon extends to 1942 : 19-20 and NN 1656, the texts using the term dasaziya, which date to months 12 and 1 respectively.

From these variously interesting texts let us return to baziš and to further questions about the uniqueness of its link with animals. First, let us note three words of which -baziš is merely a part.

(1) Turnabaziš is the name of month 5, and has been interpreted as an allusion to harvest-share (e.g., Briant 2002 : 470) or harvest-tax (Tavernier 2007 : 452, after Schmitt 2003 : 48-49). That is no doubt correct but, since we are presumably dealing with a tradi-tional name, it establishes little about Achaemenid taxation as such.

(2) Batibaziš occurs once in a wine journal (NN 2268), where it appears against a sum in the fi nal line that is part, together with other specifi ed income(?) from named sources, of the total on hand in Year 23. Koch 1989 : 124 took this to be a wine-tax.

(3) Four account texts refer to irišdabaziš- or rušdabaziš-people, terms that are clearly synonymous and refl ect Old Persian *rštabajiš (Tavernier 2007 : 430). Three of the texts are grain accounts and quite closely parallel. In PF 1968 a quantity of grain goes to the rušdabaziš-persons ; after this, the total left is divided between “retained” which becomes part of what is provided (for provisions) in Year 13 and “withdrawn”. The starting total was described as “deposited to their (accounts) [ukkap daka] and they were retaining it”. This total is 390, and the rušdabaziš-persons’ fi gure is 17.3333 or 4.4444%. NN 2665 is similar, but the total is 160 irtiba, and the irišdabaziš-persons’ fi gure 28.3333 or 17.7%. In NN 2663 the opening is again exactly parallel to PF 1968, but, by contrast with that text, there are retained and withdrawn fi gures for each of years 14-17 (whereas 1968 only relates to one year). The total is 417.5, the irišdabaziš-persons’ fi gure is 14.5 or 3.47% 28. In these

26 The “tribute” word in this case is ‘škr (? iškaru).

27 Month 12 : PF 1495, NN 2149, NN 2580, NN 0809. Month 1 : PF 1357. The exception is PF 1342

(month 9).

28 The irišdabaziš deduction occurs before successive calculations for years 14-17. That deduction pro-

duces 403 and in each of the years we get a (different) division of 403 between retained and with-

drawn. The four years’ fi gures are then totalled under each head, giving a total “on hand”, which

is then divided “dispensed”, abbakanaš, and “withdrawn”, to give the “total at Dazzarakkaš”. Does

this imply the initial total and irišdabaziš deduction are the same each year ? A similar partial

repetition from year to year is visible in PF 1969-1970, but there is no irišdabaziš deduction in

those texts. PF 2077 also covers three years, but no fi gures are repeated.



texts, then, there is a deduction of grain for a special category of people, but the rate of deduction varies widely. All three texts are of early date (years 13, 14).

The fourth text, NN 2192, is undated and provides an account of grain, oil and cattle — but is almost entirely concerned with grain and oil ; there is a single entry for 1 head of cattle against a single “producer” name. The table of fi gures and names (? pro-ducers) ends “this is the total of baziš (of ) Šakabena ka-me-za-be-na” [? “von den Leuten des Kamai£a” : Hinz & Koch]. After one more line of (smaller) fi gures for each commod-ity (apparently linked with [from ?] Kurdumiš at Lariškanum and Akkayanum) and a totalling of the initial total with these additional fi gures we have “this is the total for the irišdabazišbe” at Nukrakdan, entrusted (?) to Zarnamiya. This text provides some specifi c ground, perhaps, for believing that irišdabaziš is actually linked with baziš, rather than simply sharing an etymological element, and in the light of that the four texts together may make the possibility of cereal- as distinct from animal-baziš rather more worthy of consideration than has sometimes been supposed on the basis of texts in Hallock 1969 and 1978. (Of course, it should be said that Hinz & Koch 1987 already translated irišdabaziš as “Grundsteuerbeamte”).

There are to other considerations might point in the same direction. First, there is NN 2389, which reads :

This is a sealed document for barley and tarmu [....]an ba ?-zi-iš-ma kurmin of Hatarbanuš

[known as kurmin at Memaš] .... {further damaged text} .... Šuddayauda as apportioner

Bazišma, if that is right, is a hapax legomenon. Second, as we shall see, a matira (= bazikara) is occasionally encountered as distributor of cereal rations to human recipients. This tells a little against any tendency to assume that any association of baziš or bazikara with cereals was always in contexts where the cereals would go to animals.

Nor is it only cereals. In Fort. 8960 (a Journal) line 24 may refer to šutur baziš, i.e. accounting-balance of tax, being sent from (places) Akkimesu and Zirramizza. This is in a line after the totalling of quantities in a table with the headings Deposited to their accounts, Received, and Withdrawn, and it assigns a fi gure of 71 (under Received) against the putative “accounting balance of tax” — a sort of extra receipt. The reading is marked in Hallock’s transcript as very uncertain, but the case is inevitably of interest because the commodity involved is wine (one may recall the wine-batibaziš above). Hallock 1969 : 57 notes that it contains a tabulation of a type otherwise only found in fruit texts.

2.2 Bazikara/matiraThe most extensively attested word presumed to be etymologically connected with baziš is the offi ce-designation bazikara, a term for which matira seems to be an entirely syn-onymous equivalent (Kaupiya is bazikara in Hadaran in PFa 32, but matira at Hadaran in same year in PF 1943 : 37 29).

29 It is suggested that matira is do with “share” (like bazikara/baziš), on the evidence of PF 1193. Koch

1989 : 127 n. 5 says matišta is a miswriting for satišta, as in PF 1089-1091 (i.e. gave as sat), and

it seems to be perfectly true that it could be : PF 1193 does otherwise exactly match the pattern

of PF 1089-1091.



One or other title is attributed to 16 individuals (or 15 if Attukka and Tetukka are to be identifi ed, as Henkelman 2003 : 164 has plausibly suggested) 30. One can spot a few cases of homonymy with holders of other interesting offi ces : we have encountered Mannuya the treasurer and I am also particularly struck by Irdadadda, Dadumanya, Tetukka (Attuka) and Mannanda, all of whom can be associated with the function of karamaraš and/or “spear-bearer 31”. Seven persons appear described as bazikara or matira in F-texts receiv-ing a quantity of cereal and setting it aside for seed, and Attuka = Tetukka and Irdadadda fi gure as F-receivers as well, though without the title being used on that occasion 32. The titles also appear occasionally in annotations in both F and G texts reporting that so-and-so was bazikara/matira, without defi ning that person’s relation to the transaction, though it is not that of F-receiver 33. I shall be discussing G and F texts and their possible connec-tion with taxation later : since in the model discussed there F-receivers are supposed to be tax-payers, it cannot be said that the relevant uses of bazikara/matira advance the case for that model a great deal.

What is the connection between bazikaras and animals ? Four groups of documents and associated arguments deserve to be mentioned here, though there are fewer solid results to be got from them than one might hope.

(1) In NN 0460 anonymous groups of matiras and kar-makers appear alongside a grain handler and a delivery man in a sut transaction at Dutaš in year 24. (They effectively occupy the place normally taken by an etira). Grain is the stated commodity and, although nothing is said about what it is being exchanged for, it could, of course, be animals : there are potential analogies in PF 0272 (C4), where Appitranka (attested elsewhere as a matira in year 19) appears in the same year doing a sut transaction involving 127 baziš-sheep 34, and PFa 03, where Attukka (attested elsewhere as bazikara) goes a grain-sheep sut.

30 The title also appears in the Treasury Archive, once of Ušdana, apportioner for a worker-group

in Xerxes year 20 (PT 054), once in relation to some kurtaš on rations in the previous year

(PT 041). — If Attukka = Tetukka this will provide another example of someone who is both

bazikara and matira.

31 Cf. Henkelman 2006 : 255 for the case of Tetukka, remarking that the registration functions of the

karamaraš (cf. Stolper 1977 ; Tuplin 1997 : 406f ) chime with the title bazikara. One of the func-

tions of “spear-bearers” (on whom see Henkelman 2002) is “road-counting”, which in 1997 :

406f I discussed in the context of distance-measurement. I have a note of uncertain origin in

my fi les that someone has suggested that they could be toll-collectors.

32 The bazikara Dadumanya is mentioned twice in NN 2356 as “using” seed at Pirritukkaš in year 19,

in one case for animals, but this is not a category F entry.

33 Attukka appears in this fashion in both a G-text (PF 0567) and an F-text (PF 0443).

34 This text is a rare case where a prosopographic link can be spotted between the bazikara/matira

and records about baziš. In general I am not conscious of onomastic linkage between C4 texts

and the list of known bearers of the title bazikara/matira. One notes from (C4) PF 2025 that

Miššumanya (kurmin in [C4] PF 0267 and NN 2159) was an ansara at Hiran — and ansara is

a title found alongside matira in NN 0546, and held by Appitranka. Perhaps there are other

such cases to be found.



(2) Some holders of the title bazikara/matira have homonyms who turn up (untitled) in connection with animals of one sort or another 35. But others (e.g., Appiya, Attebakka, Dadumanya, Irdadadda, Manezza, Mannuya) produce no such other animal-links, and in NN 0546 Mannanda the matira at Karmaš, Mašdayašna the ansara at Marabbaš and Appituranka the ansara at Hadaraš (Hadaran) — who appears as matira at the same place in PF 1942 : 25f in the following year — receive grain at Persepolis as rations for artisans, with not an animal in sight.

(3) Herrenschmidt produced an argument to suggest that two bazikaras mentioned in different roles in category F texts (PF 0443, PF 0451) are connected with cattle, even though none are mentioned in the texts. This is based on the proposition that Karkiš the hazatap (PF 1956 : year 21, Rašnumattiš) = Karkašša the ukbawutkuš (PF 1955 : year 20, Mezama account) = the Karkiš who acquires cereal and sets it aside for seed in PF 0443 in a text (year 22 : perhaps Hunar) that also affi rms “Attuka was the bazikara” = the Karkiš in PF 0451 whose sealed document authorizes the supply of grain to the bazikara Irdadadda (who then sets it aside for seed). From this she deduces that in relevant storehouses the ukbawutkuš (*upavatgu) = hazatap (“cattle-assistant”) was a subordinate of the bazikara and (in particular) that Karkiš is the subordinate of Attuka. None of the identifi cations is obviously right or obviously wrong (but note that there is only one other ukbawutkuš homonym among attested F-receivers 36), but the assertion that Karkiš is the subordinate of Attuka is not entirely arbitrary, since (a) he is performing a function that in some other texts is performed by people entitled bazikara/matira, (b) ukbawutkuš and matira occur together in NN 2183, even if the latter seems to be fi lling the position normally occupied by the anmantaš 37, and (c) PF 1955-1960 do (on a conventional understanding of the texts : but see below) associate setting aside of seed with cattle in the possession of people called ukbawutkuš. On the other hand Herrenschmidt’s reading of PF 0443 and PF 0451 has the odd consequence that in the latter Karkiš issues a sealed document to enable his putative superior, Irdadadda the bazikara, to receive cereal to be set aside as seed.

(4) Finally, there are fi ve journal or account documents that, in Hallock’s transla-tion, appear to provide some rather more concrete data. Three category-F entries in two journals tell us respectively that (a) Kaupiya the matira received grain and set it aside for seed at Hadaran, the grain being “for cattle of the king” (1943 : 37), (b) Appitranka, the matira at Hadaran, set grain aside as seed, the grain being for cattle in his possession

35 Attukka : kurmin at Shiraz (PF 0290, Fort. 5234) ; also NN 1483 (a rather mysterious W-text, with

Shiraz connections). Tetukka : kurmin in PF 0075, PF 0289, NN 1638, NN 2241 ; associated

with royal cattle in NN 2298 — but only on Hallock’s understanding of GUD (see immedi-

ately below). Udana : small cattle supplier (PF 0066) ; associated with sat for rappunna-horses

(NN 1073 ; Udana is, of course, also the name of the person whose baziš is transported in

PF 1495). Karakka : PF 1946, NN 1481, NN 2663. Kaupiya : PF 0663, PF 0678, PF 0696 (sup-

plying for high offi cials or the royal family). Mawukka, Mannanda, Umartanna and Tetukka

are involved in the feeding of horses (NN 2251, NN 2399, PF 1639, PF 1945).

36 (H)uštana in PF 0433, PF 0467-0468.

37 Analogy with e.g. PF 1955 suggests the text ought to say that grain was set aside for cattle in the

possession of the two offi cials, but it seems actually to say “Dadukka the ukbawutkuš, his

share/possession ? (GUD.lg du ?-na), Umartanna the matira”.



(the apportioner is Mašdayašna), and (c) Mannanda the matira at Karmaš, for whom Mašdayašna apportions, set aside seed at Karmaš for the cattle of the king 38. Three further accounts (PF 1965, PF 2075, PFa 32) are also relevant, each in a slightly different way. In PF 1965, 30 battikaš has been provided for provisions for three years [18-20] at Battirakkan, Mawukka being the bazikara, for Bakabada to assign and Iršena to apportion. This appears between the tabulation of Set aside etc. for royal cattle and a year-by-year balance-account-ing, but has no explained relation to either (might one discern a sort of parallel with the bland “PN was bazikara” annotation in some F and G-texts ?). In PF 2075 there is a Set aside etc. tabulation of grain for “cattle in the possession of Appiya the bazikara at Akkuban, for Napapartanna to apportion”, while PFa 32 has a similar tabulation of grain for “cattle of king, Kaupiya being the bazikara at Hadaran, for Iršena to apportion” 39.

Read thus, these texts do leave the impression of a three-way link between bazikara/matira, cattle (especially royal cattle) and grain, though none of them, of course, directly requires or indicates that the cattle represented tax-income (specifi cally baziš) or that the bazikara/matira collected such tax-income. However, things are not quite that simple and, in particular, the cattle may not be quite what they seem.

Aperghis (1998 : 40-41, 58) has already taken the view that the bazikara in PF 2075 is levying a grain tax from tenants of a royal estate — and that the cattle are merely a proxy for a type of land. He takes the same view about PF 1965 and would presumably extend it to PFa 32 (a text that he does not seem to mention). These propositions, which effectively sideline the cattle and could be said to undermine any suggestion of a distinctive and sub-stantive link between cattle and the bazikara (or, therefore, baziš), are part of a larger thesis that a particular type of grain text tabulation — the one without the sort of series of proper names in the right-hand column that one fi nds in e.g. PF 2076 40 — records income from royal estates, and it carries the implication that the bazikara is in a similar position to other types of what seem to be storehouse-offi cials named in similar end-of-table statements 41. But this seems to sit awkwardly with the claim made elsewhere (1998 : 56) that PF 0443 and PF 0451 (the texts at the heart of Herrenschmidt’s argument) are evidence that the bazikara belongs in an intermediate position between store-house offi cial and tax-payer ; and that is already a problematic claim, since according to Aperghis’ model for category F texts (of which more later) the bazikara in PF 0451 is a tax-payer.

If the consequences of Aperghis’ view of these “cattle” texts are uncomfortable, one might wish to infer that, after all, he is wrong to sideline the cattle. But support for doing so now comes from a different direction, because Wouter Henkelman has suggested to me that there may be no cattle present in the texts at all, not even as proxies for a category

38 PF 1942 : 29, 32. There is a further entry, PF 1942 : 25, where a matira apparently sets seed aside

just “for the king”.

39 In NN 0764 and NN 0784 wine is provided to Manezza the bazikara. A homonym is known as a

wine-kurmin, but I hesitate to draw any inference.

40 Cf. also PF 1963, PF 2082, PF 2084. Most of the fruit accounts that enter the discussion of C1

documents later in this paper are analogous in form. The same thing occurs in animal accounts

such as PF 2011-2012.

41 Other texts that presumably come into question include PF 1961, PF 1964, PF 1966, PF 1991,

PF 1992.



of real-estate. Hallock brought them into the picture by translating GUD as “cattle”, but Henkelman suggests that the real meaning is “possession” or “share”. That view allows a series of perfectly reasonable translations of the relevant texts (indeed more reasonable ones in those which speak of grain being set aside for seed) and, if it is correct, it becomes certain that none of the texts actually documents any relationship between bazikaras or baziš and animals. What they do document remains for analysis on another occasion, but it may yet turn out that Aperghis’ perception of the bazikaras as collectors of tax-grain is sound, even if his treatment of F-texts remains debatable.

In the end it remains the case that, where baziš and its etymological congeners are linked explicitly with a commodity, that commodity is normally animals. But I am not con-vinced that this was the only context in which the word might be used in the terminology current in late sixth century Persis. One reason for there being a strong link with animals might be that historically the term baziš was particularly redolent of the “king’s share” and, whether or not all animal “income” was baziš 42 or all animal baziš was actually royal 43 or all baziš-animals went into the royal domain, there was a suffi cient traditional association to ensure that the term was more regularly (even technically) used of animals than other commodities. Animals are not like other commodities : they are live, not inert, and their eventual consumption is pretty much limited to higher-status individuals ; the process of creaming off the king’s cut may simply be transactionally and therefore lexically distinct. But an alternative or complementary possibility is that the archive as preserved provides an unbalanced cross-section of the processes that made up the collection and redistribu-tion of commodities. If I am right to argue later in this paper that whole categories of documents are not to be regarded as tax-records and that the preponderant concern of the archive is still the transfer and disbursement of material already within the system, not the registration of its entry as tax from outside, then the oddity is not the absence of references to e.g. cereal-baziš but the presence of those to animal-baziš. And there is at least one objective indication in that direction : although the title bazikara/matira is attested in the Fortifi cation Archive as late as year 25 (R137 = Jones & Stolper 2006 : 12) 44, unambiguous animal-baziš texts all pre-date the years that produce most of the surviv-ing archive texts. Something changed after year 20 — even if we cannot tell it was that animal-baziš was abolished or that the transactional records went somewhere else in the administrative system.

42 Contrast e.g., PF 2007, PF 2009-2010, PF 2013, PF 2085 (accounts of small cattle at stockyard or the

like) with PF 2008, NN 0701, NN 2678 (“small cattle as tax”). The intrinsic difference between

the texts is not obvious, so is it simply arbitrary that some speak of baziš and some not ? The

implication of Henkelman’s analysis of livestock matters (2005 : 157f ; 2006 : 350f ) is, I think,

that it is not arbitrary and that the two types of text are recording different things.

43 It is almost never called that : PF 2025 seems to be the only example. The context involves a

royal herdsman too, though he only gets that title in one of the two relevant texts (PF 2025,

PF 2070).

44 Not to mention the appearance of bazikara in PT 041 (Xerxes year 19) and PT 054 (Xerxes year

20), in the latter case as the title of an individual offi cial.



2.3 Miscellaneous itemsOnce one goes beyond baziš and its etymological congeners, there are few unequivocal terminological signs of a tax-system. I have already mentioned the dasaziya above. I have no further views at the moment about (i) the mandattu of PT 085, paid in silver by a “merchant”, a shepherd’s son and a shepherd (Briant claims it is used in lieu of baziš in some tablets, not specifi ed, but one cannot assume PT 085 is a cash equivalent of animal-baziš), (ii) Giovinazzo’s argument that hallat/halnut hašira (the title of Dattanna in seven texts from years 18-21) = “receiver of hallat-tax” or (iii) the ušu- or hišin-makers whom Koch associated with tax collection. But attention should be drawn to three other items, all certainly or putatively linked to the sustenance of the king and his family.

The fi rst I mention not because I can cast any light on its substantive character but because it too illustrates the principle of change during the period covered by the archive. This is the case of abbakanaš — which Hallock rendered as “handling charge” and Koch interpreted variously as a levy for royal sustenance (1980 : 126) or a “special tax” (Sondersteuer : 1989 : 123) 45.

Hallock 1969 : 59-60 noted that in wine texts the abbakanaš was regularly a tithe of the “provided” amount, whereas in grain texts there is a bewildering variety of different mathematical relations to different fi gures in the overall record. But further examination suggests that, tantalizingly, there is nearly a pattern of sorts. In texts from Year 13-18 the abbakanaš sum has no consistent mathematical explanation, and is neither a neat nor a consistent proportion of either the On Hand or the Dispensed fi gure (in one Year 17 text there is actually a zero charge : PF 1962 : 8). In texts for Years 16, and 18-23 the charge is one-thirtieth of the On Hand fi gure (a bit inaccurately calculated in NN 2193). Finally, in two texts of years 26 and 27 and in an undated text (PF 1950) it is one thirtieth of the Dispensed fi gure. There is no text in which different rate-calculations appear at the same place, except for NN 2476, a text that has entries for more than one year. So, if 1950 could date after year 23, there is a chronological pattern of changing practice, spoiled only by an overlap between the years 16-23 and years 13-18 groups that is occasioned by (again) NN 2476. If the second (year 16) calculation in NN 2476 actually hit a later “norm” by accident, the pattern would work 46. It cannot be said that this casts much light on the status of abbakanaš in relation to taxation ; but (cf. the end of the previous section) it is another reminder that bureaucratic processes were not necessarily immutable.

Next, J-texts, characterised by the statement that a commodity has been “consumed before the King” (m.sunki tibba makka) or before other royal personages (e.g. Irtašduna or Irdabama). Twenty years ago I wondered whether Aelian’s stories about Persian peasants giving gifts to the King might be “dim refl ection” of whatever it was that these texts were describing (Tuplin 1987 : 143). A decade later, after further but still too superfi cial exami-

45 Note also hapikanuš (or hapiršimaš) — an Erntezins according to Hinz, some sort of parallel to

“provisions” according to Hallock, and (apparently) another version of abbakanaš for Koch

1989 : 124.

46 It is a curious additional point that PF 1962 (the text with the zero charge) has prosopographic

links with NN 2476 in that Bagiya and Bakabaduš, kurmin and delivery man in PF 1962 (at

Šugallan) appear repeatedly in NN 2476 in the right hand column of a “set aside, provided,

withdrawn” tabulation.



nation of the data, I proposed (more circumspectly) that the J texts disclosed an annual and rotating liability to supply a commodity for the use of the king or royal family, apply-ing to places in various parts of the administration area (Tuplin 1998a : 79 n. 39). After a further decade a characteristically thorough and acute examination of the material has led Henkelman [forthc.] to the persuasive conclusion that these documents record requisitions of food for the King’s itinerant court. If this is correct, our picture of royal behaviour is enriched by the realisation that royalty is not only mobile between royal capitals but also within the hinterland of those capitals (or at least within the administrative hinterland of Persepolis) and that this had considerable logistical implications.

Nor is this all, for thirdly (and relatedly) there are the quantities of wine and cereal products that are redistributed to something called ukpiyataš or huthut and then delivered to a variety of mostly “ordinary” places. (In the case of huthut we have a Parnaka letter, PF 1796, ordering such a transfer ; it is impossible to tell whether all transfers refl ect a special order of this sort). Thirty years ago Stolper (1977) correctly linked this with the phenomenon called upijåtu- in Akkadian documents and concluded that we are (once again) dealing with foodstuffs for the King. A full analysis of all relevant material in the Fortifi cation archive (more copious than that cited by Stolper in 1977) still remains to to be done, but Henkelman (forthc. : 19, 39-40, 50-53) offers some glimpses in the context of his analysis of J-texts, noting (for example) that even satraps appear to be liable to the impost and that the locations for delivery of ukpiyataš or huthut overlap with those at which commodities were “consumed before the King” : we are looking, in fact, at part of the income side of the “table of the King” and at one of the relatively rare ways in which produce from outside the Persepolis economy impinges on the documentation preserved in the Fortifi cation archive. Meanwhile, in other parts of the empire, the term ukpiyataš is now apparently attested in Aramaic guise in fourth century documents from Bactria (Naveh & Shaked [forthc.] A2, B5, C4) and Waerzeggers [forthc.] has demonstrated an association between the (enlarged) Akkadian evidence and the provision of food sup-plies from Babylonia during a regular sojourn of Darius in Susa around the time of the New Year. Thanks to these various advances we can now see more of the complexity of the phenomena underlying Greek talk about the empire feeding the King and his army (Herodotus 1.192) or the expense (e.g. Herodotus 7.118-120) and economy (Heraclides 689 F2) of the King’s Dinner ; and the idea that supplying sustenance to the royal family was a signifi cant aspect of the burden laid upon the empire’s inhabitants is thoroughly vindicated.

2.4 Speculative evidence about taxationThe search for phenomena in the Fortifi cation archive that represent taxation but are not explicitly so labeled has been going on for some time, notably in works by Hinz, Koch, Herrenschmidt and (most recently) Aperghis.

Aperghis’ view is that provision of produce to storehouses in circumstances best described as taxation is going on in many categories of text (A, B, C1, C4, C6, D, F, G), but he concedes that in some categories there may also be transactions that are not in fact tax-payments, so the premier categories for our purposes are C1, F and G where he seems



to envisage little or no confusion of different transaction-types within the same category of document 47.

There are various grounds for linking these documents with tax. First, general prob-ability : what else accounts for producers delivering produce to storehouses when (or if ) that is recorded 48 ? Second, the presence of bazikaras in some F- and W-texts seems to be taken to create a presumption that tax activity is involved (in the former case he focuses on texts that Herrenschmidt 1989 also dealt with, though in a different way. There is also a precedent in Koch 49). None of this is worked out in detail, and seems secondary to the claim of general probability. Third, Koch already linked C1-texts and tax on the basis of (a) a linguistic claim about uggi, (b) the defi nition of a group of seals, (c) the appearance of one seal (PFS 0019) on a tablet containing the term dasaziya (see above p. 18), and (d) the general non-recurrence of people involved in the archive. Herrenschmidt disputed the linguistic argument but said no more. Aperghis sidelines the linguistic issue and concen-trates instead on two other things : (a) the implicit (and once explicit) analogy between the heading “deposited to account” in fruit accounts such as PF 1986 or PF 1987 and the formula “provided as provisions” in grain accounts — a formula already linked with tax-income in Aperghis’s view of things because it is characteristic of category G memoranda ; and (b) a pattern of seals on C1 memoranda that discloses roving tax-gathering offi cials.

In the remainder of this paper I shall make some observations on Category F and G documents and offer a slightly fuller presentation of data about C1 documents.

2.5 Category F and G textsIn the case of F- and G-documents the cornerstone of Aperghis’ analysis is a claim that in G-texts the individuals designated by kurmin are (in effect) tax-payers and that the same is true of the individuals in F-texts who receive quantities of cereal and set them aside for seed 50. The archive being what it is, investigating this proposition is not as simple as it may sound, and it is certainly more laborious.

47 Actually, even with G texts there is some sense that certain documents might actually relate to

inter-storehouse transfer. But G tempts detailed examination because of its supposed neat

inverse relationship with F.

48 It is not always clear to me whether Aperghis is talking about royal or public storehouses — to use

his terminology — but I leave that issue aside here.

49 Koch 1980 : 128 notes presence of bazikara in W-texts with Set aside, Provided, etc. tabulation (e.g.,

PF 1965, PF 2075) and in G and F texts. A similar point appears in 1989 : 126.

50 For the purpose of the argument I accept Aperghis’s view that in G-documents kurmin = “supplied

by”, not (as Hallock’s translations have it) “entrusted to”. NN 1453 (where wine has been pro-

vided at GN, PN & companions had disposal of it [kiklaš, as interpreted by Hinz & Koch 1987

s.v. ki-ik-la-iš] and entrusted [kurmaš] it to Ušaya the wine-carrier) might be adduced against

this. But, as this is non-standard in the comment about PN & companions “having disposal”

of the wine, the text is perhaps an unsafe guide. In a number of texts a named kurmin coexists

with a statement about delivery, sometimes anonymous (PF 0587, PF 0588), sometimes with

a named agent (PF 0550, NN 2597, PF 0626, NN 0414, PF 0589, NN 1994). By analogy with

PF 0108 and PF 0109 I understand kurmin Manyakka Mariya ha liša in NN 1994 as “alloca-

tion (from) Manyakka, Mariya delivered it” and kurmin Napzilla m.Akkina ha lišda h.Karma



The relevant corpus of G-texts consists of 208 distinct items, around two-thirds of the texts being from years 21-24 51. (The pattern has a slightly fl atter peak that the pattern for memoranda-texts as a whole, with rather more in years 20 and 25 and rather fewer in year 23.) The relevant corpus of F-texts contains 226 distinct entries, representing 222 distinct texts or F-type journal entries (there are two texts in which more than one named receiver occurs. I exclude from the table four items in which the receivers are groups of kurtaš 52 — an interesting category of text, of course, since they can hardly themselves be tax-payers, but nonetheless best kept separate 53). Again about two thirds of the texts are from years 21-24 (the distribution is only subtly different from that of G items with more in years 19, 20 and 22 and fewer in year 23). The two sets are thus of comparable and quite considerable size.

Fifty-two of the G-items (25% of the data-set) are anonymous in the sense that no name is or was ever given for the person performing the kurmin function — not ideal if the documents were supposed to certify that a tax-payer had fulfi lled his obligation, but perhaps they were more concerned with certifying income than its source 54. As a result we have just 128 individuals with different names, there being 27 individuals (or at any rate homonyms) who appear as kurmin more than once. Some 76 named locations appear, 46 of which appear only once (alongside the other 30 there are also three recurrent anonymous places, identifi able through re-appearance of kurmin and seals). Of places that appear more than once 10 are associated with more than one commodity type (for this purpose I treat

m.Napzilla dama ulašda in PF 0589 as (the somewhat redundant) “allocation (from) Napzilla,

Akkina delivered it (at) Karma ; Akkina transported (it) sent by Napzilla”. In these and all other

cases so-called “delivery” follows the act described by kurmin.

51 Among items classifi ed as G-documents by Hallock (in PFT or in transcripts), my corpus (perhaps

hypercautiously in some cases) excludes several more or less non-standard items, of which

only the fi rst names a kurmin : PF 0546, PF 0596, PF 2032, NN 0150, NN 0393, NN 0507,

NN 0705, NN 1354, NN 1555, NN 2084, NN 2517. But I have kept in PF 0586, PF 0565 and

NN 0624 and counted Šati-Dudu, Irzaparra and Saktiza as kurmins, even though the fi rst two

are respectively qualifi ed by the verbs “provided” and “sent” and the third appears without a

verb. Among the excluded items NN 1354 is interesting in saying that what has been provided

for the “store-shed” (intur) came “from the taššup” (? offi cials : see below p. 74-77).

52 PF 0436-0437, PF 0447, PF 0484. But I have retained the plural group of haršip in NN 0693,

interpreted as “Intendatur-Beamten” in Hinz & Koch 1987 s.v. har-ši-ip.

53 I also exclude NN 1884 (which appears actually to be a W-text), NN 2415 (a list of grain at various

locations set aside for seed in year 19 but “not received”) and a number of putatively F-cat-

egory journal entries of damaged or non-standard character (NN 2202, NN 2299, NN 2344,

NN 2356, NN 2655). The heading “set aside” in the tables in PF 1955-1960 certainly refers to

grain set aside for seed, as is clear from individual journal entries in each document, and it

presumably also does so in similar tables in account texts such as PF 1962-1965, 2075, NN 1016,

NN 2298, NN 2476. But the context provided by these documents is at the moment far from

being clear enough (at least to me) to cast a very discriminating light upon what is going on

in F-documents.

54 There are many anonymous F-receivers as well : 73 documents (32% of the data-set) fail to name

the receiver.



all cereal types as one) 55. By contrast only 40 of the original 208 texts deal with non-cereal commodities, so non-cereal products are doing a bit better than average in places that recur in the set ; but I am not entirely sure what (if any) conclusion to draw from that.

I have noted (i) one instance in which a different left edge seal is use for the same commodity-type at the same place (Ibaraš) and in the same year but different kurmins (which might suggest a kurmin-seal link), (ii) another in which the same seal is used for the same commodity type at the same place (Kutkuš) but for different kurmins in different years (which suggests commodity and location are enough to dictate sealing), (iii) several others in which the same seal goes with the same commodity and year but different places and (iv) one in which it goes with different commodities at different places (though with date and kurmin identity indeterminable). There does not seem to be an entirely neat pattern here, but I am not at all confi dent I understand what is going on.

Only 11 quantities recur for the same commodity (if one counts all cereal types together ; otherwise 10 quantities) in a total of 27 texts. There are no seal or kurmin links between items with same quantity and no prima facie location links save in the (somewhat unusual) case of NN 0510, NN 1360 and PF 0566, where the place Pirukaš makes a contri-bution of 3,000 BAR (30,000 qts.) of grain in global totals of 6,000-6,200 from Pirukaš, Tikraš and Pandamaš in three different years — these global totals being associated with three different kurmins. It is certainly the case that when an individual recurs as kurmin (as happens in the case of 27 individuals) he does not “pay” the same amount from one year to the next, and the variations can be quite great.

Quantities of basic cereal (ŠE.BAR) in a single payment vary from 10 to 16,720 BAR. Among 123 payments where the fi gure survives, 61 (50%) are less than 800, 74 (60%) are less than 1,500 and 92 (75%) are less than 3,500. Nearly 10% of payments are in excess of 7,000 BAR. Nearly 73% of the total registered income comes from just 25% of the payments (those of 3,500 BAR and upwards). Something similar appears with wine payments, though since there are only 25 the sample is rather poor (the range is from 1 to 3,627 marriš, 75% are of 523 or less, and nearly half the total income registered comes from just three payments). If these are taxpayers, we are dealing with huge variations of taxable wealth. But this could be misleading : seven individuals turn up “paying” quantities of the same commodity twice in the same year (all but two of them at the same place), and the quantities in question are quite dissimilar. If we are unlucky with our sample many of the lower payments may belong with (now missing) higher payments by the same individual, and the putative distribution of wealth might actually be less pronouncedly skewed. Be that as it may, the material as it stands discloses no regularities that might be associated with an organised and predictable taxation system.

Finally (for the moment), what is the profi le of G-kurmins compared with the archive as a whole ? It would be an appallingly complex business to answer that fully, but a simpler question one can ask is about their recurrence as kurmins for the same commodity outside the corpus of G-texts. For 31 individuals there is no other evidence at all. In 33 cases homonyms do exist, but they are not known as kurmins for the same commodity and there is little or nothing else to demonstrate identity, though there may be hints : e.g., Battišdana,

55 Ankarakkan, Hiran, Ibaraš, Karikda, Kursamuš, Liduma, Mišaraš, Pirukaš, Ukanduma & Rušda

(the last two appearing as a pair).



a G-text grain kurmin at Hiran (NN 1002), is attested taking grain to Hiran, albeit seven years earlier (PF 0515) ; or Temmeme, a grain-kurmin in NN 2562 with Napupu as receiver (and seal PFS 0117 l.e.), who also delivers grain to Napupu in PF 0625 (same seal). On the other hand in 36 cases (about 28% of the sample) we fi nd homonyms who are on record at least once outside G-texts as kurmin for the same commodity and who are linked with the G-text individual by at least one further criterion (stated location, coincidence of date or seal-usage) — and for nine of these individuals there is further linkage of all three sorts (Ammamarda, Bakadušda, Bakubeša, Mamannuwiš, Nabbaba, Napzilla, Parru, Umaya). This is a pretty blunt tool, but I am minded to think that G-kurmins are not as distinct a population from kurmins in the system as a whole as one might wish if one was hoping that analysis of the data would provide some confi rmation their status as tax-payers 56. Of course, administration offi cials might also be tax-payers.

I have not had the leisure to conduct quite such a full review of F-texts in their own right, but there are some observations to be made.

There are 63 locations associated with F texts and there is only a moderate degree of overlap with the G-text locations, though this is higher where we are dealing with places that occur more than once 57 — not perhaps surprisingly : we may be confronting a rela-tively similar core with different groups of outlying singletons (I use “core” and “outlying” metaphorically, rather than geographically, though the two may not be wholly mutually exclusive). Still, if the outliers are different, that may be signifi cant, given that the two sets of texts are about the same size and have similar date-profi les.

Ambaduš receives 50 grain and Kaupirruš 150 in two successive years (from the same kurmin), but normally someone who receives in more than one text (there are 23 such individuals in total ; three are on record twice for two different commodities) does not receive the same amount, even in cases where the kurmin is the same (e.g., Bakabaduš, Maršena, Šimut-Dap, Temmeme, Tiyama, Vivana). More often than not, as it happens, the amount increases from year to year ; but contrast e.g., Zinini where it goes 100, 50, 40 (from three different kurmins) or Šati-Dudu where it drops from 50 to 33 (again with different kurmins) ; Tiyama goes from 110 to 100 but then to 900 (this time with the same kurmin). There are plenty of cases where the kurmin is not the same from year to year (Haturka, Hindukka, Irdadadda, Karkiš, Šati-Dudu). Three individuals (Pukša, Šimut-Dap and Tamka) receive two lots of the same commodity in the same year 58. In all cases the same kurmin is involved ; but only in Pukša’s case does the receiver receive the same amount, viz 40 (the others get respectively 375 and 350 ; and 425 and 60). All in all it would be hard to claim that F-texts show signifi cantly more year-to-year regularity in quantities than G-texts.

On the prosopographic front, I have not inspected the entire list of F-kurmins. Instead, I have concentrated on the receivers in F-texts (the putative tax-payers on

56 Cf. also n. 51 on taššup in a non-standard G-document.

57 Of the 63 F-locations 46 appear only once. Twenty-eight places appear both among the 77 G- and

the 63 F-locations. Of these 18 appear in more than on G-text, 10 appear in more than one

F-text, and 9 appear more than once both in G and F texts.

58 If Tetukka and Attukka are to be identifi ed (cf. above p. 22), that would give us another case (in

year 25), though this time with different kurmins.



Aperghis’s model) and on those individuals who appear in both F and G texts or appear with more than one status in either F or G texts.

I have examined the F-receivers in order (as with G-kurmins) to discover how far they can be assimilated to or distinguished from the class of administrative offi cials. One receiver is described as a tumara and eight others are known to hold the offi ce of bazikara/matira 59, so these individuals plainly belong to the relevant class and require no further comment 60. In almost every one of the 64 other cases that I have examined the archive contains homonyms who are connected in some relevant way with the same commodity or a related one (e.g., sesame and grain) : only four exceptions present themselves. For 18 of the names involved the evidence at our disposal does not make it possible either to demonstrate or to disprove the personal identity of the individual F-receivers with homonymous administrative agents in other documents. But I reckon there are at least 32 cases in which one can advance an argument (sometimes only just passable, sometimes rather cogent, often somewhere in between) that the receiver in question reappears as someone who apportions, supplies, delivers or otherwise deals with commodities in an apparently offi cial context 61. That is a large proportion (70%) of the cases of which we are in a position to make any positive assessment at all. Taking the tumara and bazikaras back into account, this means that over half of the set of 73 names under discussion can be associated with administrative activity : that strikes me as a signifi cant result and one that militates against any claim that F-receivers are just “ordinary” tax-payers. In the context of the similar investigation of G-kurmins (p. 34-35) I noted that administrative offi cials might also be tax-payers. It is impossible to know what would constitute a “reasonable” incidence of that phenomenon in the archive : but would we really be happy to suppose that it extended to more than half of the putative tax payers in the record ?

I turn next to recurrence of individuals in the two sets of text or (with status-change) within one or other set of texts.

(I) The starting point is provided by two categories of inverse relationship between G and F texts.

(1) There are 17 cases (involving 18 individuals, because Akšena and Kurtera oper-ate as a pair) in which the same name appears as a G-kurmin and F-receiver. In ten cases the pairs involve the same year and the same commodity, and in seven of these nine cases there is one or more of three further types of link, viz full reciprocity (i.e. A is G-kurmin for B as receiver, and B is F-kurmin for A as receiver), same location and matching seals

59 Seven of the bazikaras are given the title in the relevant F-documents (as is the tumara). An eighth

is known to have this status from other documents.

60 Other titular annotations such as maršaparra = “nurseryman” (PF 0475), pirrakurrusakaš ? =

“Pfl anzer, Saatzüchter” (NN 1574) or masašiš (PF 0473) are not so unequivocal. In NN 0693

the anonymous multiple recipients are m.haršip = “Intendatur-Beamte” : that is unequivocal,

if the translation is reliable. I note in passing that “this sesame was withdrawn from the provi-

sions (at) Tamukkan, among the haršip (persons), (for) Ušbaka to apportion” in PF 1992 : 2

recalls “1,438 4/30 (irtiba of ) grain was withdrawn, (distributed) among offi cials(?) [sc. taššup],

supplied by Šedda” in 1968 : 19-20 and the enigmatically isolated “among the offi cials(?)” in

the last line of PF 2077.

61 I do not include here two cases where the homonym elsewhere is a cult-offi ciant.



(Yašnakka and Ukka at Kuršamus in year 22 provide all three additional links : NN 0243, NN 0986). The other seven cases involve different years or (because of an undated text) cannot be defi nitely assigned to the same year : three cases involve some or all of the fur-ther links defi ned above (two individuals in the fi rst group of nine also appear, in relation to different texts, in this less stringent linked category).

(2) Fifteen individuals appear as both F-kurmin and G-receiver for the same com-modity (the reverse of category [1]). Eight of these cases involve full reciprocity and there-fore already fi gure in the calculations for (1). The other seven include three in which the year is also the same (including one with a seal link), but in the other four cases there is no further demonstrable link.

These cases (involving a total of 24 distinct individuals) conform with the Aperghis model in the sense that the two pairings (G-kurmins and F-receivers ; G-receivers and F-kurmins) represent the same body of people observed at different moments in the putative tax system (note, however, that even in the seven cases of same-year pairs, the proportion between the quantities of cereal in the relevant G and F texts varies considerably — so in this respect too there is a conspicuous lack of regularity 62).

(II) However, there are also data that muddy this clear distinction.(1) Ten individuals appear as both F-receivers and F-kurmins, and three of them

(Azzakra, Karkiš and Šati-Dudu) fulfi l these two functions in the same year, though it is not possible to determine whether they each do so at the same place. Five people are both G-kurmin and G-receiver, one for the same commodity in the same year, another for the same commodity in different years, and the others with no further linkage. Six individu-als fi gure as both F-receiver and G-receiver for the same commodity : one does so in the same year though at different places, and one at the same place but in different years. These data are, no doubt, one step short of a complete subversion of the kurmin/receiver distinction.

(2) More important are the 28 individuals who appear as both G-kurmin and F-kurmin. They come in four sub-categories. (a) Eleven fulfi l the two functions for the same commodity in the same year, and in the case of nine of these eleven it happens either at the same place or with similar seal usage or both. (b) Three further individuals are only known to perform the two functions in different years, though there are further links of stated location and/or seal usage. (c) Eleven individuals simply appear in the two functions in different years with no further linkage. (d) Finally three individuals cannot be properly categorized because their G-text is undated, but (because there are links of seal usage and stated location) they must actually belong in either (a) or (b). There are also six individuals whom some texts put in group (c) or (d) but who are known from other texts to belong in (a) or (b) : this suggests that, with fuller documentation, we should certainly fi nd more cases in category (a), and in the more stringent version of category (a) at that 63. The

62 The (percentage) fi gures are (a) grain : 10, 3.29, 11.96, 30, 41, (b) sesame : 2, 3.42 ; (c) ŠE.GAL :

3.26%.

63 Parru (who is in category [a]) is also represented by series of grain F-texts that are either undated

or are for years not matching his dated G-texts, the other details of which also make almost no

matches with dated G-texts (F-1599 [Šurkutur, seal 5] is an exception). He is also represented

by a sesame and a mixed-grain text, relating to locations represented in the grain texts. Tiyama



assignments here are based on an assumption that different categories of cereal are treated as different commodities : abandoning that limit would yield four further individuals for categories (a) and (b) 64. This material certainly militates as strongly against the Aperghis scenario as that in (I) militates in its favour. It is an additional complication that there are three individuals, Bakadušda, Šati-Dudu and Manuk(k)a, who actually belong in both (I) and (II).

This analysis probably does not fi nally settle any questions. But (in conjunction with the other observations made above) I think that it does cast some doubt upon the model proposed by Aperghis. At the very least, the range of relationships between the indi-viduals involved in G and F transactions is much more complicated than his seductively simple model might lead one to suppose. It is not only Aperghis who is vulnerable to such complaint, of course. The statistical irregularity documented in my n. 62 is at odds with what Koch, for whom F-texts refl ected a lease-system 65, invited readers to assume about the relationship between commodity-quantities in the sort of reciprocally related G and F texts under discussion there 66. The messy reality of the archive sits ill with the (entirely legitimate) wish to discern procedurally rational regularity.

2.6 Category C1 documents : defining the corpusIn order to avoid prejudgement of issues, I divide the data into three groups : (A) 233 memoranda (98 published, 135 unpublished) : these are the texts which represent what has been regarded the norm for C1 documentation 67. The central feature is the record that so-and-so-much of a commodity has been deposited (sometimes as gim) to the account of a named individual 68. (B) 10 memoranda (6 published, 4 unpublished) which Hallock classifi ed as C1 texts (either in Hallock 1969 or in unpublished transcripts) but which are

(in category [a] and [b] with different texts) is also a F-receiver for a related commodity, and

there is a link (Umeya kurmin) between his variously dated F-receiving texts and (seal) between

his variously dated G-kurmins. This is a case where it is particularly easy to imagine there were

once G/F pairs for other years than the sole year now attested.

64 There are several cases where commodities do not match : Appinapa (G-kurmin for wine and

F-kurmin for grain), Bakezza (wine/zali), Muška (wine/grain), Mauparna (wine/grain), Utira

(grain, sesame/oil).

65 Koch 1980 : 131 concluded the system behind the F-texts was a Pacht-relationship, in which those receiv-

ing seed then owed income. She identifi ed ukbawutkuš/hazatap and anmantaš/anmiudda as (a)

“den Verpächter oder den Mann der die Zugtiere zur Verfügung stellt” and (b) “den Pächter”.

66 Koch 1980 : 128 noted one relevant case (PF 0531/PF 0651), claimed the proportion between F and

G texts was one to thirty (it is not actually exactly that) and invited the reader to suppose that

it was regularly the case that the mathematical relationships corresponded to those found in

account tabulations between the Set Aside and Provided columns (normally one-tenth or one-

thirtieth depending on commodity).

67 Two memoranda are preserved as entries in a Journal (PF 1955).

68 “Deposited to the account of ” is Hallock’s translation of the relevant Elamite formula (gim

PN uggi zikkaka), which I use without prejudice. I refer to the named individual as the

“account-holder”.



in various ways and degrees not standard 69. (C) 31 texts of other types (labels ; letters ; journal tabulations ; accounts : 24 published, 7 unpublished) which contain terminology prima facie associable with that of C1 memoranda 70. Groups B and C obviously require further comment. The discussion will also serve to introduce some features of the core group (Group A).

Only one of the 10 documents in group B uses standard C1-memorandum termi-nology (NN 1670) :

220 qts. of extra¿ vinegar I acquired. Now, it is delivered by Umitra (at) the temple ; he is

to deposit that extra¿ on the account of Dadatukka the Zarnamiyan 71.

If this is accepted into Group A, it will provide a rare example of the use of a named depositor (see below p. 65). But the commodity is wine, which is never encountered in Group A documents, though it does occur in some Group C ones 72. So it is best to keep the document separate for the moment 73.

The same is true of the other nine Group B texts. Fort. 6411 (“400 of grain provided by Mišbak and Darkama h.Hu-na-ir-be-ip da-ka [the people of Hunar, for ?/with ? them it was deposited] ; Napkurkur received it, 22nd year”) is unsealed and has no prosopo-graphic links to the rest of the archive. Hallock was himself doubtful about its attribution to C1, and, although PF 2018 shows that one could speak of something being deposited to the account of a collective group (zippi-keepers : see below p. 79-80), that is a slightly special case (since they have all been listed individually earlier in the document) and, in the absence of proper deposit-to-account terminology, one could hardly safely infer that Fort. 6411 is some sort of parallel — though, if it was, one might be entitled to guess that the “people of Hunar” designates offi cials there rather than some larger population (cf.

69 PF 0227-0232 ; NN 0258, NN 0470, NN 1670, NN 2021 ; Fort. 6411, Fort. 8629.

70 Labels : PF 1889-1891, PF 1897. Letters : PF 1829, PF 1849-1851, NN 2578. Journal tabulations :

PF 1956, Fort. 8960 (categorically distinct from the memorandum-style entries in PF 1955,

which are in Group A : cf. n. 67). Accounts : PF 1968-1970, PF 1982-1988, 2009 : 15, 2077, 2079-

2080, 2085 : 10, NN 0530, NN 2188, NN 2189, NN 2346 NN 2665 (there is a near-duplicate

of PF 1983 in NN 2347, which I do not treat as a separate item). Hallock assigned Fort. 8865

(for which he suggested the translation “301 sheep transferred to the account of Zadada and

Parnuma. Tell Mirinzana : formerly it was not written in the record (?) Now on this tablet see

it !”) to category C1. But the terminology (pitika Zadada ak Parnuma ukkap) is not that of

standard C1 material and I therefore leave it out of account.

71 Translation from Henkelman 2006 : 441.

72 The fi rst person verb (huma = “acquired”) gives the document the slight allure of a letter (as

Henkelman 2006 : 441 notes), but there none of the other formal features of that category, so

NN 1670 cannot properly be put in Group C.

73 The personal names are otherwise unattested, and Zarnamiyara only reappears — as Zarnamiya

— in NN 2653, so there is nothing to be learned that way. The one other certain reference to

a temple, in NN 2240 — “940.5 (marriš) of wine, Hišmabana and his companions entrusted

(kurmaš) it to Bakabadda and Miramanna. It was meant for the temple at Harkurtiš (zi-ya-an

Ha-kur-ti-iš ke-ik-la-ka ; cf. Hinz/Koch s.v. gi-ik-la-qa)” — also offers little illumination. The

same goes for NN 0486, in which ziyan = temple might be restored (Henkelman 2006 : 441).



below n. 171). Two documents report grain deposited at a storehouse. NN 0470 (“330 of grain, provided by Mikrašba, Ammarna acquired and took to Persepolis. It has been deposited at the storehouse”) bears several impressions of PFS 0052, a seal associated with the kurmin in the document (Mikrašba). There is no example of that phenomenon in a standard C1 memorandum 74, and seal PFS 0052 is never used in any circumstances on such documents. Moreover, NN 0470 is very similar to two other documents, PF 0025 and NN 2110 75, which were classifi ed by Hallock as type A (Transportation of Commodities), and I suggest it too should be treated as belonging to that category. The same goes for PF 0230 (“23819 [BAR of ] grain, entrusted to [kurmin] Kuntukka, has been deposited in the storehouse at Shiraz”). The seal (PFS 0065) is associated with Shiraz but never found on standard C1 memoranda, and the similarity to NN 0470 suggests that it too should be set aside in the present context. A fourth grain-related text (PF 0231) is odd for different reasons :

773.1 BAR (of ) grain was deposited, together with 701.5 BAR set aside (for seed ?) (at)

Šašukanaš, for allocation by Mandarašba (?) In the 21st year. Then this tablet was tied to its

copy and deposited together (with it)”

This is marked out from normal C1 memoranda by the reference to grain being set aside for seed (characteristic of Category F documents) and by the fi nal sentence. That sen-tence recurs in NN 1871 — a C2 (Accounting Balances) document — and, on that analogy, the fi rst sentence in PF 0231 is perhaps to be taken as equivalent to “{quantity} was carried forward as balance”, so that we are dealing with a quasi-accounting memorandum, not a C1 text. If it belongs anywhere in the present investigation it is with those Group C Journal and Account documents that use “deposit (to account)” terminology. Four documents speak of tarmu being deposited for making beer (PF 0227-0228, NN 2021, Fort. 8629) and a fi fth (PF 0229) of fi gs deposited for making wine. In three cases the named depositors can be identifi ed as offi cials 76 and in another (the wine text) he is called Parnaka — though it is, perhaps, hard to believe that it is actually the Parnaka 77. There is no one who can be identifi ed as an account-holder. If these documents have anything to do with ordinary C1 processes, they illustrate a species of post-deposit commodity-use, but one is bound to be sceptical about their relevance. The same goes for two fi nal documents. NN 0258 reads :

74 Atti/Attiya appears three times with PFS 0099, but that seal’s only occurrence in a non-C1 docu-

ment does not involve him.

75 NN 2110 : 50 (BAR of ) grain, supplied by Mikrašba, Ammarna acquired (and) sent (it) forth

to Persepolis. It was taken to the storehouse. PF 0025 : 360 (BAR of ) grain, supplied by

Mikrašba, Ammarna acquired and took (it for) the (royal) stores (huthut). Mikrašba (kurmin)

and Ammarna (halmi) also occur together in PF 0296 and NN 0096.

76 Appumanya (PF 0227) : cf. e.g., Fort. 8629, NN 1960 (tarmu kurmin), PF 0040, PF 0316 (grain

kurmin), PF 1306 (fl our kurmin), PF 1964 (rasššara [grain]), PF 1914 (wine kurmin), NN 2250,

NN 2070 (apportioner). He deposits grain at Gisat in NN 2578 (see n. 133). Piyala (NN 2021) :

cf. PF 1132, PF 1215-1216, NN 2231, Fort. 8623, (beer kurmin). Halima (Fort. 8269) : cf. PF 1194,

Fort. 8628, NN 0590, NN 0714 (beer kurmin). There is a recurrent association with Zakzaku

and other places in the same region.

77 The fi fth (Anruna) is otherwise unattested.



60 camels alive … for allocation by Battiš son of Umaya ... Year x month 2. 16th day

Miššabada & co. made account (mušaš) at Marriš appa appikanuš ITI.MEŠ karbašima duka uggi zikkak halmi battiziknuš dunuk.

I reproduce the latter part of the text in transliteration to show that the character-istic C1 phrase uggi zikkak does appear — and leave it untranslated because it is entirely unclear what is going on. No account-holder is named and the phrase uggi zikkak is lodged awkwardly between what may be references to (a) appikanaš (i.e. abbakanaš : cf. above p. 28) received in month 6 and (b) a sealed document (halmi) and a copy (that was ?) given. This is plainly nothing like a standard C1 memorandum, and animals do not appear in such texts. PF 0232 (“20 small cattle, Sunkinaki deposited. Then they were ‘taken upon’ (assigned to ?) Sutpit(?). In the 21st year, twelfth month. ‘Taken upon’ Šepzilla were : 2 male kids, 2 male lambs, 1 female lamb) has components of C1 phraseology (“deposited” [dašda] and “taken upon” [uggi marrika] gives us components of standard phraseology, but they are in an unconventional and disjointed form, and there is the same problem about about animals. Assessment of the relevance of this document must await judgement about Group C Accounts dealing with small cattle.

Whereas the memoranda in Group B can be directly compared with the memo-randa in Group A and formal difference can constitute a prima facie case for suspicions about relevance (as does also the fact that none of the seals on Group B documents is ever found on a Group A document 78), this does not work for Group C, where the form of the documents and the seal praxis are ex hypothesi different.

“Deposited to account” terminology occurs frequently, but in some texts we do just hear of things being deposited (or of individuals depositing things) and could in principle be confronting a different procedural context. The word gim never appears in Group C documents. But since it is so often missing in standard C1 memoranda (cf. below p. 51) this fact can only carry weight if one argues that its omission in standard memoranda is due to scribes believing that, in that particular document stereotype, it would be understood to be implied, whereas its omission elsewhere is due to its not being appropriate to what was somehow a different procedural context. This would not be very credible : if anything, one could argue instead that its consistent absence in Group C texts refl ects a judgment that it was a superfl uous piece of detail in abbreviated documents such as labels and bureaucrati-cally higher order documents such as letters, journals and accounts.

The commodities represented are tarmu (1 text), fruit (13), grain (11), wine (1), animals (4) : the fi rst three are proper to Group A documents (if in very different propor-tions 79), the last two are not. Wine is a fruit product and in other contexts individual offi cials deal with both wine and fruit, so there is no prima facie reason why a wine journal (Fort. 8960) with a tabulation under the headings Deposited to their accounts, Received, Withdrawn should be any less likely to cast light upon the C1 process than fruit or grain

78 Group B documents have PFS 0052 (NN 0470) (= Mikrašba), PFS 0057 (PF 0231), PFS 0065

(PF 0230), PFS 0080 (NN 2021), PFS 0505-0507 (PF 0227), PFS 0508-0509 (PF 0228),

PFS 0510-0511 (PF 0229).

79 There are comparatively few Account texts devoted to tarmu (PF 1995-1996, NN 0147, NN 2191,

NN 2204, NN 2664) or tarmu together with other commodities (NN 1031 [wine], NN 2283

[grain, zali], NN 2368 [fruit]), so its low showing here may not be surprising.



accounts with similar tabulations. The animals may seem more of a challenge (and the account format is somewhat different), but “deposited to account” terminology is present, so they can arguably only be shunted outside our investigation if one is going to conclude that the phraseology is not procedurally univocal.

In the wine journal and most of the fruit accounts the tabulation including “depos-ited to their account” also contain the names of individuals in its right-hand column 80. On the face of it these are the individuals to whose account the relevant quantity of the commodity has been deposited — in other words, they are account-holders. The fact that such names are not always present is no more odd than the fact that not all C1 memoranda name an account-holder — indeed less odd, since accounts in the nature of things sum-marize transactions and may choose to suppress details — and there seems no obvious reason to deny the prima facie explanation.

The number of dated Group C documents is too small to allow much meaningful comment about date-distribution, but the fact that over half date from Year 19 or earlier is not surprising given the generally earlier date-horizon of accounts and journals. It is slightly more interesting that the distribution of Group A texts shows a concentration in years 22-25 that is markedly higher than that for memoranda as a whole and much higher than that for two other categories of putative tax document (viz F and G : dis-cussed above) 81. In terms of Henkelman’s explanation of the archive’s chronology what this means is that there was a lower rate of preservation of standard C1-texts outside what one may call the “glitch years” than in the case of other memoranda, but (even with the additional quirk that year 28 is unusually well represented : cf. n. 81) it is hard to see what inference can legitimately be drawn from this about the nature of the process that the texts in question document.

There are 66 named locations in C1 memorandum documents, 24 of which appear in more than one text 82. Twenty (30.3%) appear only in such documents, quite a high proportion (compare 21% and 19% in G and F texts respectively), but not as striking as the fi gures for named individuals (see below p. 79). In Group C texts, by contrast, only

80 Fort. 8960 (wine), PF 1982-1984 (fruit), PF 1986 (fruit), PF 1987 (fruit), PF 1988 (fruit), PF 2079

(fruit), NN 2188 (fruit), NN 2346 (fruit).

81 The fi gures for each year are : 18 : 1 (0.4) ; 19 : 2 (0.9) ; 20 : 4 (1.8) ; 21 : 3 (1.3) ; 22 : 61 (27.1) ; 23 :

77 (34.2) ; 24 : 42 (18.7) ; 25 : 19 (8.4) ; 26 : 1 (0.4) ; 27 : 3 (1.3) ; 28 : 14 (6.2). The percentages in

brackets are based on 225 dated documents. As will be seen 180/225 (80%) are from years 22-24

and 199/225 (88.4%) from 22-25. For memoranda as a whole the percentages for these four years

are 24.31, 27.15, 11.22, 4.74 (a total of 67.42). The corresponding totals for F and G texts are,

respectively, 60% and 70%. C1 texts are hardly found at all in the outlying seven years, except

for year 28, which is better represented than in memoranda as a whole or in F and G texts. Only

3 texts give a month as well as a year (NN 0439 [23/3], NN 0023 [24/5], PF 0222 [24/6]).

82 Some documents name more than one location. PFa 01 and PF 2018 have separate entries for

(respectively) two account holders at two locations and 16 account holders at seven locations

(in PF 2018 the account holders are zippi-keepers at Shiraz, an eighth location). In PF 0157

Tamukkan & Kabaš is treated as a single (partetaš) location. NN 1475 has three locations

(Tandari, Liduma, Pulabeli of the king), but there is no named account holder. Is the text

gathering together data for a number of account holders (see below p. 72) ?



one of the 16 locations (Mankada) is completely unattested elsewhere in the archive and only one (Tiliman) recurs as a Group A location. But any suggestion of a disjunction between Group A and Group C documents should be treated with caution : places for which journals and accounts are produced are more likely to have some visibility elsewhere in the archive than the generality of places within its purview. There is nothing here to indicate that Group C documents do not provide evidence about the process recorded in Group A documents.

The same goes for another aspect of location. Some Group A documents provide statements either additional or alternative to the simple naming of a place, notably refer-ences to partetaš, estates and centuries (see below). The only similar thing in a Group C document is the placing of two putative account-holders in PF 2079 at estates, one of them located at Kapardu. But I doubt that this is a signifi cant sign of disjunction. Two points should be kept in mind. First, all but one of the century documents are dated and all come from year 25 or 28 83. This means that they have an essentially different date horizon from much of Group C and might represent a version of the C1 process not much or at all in force at that earlier date. Second, the 15 partetaš locations fall into two distinct groups, six around Tamukkan and the other nine around Persepolis (Tuplin 1996 : 178-182) 84. In other words, they lie in a limited portion of the geographical space covered by the archive as a whole, and it is possible that few, if any, of the Accounts happen to belong to the same geographical space.

A large proportion of Group A account-holders are unknown elsewhere (see below p. 79). Where the names of Group A account-holders do appear elsewhere in the archive, 69 cases admit of comment. In 48 there is no particularly good ground for a link with homonyms elsewhere (the amount of data available for making such links varies, but in at least 28 cases it is arguably suffi cient to make the failure somewhat signifi cant). In the other 21 cases there is a rational basis for speculating about the personal identity of the account-holder with homonyms elsewhere in the archive : the variables are commodity-association and geographical location and only in some cases do these line up at all perfectly.

Mišparma appears as account-holder and apportioner in the same text (PF 0158). Dutukka (grain, at Pirmiš : PF 1955) is a grain-kurmin in a C1-type label, also at Pirmiš (PF 1889). Karakka (tarmu, Šaurakkaš and Kutkuš : PF 0150-0151, PF 0153-0154) recurs as kurmin in a G-document at Kutkuš (PF 0637). Zanuš (tarmu, Kutkuš : NN 1981) is similar (NN 1905, another Kutkuš G-text). Mišbesa (fruit at Halmarrašda [PF 2018] and Shiraz [PF 0159-0160, NN 0142, NN 1088, NN 1278]) recalls a fruit kurmin “at the fortress” in

83 The undated one is the ex-Erlenmeyer tablet published in Jones & Stolper 2006 : 21.

84 Tamukkan group (years 21-24, except for one undated text) : Tamukkan & Kabaš, Šaurakkaš,

Kutkuš, Mutrizaš, Mamakaš, Hapruma. Persepolis group (years 21-24 apart from one each

from 25, 27 and 28) : Mišdukba, Barašba, Upirrizza, Nupištaš, Madana/Mattanan, Murkaziya,

Akkuban, Aptudaraš = Abbadaraš, Kandukka. There are substantive distinctions too : the

Tamukkan group appears in ten documents in which the account holder is “PN the kar-maker

in the partetaš at GN” and the commodity is tarmu. The Persepolis group appears in 20 docu-

ments that relate to fruit, have untitled account holders (except for Mišparma the kurdabattiš

in PF 0158) and speak of material “kept at the partetaš at GN”. Procedural implications are

discussed elsewhere (p. 63, 81-83).



NN 1425 and Fort. 6580 85 : the man at Halmarrašda is a “zippi-keeper” at Shiraz (PF 2018) and explicitly located there in other C1 memoranda, while the unnamed “fortress” could well be that at Shiraz (oddly the place-name Halmarrašda also evokes halmarriš = fort). Zimaka (fruit, Dautiyaš : PFa 01) is likely to be the homonym recorded as fruit kurmin at Appištapdan and seedling-keeper at Tikranuš in PFa 33, given that Dautiyaš is linked with Tikraš (PFa 01) and Tikraš with Appištapdan and Tikranuš (PFa 33). There are four further cases in which identifi cation with a kurmin attested elsewhere depends on indirect geographical association of this sort 86, another three in which not only is the geographi-cal link indirect but the commodity involved does not match 87 and one that is frankly speculative 88. Among the remaining six instances of potential link between account-holders in C1 memoranda and other individuals in the archive the most promising are probably Pukša (fruit, Matezziš : PF 2018) who might be the fruit-ullira at Matannan, and the Shiraz zippi-keeper Pitukka (fruit, Marriš : PF 2018) who might be a wine-provider at Turka (NN 2668) or a grain-etira at Masdakuš (PF 1986, NN 2490), given that Turka and Marriš both appear in a Masdakuš account document (NN 2200) 89.

This is not a great haul and may include some false links. On the other hand, as in all such exercises, the results may also under-state. Unless both commodity and location are in place there is little way of nailing an identifi cation. For example, it would obviously be tempting to identify Tiriya (cf. n. 89) with a beer-maker in NN 1591 rather than with a hišin-maker at Kaupirriš, since tarmu is regularly used in beer-making ; but the beer-maker is unlocated and the identifi cation would therefore be entirely up in the air. Again, there may be a larger number of indirect geographical links between account-holders and their homonyms than I can readily identify. Whether the gains that might come from this direction would produce a net gain is hard to judge. But it seems fair to say that the

85 PF 0385-0386, NN 1173, NN 1437 may also refer to this individual.

86 Putizza : fruit, Kurra (PF 0205) ; cf. PF 0644, NN 1408 (fruit kurmin, Hiran G-text). Irdabanuš :

tarmu, Matannan (NN 2081) ; cf. NN 0411 (grain kurmin, Ankarakkan). Umaya : tarmu, seals

PFS 0008 and 0014 (NN 1767, Fort. 705) ; many documents place him as grain kurmin at

Kurra or (more rarely) Kaupirriš (places where PFS 0008 is used) and NN 1786 links him with

fl our at Kaupirriš (Umaya also appears as tarmu kurmin at Šarnan in NN 2020, but Šarnan is

unlocatable, and the apportioner involved, Bakadada, is attested at various places, none associ-

able with Kurra or Kaupirriš).

87 Parsara : fruit, Harbaziyan (NN 0700) ; cf. PF 0514, NN 2121 (grain kurmin, Kurakka). Karpuna :

fruit, Kukannakka (NN 2559) ; cf. PF 01103 (grain kurmin, Ambanuš). Mapramartiya : grain,

in a Mezama account (PF 1955) ; cf. NN 1013 (receives wine, Ukbakampiya).

88 Parnuma (dates, no location or helpful seals : NN 0162) might be either a fruit kurmin at Liduma

(NN 1171 — a C1 memorandum) or the putative fruit account-holder at Kumišša in NN 2188

(a Group C text), who might in turn be a grain agent at the same place (NN 2371).

89 Other cases are not very compelling. Maršena : tarmu, Mamakaš and Matannan (NN 1991,

NN 2485) ; cf. PF 0522 (receives grain in F-text, Hadamakaš). Nakkunda : tarmu, Baktiš and

unlocated (172, NN 1900) ; cf. PF 0743 (lan-performer at Kaupirriš). Tiriya : tarmu, seals

PFS 0008, PFS 0013 (NN 2473) ; cf. PF 0782 (hišin-maker, Kaupirriš). Marrezza : tarmu, Baktiš

(PF 0177) ; cf. PF 1945 (transports grain Matezikaš [Matezziš ?] to Rakkan). Kambezza : fruit,

Dutaš (PF 0225) ; cf. NN 2386 (receives grain at Narrezaš).



information about account-holders and their homonyms elsewhere does not suggest a disjunction between the account-holder class and the rest of the archive (and specifi cally offi cials elsewhere in the archive) nearly as strongly as the fact that so many account-hold-ers are simply not attested outside C1-memoranda in the fi rst place.

Four people are explicitly presented as account-holders in Group C texts, though since one text is rather ambiguously phrased fi ve names enter the frame (Tumamarrimea, Mirinzali, Marmadaš, Rašakanuš, Antarma, Harriyauzaka 90). Of these only Mirinzali and Antarma are found elsewhere in archive. No cogent identifi cation of Mirinzali can be found, but Antarma (1956 : grain, Rašnumattiš) could be the man attested as haturmakša at Kurarakka (1969) and storekeeper at Harrina and Ukbakampiya (2084) and named in an uncertain role in NN 0538 91.

There are 43 putative account-holders in Group C texts. 12 of the names are oth-erwise unknown in the archive — a much smaller proportion than was the case with Category A account-holders. There is no demonstrable identifi cation for 21 of the other 31. That leaves 10 cases in which some such identifi cation might be essayed. Harrena (cattle, PF 2009) is well-known as an apportioner and cattle-chief (the same functions he is per-forming in PF 2009). Mannuzza (PF 1986) appears as kurmin in PF 1985, Zasuma as both account-holder and kurmin in PF 1986, and Kullala as account-holder, kurmin and aparna-bara in PF 1984 (PF 1984-1986 are all fruit accounts). Maušuma is both an account-holder (Fort. 8960 : wine) and a source of wine (described as hapiršimaš : PF 2004) at Dakana. Mikrašba (Fort. 8960 : Dakana, fruit) is the name of an account-holder in a Group A C1 document (neither commodity nor location is known) and of a grain kurmin at various locations, some which of which could be linked with Dakana 92. Parnuma (NN 2188 : Kumišša, fruit) is also a Group A account-holder (fruit, unknown location : NN 0162) and a grain agent in a Kumišša journal (NN 2371) 93. Upizza is a fruit account-holder at Dazzarakka (PF 1987) and a wine-etira at Marriš : Marriš and Dazzarakka are linked via Šimparra 94 and fruit and wine are hardly mutually incompatible commodities 95. In the

90 PF 1829 (Tumamarrimea), PF 1889 (Mirinzali), PF 1890 (Rašakanuš), PF 1956 (Antarma or

Hariyauzaka : cf. below p. 71).

91 Geographical names found in NN 0573 include Turka, Razinuttiš, Turrukurtiš. PF 1956 names

Turrukurtiš and Ukbakampiya (cf. PF 2084 — which also mentions Kurraraka) as well as

Rašnumattiš (an alternative form of Razinuttiš).

92 Dakana may be near Ibariš or Persepolis (Henkelman 2006 : 304-5), but a suitable kurmin named

Mikrašba can be found for both possibilities (NN 2229, NN 2538 [Zila-Umpan] ; NN 1527,

NN 2110 [Persepolis-related]).

93 There are four other names shared between Group C and Group A account holders (Umaya,

Bakabada, Bakadada, Kappirruš), but no specifi c ground for identifi cation : the commodities

do not match, and there is no conspicuous geographical alignment.

94 Šimparra receives fruit from Dazzarakka (PF 1987) and sends grain to Masdakuš (PF 1960), a place

that includes Marriš in its accounts (NN 2200).

95 Should Umaka (PF 1983 : fruit, Tuppiruna) be connected with a wine-haturmakša at Hištiyanuš

(PF 1980) ? But Tuppiruna is only attested in PF 1983-1984, and I do not currently see a way of

making the geographical link. There is a similar problem with Bakezza (PF 1988 : fruit, Natinuš)

and the wine-kurmin at Dakana in Fort. 8960, Natinuš being another ill-attested location.



remaining two cases, identifi cation of Bakašakka (PF 2079 : fruit, Kapardu) with a fl our kurmin at Shiraz (the geographical link is tenuous 96) or of Panuka (to whose account cattle are deposited in PF 2085 at an undisclosed location) with the (equally unlocated) sesame-kurmin in NN 0518 and receiver of sesame in NN 0168 would have to be described as lacking specifi c justifi cation. Arguably, the important fact about Panuka is simply that, like Harrena, he is to apportion the small cattle deposited to his account - in other words, he is an offi cial in the administration.

So, fewer Group C account-holders are hapax legomenoi than is the case with Group A. But fewer of those who are not hapax legomenoi admit of specifi cally justifi ed identifi ca-tion with individuals elsewhere in the archive (9 from 43, as against 21 from 69), though identifi cations which have some cogency about them are relatively more common. I am not confi dent that there is a statistically signifi cant difference here : the earlier chronologi-cal profi le of Group C documents and the comparative paucity of early memorandum-style documents (the best raw material for providing neat prosopographical links) should not be forgotten.

I conclude that there is no obvious reason why Group C documents should be excluded from the investigation. This has implications for the three Group B documents, NN 1670 and PF 0231-0232 whose position was left open, pending examination of Group C. They remain in various ways odd by the standards of most of Group A, but it will be appropriate to refer to them from time to time.

2.7 Category C1 documents : analysisThe core of the standard type of C1 memorandum is the statement that a quantity of some commodity “has been deposited to account of PN” (uggi daka PN or uggi zikakka PN) or “has been deposited as gim to account of PN” (gim uggi daka/zikakka PN). Gim is missing in 76 of the 233 relevant documents (32%). In the absence of any other con-spicuous and consistent distinction between documents with and without gim one has to assume the presence or absence of the word is essentially arbitrary and that it is always understood as present. Koch (1980 : 108f ) made the word uggi a crucial one for assessment of the C1 process by interpreting it to mean “Abgabe”, but the interpretation was rebutted by Herrenschmidt, and the truth is that the real defi ning term is gim. Hallock translated an occurrence of the word in a pre-Achaemenid document as “lock” and speculated that its semantic force in C1 documents was “in trust” or “for safekeeping” (1969 : 14). Hinz & Koch s.v. gi-um take the same pre-Achaemenid document to refer to a “load” (“Last”) — a development from a basic sense of “Haufen” (“heap”, “pile”) — and give it the sense “Guthaben” (credit, balance) or “Konto” (account) in C1 documents 97. Neither of these ways of understanding gim does anything positive for the tax-hypothesis, but neither disproves it 98 and, without an uncontested explanation of what it actually means, there is little further help to be got here. Nor is there much help to be got from the rest of the

96 Shiraz is in Hallock’s region 1. So is Zikaran, which can be linked to Kapardu via the associations

of Raduma, a place also named in PF 2079.

97 Although “account” occurs in Hallock’s translation of the standard formula, it is not as a transla-

tion of gim.

98 The fact that in German “Lasten” (literally “loads”) can mean “taxes” illustrates the problem.



basic formula as such : our whole problem is that we do not know what it signifi es. We must proceed therefore by investigating features that fi ll out, elaborate upon or diverge from the basic formula.

2.8 CommoditiesAlmost all Group A texts record tarmu or fruit (in a proportion of around 12 : 10). Tarmu is occasionally distinguished as kurrusam or hazatiš, fruit comes in various types, and sometimes more than one sort of tarmu or of fruit is recorded in a single memorandum. There are four texts with exceptional commodities : NN 0331 (sesame), NN 1214 (fl our), PF 1955 and Fort. 3547 (grain).

The two memorandum entries incorporated in the grain journal PF 1955 are, of course, somewhat deviant texts. But NN 1214 and Fort. 3547 are standard documents, and NN 0331 — a text without named account-holder — belongs to a well-attested sub-group of standard C1 memoranda. The statement in NN 0331 that the sesame will be stored as tintaš is more unusual, as is a (grammatically) puzzling reference to Pilpi and his compan-ions. But the former is paralleled in a fruit memorandum of unimpeachable ordinariness (NN 2114), and the latter is hardly enough to establish the document’s irrelevance to the normal environment of C1 transactions. So, even if we leave PF 1955 out of account, we face a choice : either we must imagine that three scribes inadvertently used a C1 format to record facts about sesame, fl our and grain that should have been framed in a different way or we must conclude that sesame, fl our and grain were commodities that could be depos-ited to someone’s account just as well as tarmu and fruit and that the otherwise universal confi nement of C1 memoranda to tarmu and fruit is an oddity of the selection of docu-ments at our disposal, not something intrinsic to the process. The fi rst of these choices is not the easier option ; and the fact that C1 memoranda underwent a more than averagely rigorous selection in terms of date profi le (see above, p. 45) might positively encourage one to wonder whether there was (separately) a rigorous selection in terms of commodity.

This conclusion is consistent with the presence of grain and wine in Group C docu-ments. What follows is that, since animals also appear in Group C documents, they too are an appropriate C1 commodity, and PF 0232 (one of the Group B texts : p. 43) may after all be a rather oddly expressed C1 memorandum. In short, on the evidence before us the deposit-to-account process affected all the major commodities of the archive with the exception of beer.



2.9 Seals178 of the 233 Group A documents bear the impression of at least one of 97 distinguishable seals 99. This invites a number of observations 100.

(a) There are quite frequently three or more (up to six) seals on a tablet, and this is true to an extent without complete parallel in the archive 101 — though it should be noted that a signifi cant proportion of cases in which four or more seals are used is due to the repeated appearance of a single combination of four (those forming set [3] in n. 103). The texts with unusually high numbers of seals (i.e. four or more) fall into no obvious pattern (in terms of their content) and one can legitimately assert that the C1 process did not really require as many as four seal-wielding offi cials — in other words, that the use of four to six seals represents a degree of overkill. But that is still a phenomenon peculiar to these documents.

(b) There is no association of specifi c seals with persons named in the texts : in particular the account-holders are not represented by seals.

(c) Individual seals or combinations are not confi ned to either tarmu or fruit, but one or other commodity defi nitely tends to preponderate.

99 PFS 0008, 0013, 0014, 0019, 0022, 0034, 0046, 0076, 0060, 0064, 0099, 0102, 0117, 0123, 0153,

0155, 0156, 0161, 0171, 0172, 0178, 0197, 0198, 0206, 0228, 0229, 0230, 0260, 0286, 0306, 0307,

0326, 0449, 0450, 0451, 0452, 0453, 0454, 0455, 0456, 0458, 0459, 0460, 0461, 0462, 0463, 0464,

0465, 0466, 0467, 0468, 0469, 0470, 0472, 0473, 0477, 0478, 0479, 0480, 0481, 0482, 0483,

0484, 0485, 0486, 0488, 0489, 0492, 0493, 0494, 0495, 0496, 0497, 0498, 0499, 0501, 0502,

0503, 0504, 0505, 0506, 0507, 0508, 0509, 0510, 0511, 0815, 1597, 1598, 1642, 1672. Hallock’s

transcripts note seals he called N-6, N-772, N-127, and he made some other identifi cations,

e.g., of a seal found on NN 1600 l.e. and NN 1288 l.e. and another on u.e. of NN 0810 and

NN 0813. All PFS numbers above 0326 (except 0815) refl ect identifi cations of previously un-

numbered PFT seals in Garrison & Root 1996/1998 ; none of these seals occurs more than once

apart from 0326 (twice), 0451 (seven times), 0453 (twice), 0472 (twice), 0815 (three times). Note

that Garrison & Root list only 4 instances of PFS 0451 ; the other three refl ect identifi cations in

Hallock’s transcript of seals on NN texts with (then still unnumbered) seals on PFT texts. The

same applies to 0453 and 0815. There are many unidentifi ed seals in the NN series transcripts,

however, so the available record is rather inadequate.

100 The three reinstated Group B documents (cf p. 51) are unsealed, and Group C texts are either

unsealed or bear seals appropriate to their Letter Order, Journal or Account status not to their

engagement with C1 transactions. There is therefore nothing to be learned about such transac-

tions from their seal praxis.

101 Among Group A items in PFT information in Garrison & Root 1996/1998 shows that 19

(19.8%) have three seals and a further 22 (22.9%) four or more (I have not computed fi gures

for NN series texts, since my information about their sealing is patchy. I do not think the situa-

tion would be different). Among non-C1 texts (again in PFT only) the only comparable fi gures

are for Categories B (22.9% with 3 seals), K3 (15.6% with four seals or more), M (10.6% with

3 seals) and N (28.2% with three seals). But B, M and N have negligible numbers with four or

more and K3 a negligible number with three, so in no category is the total for three or more

seals anything like the 42.7% found in C1 (all of these fi gures are for the use of three or more

different seals on a tablet ; multiple impression of the same seal is another matter).



(d) Seals generally occur in combination 102 ; this allows one to defi ne sixteen sets of two or more from which the combinations of seals on particular tablets were (in effect) selected 103. Citing 0008-0013-0034, 0013-0206 and 0008-0014-0019-0022 in particular

102 Only three seals never appear in combination with other seals : PFS 0117 (one document : Hunar/

Šuršunkiri), PFS 0178 (three documents : Turšikka [twice], Unudadda [once]), PFS 0815 (one

document : Harbaziya).

103 (1) PFS 0060, 0102, 0034 : Tamukkan-group partetaš texts (Tamukka & Kabaš, Šaurakkaš,

Kutkuš, Mutrizaš, Mamakaš, Hapruma).

(2) PFS 0008, 0013, 0034, 0206, 0470, 1672 : Baktiš, Kaupirriš, Kurra, Matannan, Malibban

and unlocated (PFS 0034 only Baktiš, Parnamatiš ; 0206 only Kaupirriš and Matannan).

(3) PFS 0008, 0014, 0019, 0022 : presumably the same region as (2), especially as two 0008-

0014-0019-0022 texts are for an account holder (Karkiš) also attested at Baktiš, with 0008-0013-

0034. 0014, 0019 and 0022 appear in two C1 texts without 0008, but probably only because the

l.e. is destroyed ; the account holder in one of these texts recurs in an 0008-0019-0022 text ; it

seems likely that originally 0014-0019-0022 normally appeared with 0008.

(4) PFS 0064, 0099, 0228, 0477-0479, 0502-0504 : Liduma, Hidali, Tiliman, Uratma, Tandari,

Ullapitbena, Pulabeli of the king, Mušlir.

(5) PFS 0153, 0260, 0452 : Persepolis group partetaš or places that are partetaš sites explicitly in

other C1-documents (Barašba, Upirrizza, Nupištaš, Madana/Matannan, Murkaziya, Kandukka,

Akkuban, Aptudaraš = Abbadaraš). The exception is Besanhamek (PFS 0153).

(6) PFS 0286, N-6, N-772, N-127, C1-1600 = C1-1288 : Shiraz, Hazidda, Rappittan, Nuraya,

Mištambaš/Mišdubaš, Nukusantiya, Miyamatizzan, xxxxširyan.

(7) PFS 0046, 0076, 0482, 0483, 0484 : unlocated.

(8a) PFS 0123, 0171, 0172, 0460-0465 : unlocated.

(8b) PFS 0306, 0307, 0229, 0230, 0486-0489, 0492 : unlocated (linked to 8a by a one text,

PF 0219, with 0123, 0306, 0307, 0486-0489).

(9) PFS 0161, 0451 : unlocated century-documents.

(10) PFS 0197, 0198 : Kurra, Muran.

(11) PFS 0155, 0156, 0449, 0450 : four unlocated century documents ; two other Baktiš-located

documents.

(12) PFS 0453, 1642 : Abbadaraš/Aptubaraš.

(13) PFS 0493, 0499, 0501 : Uššakampaš, Dutaš.

(14) N-150, N-151 : unlocated.

(15) PFS 1597, 1598 : Hazidda.

(16) PFS 1599, 1600 : unlocated.

Within the various sets the same seal generally appears as l.e. (in the putative supplier-seal posi-

tion). There are fi ve exceptions. (a) 0034 also appears as reverse seal on partetaš documents ;

(b) 0008 is not l.e. seal if 0034 appears and takes that place ; (c) 0286 is not l.e. seal when it

appears with the l.e. seal found on C1-1600 and C1-1288 ; (d) 0099 is not l.e. seal on the one

occasion when it appears with 0064 (which takes precedence) ; (e) 0260 is only l.e. seal when

not appearing with 0153 (which takes precedence), the latter cases being much more common.

Those seals used on the l.e. of C1 tablets that recur on non-C1 tablets are generally found in

the l.e. position there too.



(cf. items [2] and [3] in n. 103) Aperghis inferred that roving offi cials come together for particular transactions 104.

(e) Where locations are given, sets of seals are associated with a number of locations, all certainly or presumably in one area. There is no one-to-one link of a particular seal with a particular storehouse location. This phenomenon would no doubt be consistent with talk of roving offi cials. In view of the fact that there are quite a lot of otherwise unknown locations in these texts (see above p. 45), it should be noted that the groups of seal-related locations do also include plenty of familiar places (including storehouse sites), sometimes distributed over quite a wide area. The impression is not always that any roving offi cials are simply going into the fairly immediate and (to us) toponymically obscure hinterland of a single centre : that might work for set (6) (in n. 103) or for the partetaš-groups (sets [1] and [5]), but it does not work for sets (2)-(4).

(f ) 84 seals are confi ned to C1 memoranda, while twelve appear also on other categories of text 105. (The disproportion should be treated with some caution. Garrison & Root’s individuation and enumeration of the seals of all tablets published in PFT [1996/1998] produced a further 56 numbered seals on the C1 texts in that publication, only one of which appears on a non-C1 document. But until a comparable exercise occurs for the entire NN series, we cannot be sure what the true proportion of C1-only to other seals might actually be. Moreover a clear message of Garrison & Root 1996/1998 is that rarely or uniquely used seals are a feature of many parts of the archive as now preserved.) The two groups overlap in the sense that seals from each can appear on the same tablet 106. In general terms the mixture of C1-only and more generally used seals does show that the C1 process has a distinctive administrative character of some sort but is not (how could it be ?) wholly divorced from the normal administrative environment.

(g) C1 seals appearing elsewhere do so in eight types of document 107. Aperghis highlighted type (1) in n. 107, noted the references to PN & companions receiving the

104 Cf. Koch 1980, and Garrison (this volume).

105 Viz PFS 0014, 0019, 0022, 0034, 0060, 0064, 0099, 0102, 0117, 0206, 0326, 0815.

106 This occurs most often in three sets (2), (3) and (5) (cf. n. 103).

107 (1) Ration texts naming PN & companions PFS 0014 : PF 1098, PF 1221, PF 1232, NN 2050 ;

PFS 0019 : PF 1129, NN 1837 ; PFS 0022 : PF 1129 ; PFS 0034 : PF 1093. PFS 0064 : PF 1128,

PF 1100, PF 1220, PF 1229, PF 1237, PF 1597, NN 0132, NN 0434, NN 1549, NN 0151, NN 0451,

NN 0629, Fort. 1706, NN 1267, NN 1442, NN 1446, NN 1502, NN 2186 ; PFS 0117 : PF 1626,

NN 1659, NN 2232, NN 2242. The texts are almost always in categories M or N ; the exceptions

are NN 0434 (L2 : PFS 0064), 1626 (R : PFS 0117) NN 2242 (L1 : PFS 0117).

(2) Special ration texts that do not name PN & companions (a) sat-rations (PFS 0034 : NN 0910,

NN 1471, NN 1479, NN 1364, NN 1335 ; PFS 0102 : NN 0427, NN 2583) ; (b) dayaššiza-ration

(PFS 0022 : NN 0281).

(3) Ordinary rations direct to an individual PFS 0117 : PF 0828.

(4) F and G documents PFS 0060 : NN 2084, NN 2177 ; PFS 0117 : PF 0503, PF 0599, PF 0625,

NN 1103, NN 1196 ; PFS 0815 : PF 0608.

(5) Deliveries PFS 0099 : PF 0120-0121 ; PFS 0117 : PF 0119. PFS 0326 : PF 0013

(6) Accounting Balances PFS 0034 : NN 2109.

(7) Utilization PFS 0117 : PF 0374.



commodity and giving it to the end-users, and compared this with PF 0225 — a C1 text in which named depositors (Attemaka & companions) appear as well as the account-holder to whose account they deposited the commodity at Dutaš 108. His picture is that, just as PN & companions in special ration texts take a commodity from the storehouse to the end-user, so in C1 texts PN & companions take the commodity from the producer (alias account-holder) to the storehouse. It is certainly the case that the C1 seals also found elsewhere were being used in the business of commodity-transfer (sometimes in the same places or areas as their use in C1 documents 109) and were not in general uniquely associ-able with any individual offi cial 110 ; and it is also true that text-categories M and N (for the signifi cance of which cf. n. 107) offer some sort of parallel for the multi-seal character of C1 documents (cf. n. 101) — though the same can be said of Category B. But, as the list in n. 107 shows, they were available in quite a wide variety of procedural contexts, so strictly speaking their occurrence on C1 documents merely illustrates (what we assume anyway) that those documents are part of the business of commodity management. It is not, of course, illegitimate to note that PF 0225 and NN 1560 also speak of a “PN & companions” group 111, but the truth is that any signifi cance these documents have for an explanation of C1 process is primarily dependent on what the actual texts (a non-standard formulation) might suggest about the implications of the standard formula, not on the fact that six C1 seals sometimes appear on ration texts that refer to “PN & companions” 112.

(8) Accounts PFS 0815 : NN 0758.

108 In NN 1560, seal-linked to PF 0225 by PFS 0499, the same group deposits at Uššakampaš.

109 Among the relevant seals for which C1 documents provide a location, this is true for PFS 0014,

0019, 0022, 0060, 0064, 0206, 0260, 0326, 0815. It is not demonstrable for PFS 0102. The

one C1 use of PFS 0117 is linked by the kurmin Anzaduš to 3 non-C1 uses (PF 0374, PF 1626,

NN 1659). Seal 0034 is problematic. It is attested at Hunar, Shiraz, Širam (associable with Shiraz

via PF 2018) and Memašlu. The last is attested only in the two PFS 0034 texts that mention it,

but Hunar and Shiraz are well known and in quite different regions. Since the Hunar text is

from year 23 and all the other texts are undated except for a Shiraz text of year 18, it is possible

that the seal moved from Shiraz to Hunar between year 18 and 23. C1 uses of PFS 0034 are

associated with locations that do not link either with Hunar or Shiraz and which are in some

degree of internal confl ict as well since it appears both (as a l.e. seal) at Baktiš and Parnamatiš

(presumed to be in the Kamfi ruz region) and as a reverse seal on Tamukkan group partetaš

documents (presumed to be east of Persepolis). All of the C1 uses occur in year 22 : so perhaps

the seal moved from Shiraz to Tamukkan by year 22, then on to Kamfi ruz in the same year and

fi nally to Hunar by year 23. — The appearance of PFS 14 on PF 1098 at Tamukkan (year 23) is

also out of line with its associations elsewhere in C1 and non-C1 documents.

110 However PFS 0014 always appears with Irzaparra & companions (4 texts) and PFS 0064 appears

with Irtašduna & companions in year 20-21 (4 texts) and Tiridada & companions in year 22

onwards (14 texts).

111 Incidentally, the document’s seals appear only here in PFT and were not, as far as I know, subse-

quently recognized by Hallock anywhere in the NN series.

112 Of the six seals two, PFS 0064 and PFS 0117, appear only once on a C1 document and a third,

PFS 0034, is only used once on the relevant sort of ration text. All these instances could be

regarded as “sports”. The other three, PFS 0014, 0019 and 0022, do fi gure on a total of 28 C1



(h) Still, although C1 transactions could be done with only one or two seal-holders (indeed, as is the case with most categories of text, on occasion there are no seals), it is clear that the interests (“jurisdictions” according to Hallock 1977 : 132, echoed by Henkelman 2006 : 80) of a larger number of persons or offi ces were regularly assumed to be affected. Does that support the tax-hypothesis ? Aperghis’s view is that seal-holders roamed the land collecting tax and that they did so in groups (groups that might have been described with the “PN & companions” formula). There can be no implicit argument that several offi cials were needed because of the peculiar sensitivity of tax-collecting, since multiple sealing occurs on categories of document that are not recording tax business (and, for that matter, does not always occur on C1 documents). Nor can one say that it was a matter of effi ciency to despatch groups of offi cials who would then split an area between them, because the actual pattern of seal use does not really work like that. But, more basically, the conten-tion that the seal pattern discloses roving seal-holders (which is simply a construct from the existence of seal-sets and the association of some of them with defi nable geographical areas) does not guarantee that they are roving to collect rather than to distribute.

(i) The absence of any seal that can be associated with the account-holder is a nota-ble phenomenon, given that the account-holder is on the face of it the most important fi gure in the transaction. For supporters of the tax hypothesis the phenomenon is presum-ably understood to refl ect the fact that a tax payer is not (in his capacity as a tax payer) a seal-carrying offi cial and the assumption that “ordinary” people did not habitually possess seals or (if they did) would not have been supposed to impress them on documents cre-ated by the economic administration. Supporters of an alternative model — in which the commodity is going to the account-holder, not coming from him — can argue that the process of sealing is primarily concerned with marking the disbursement : it is the fact that a commodity transaction will be a charge against someone’s account that leads to a seal being applied as an acknowledgment of the debt. (The application of seals by those responsible for the actual movement of the commodity does not fi t that pattern directly, but it is consistent with the principle in the sense that it is the process of disbursement that is being marked not the fact of ultimate receipt.) If C1 transactions are actually putting commodities into someone’s account, then he does not need to apply a seal. The situation is comparable with what Aperghis presumably envisages as characteristic of multiply-sealed ration (and other) documents — i.e. a supplier-seal (on the left edge) with two or more seals representing “PN & companions”, but nothing for the prospective consumers of the ration or (more accurately) for the person who was responsible for actually receiving the

documents and 6 relevant ration texts (one of which has both PFS 0019 and PFS 0022). At the

same time, as C1 seals, they constitute a set — in the sense defi ned above — and are thus only

evidence for a single administrative state of affairs, albeit one valid for a period of two years :

in other words, a sceptical observer could say that there is effectively just one piece of evidence

for the distinctive overlap of C1 and ration-text use that Aperghis highlighted. Of course, this

might well be called hyper-sceptical, and one could protest that the activities of agents are

implicit in some or all of the other categories of text marked with seals also in use on C1 docu-

ments, so to limit the argument to type (1) is artifi cial. But that is to concede the point that the

other evidence about use of C1 seals provides a global environment for the interpretation of C1

procedure, not a fi nely focused demonstration.



commodity from the delivery team (“PN & companions”) and distributing it among the consumers. Moreover, since there is a very strong tendency for particular seals to appear on the left edge of tablets carrying C1 memoranda and for them to be in the same position if they occur on non-C1 tablets (see n. 103), one might claim that the C1 seal-sets actually include supplier seals, albeit ones rarely attested elsewhere : this would make the parallel even more precise and support the non-tax scenario.

2.10 LocationSeal praxis raises questions of location. I have already commented on the recurrence of C1 locations in other categories of document and noted that the proportion that do not recur is quite high 113. It is also worth noting that there is some correspondence between the “visibility” (to us) of a location and the size of deposits-to-account associated with it. Among the top quartile of fruit quantities just three of 25 explicitly located deposits are at places unknown outside C1 memoranda : moreover, one of those three is “Pulabeli of the King”, which appears in a trilocated deposit (NN 1475 : see immediately below) alongside Tandari and Liduma (two well known locations), and another is Halmarrašda, which appears in a multilocational text about Shiraz zippi-keepers (PF 2018). For tarmu the equivalent fi gure is one out of 20 located deposits. If the account-holders are tax-pay-ers, then those with small tax-bills are (on the face of it) in relatively out-of-the-way places — which is fair enough. But, if they are consumers (i.e. if the commodity is going to, not away from, them), the pattern will still make sense : relatively out-of-the-way places will have more modest needs.

Where location is explicitly stated what we normally hear is simply that the com-modity has been deposited to PN’s account at a single specifi c GN. But some documents deviate slightly from this norm. There are deposits at the royal storehouse (balum) at Makarkuš in NN 2238, the baribara at Mušlir in 161 114, and at three places at once (Tandari, Liduma, Pulabeli of the King) in NN 1475 ; the dates deposited at Makaš[x]san in NN 0273 are described as “royal dates of Nuraya” ; fourteen texts report that deposited material is for delivery at one of three named centuries ; and 30 label the place-of-deposit as a partetaš (15 distinct locations are represented). Many of the latter also involve an “estate” (at which the commodity will be used), a term that recurs just once in a non-partetaš text (PF 0180) where 675 (BAR) of dates are deposited to the account of Karkutiya at Kurra at the estate of Ištimanka 115. The partetaš and century texts are discussed elsewhere (see p. 63, 81-83, 86-90), as is the trilocation in NN 1475 (p. 72). The fact that fruit deposited at Makaš[x]san had come from Nuraya (if Nuraya is not a variety name rather than a statement of proximate origin) is perhaps unremarkable — one assumes that material

113 See p. 46-47. The two locations named in the re-instated Group B documents (p. 51) are attested

elsewhere in the archive, one of them (Šašukanaš) quite commonly.

114 Both relate to tarmu. The term baribara — “Hochburg” (Hinz & Koch s.v.) or “gateway”

(Hallock) — recurs in eight texts (PF 0107, PF 0586, NN 0031, NN 0440, NN 0442,

NN 0494, NN 0749, NN 1536), at fi ve other places (Apirinna, Hišema, Kurdušum, Tušin,

Ukanduma-Rušde).

115 Karkutiya (or a homonym) appears six years later as a decurion account-holder at Kurran (though

with different seals).



registered in these texts did not always grow literally at the place of deposit. Otherwise the other items just mentioned show that interpretation of the deposit procedure has to allow for its location being an estate, a royal storehouse or a baribara (where, incidentally, the deposit is “for the King” — another royal connection). Perhaps part of the explana-tion of the proportion of hapax legomena among deposit-locations is that there are other (unqualifi ed) “special” places involved.

What exactly is the signifi cance of the deposit-location ? There are several possible situations. (1) The commodity is at the named location at the time the record is made and normally remains there (in default of indication to the contrary), ready for use. (2) The commodity is at the named location at the time the record is made but, as a matter of course, is immediately moved somewhere else (normally unstated) for storage prior to further use. (3) The commodity has normally already been moved from the named location to an unnamed storage place before the record is made. (4) The commodity starts out at an unnamed place under the control of administrative offi cials and is moved to the named location before or after the record is made 116.

Those who see C1 deposits as tax-payments probably normally think in terms of scenario (2) — especially if they accept Aperghis’ picture of roving offi cials : the idea is that offi cials go to the tax-producing location, receive payment, issue a receipt-record and take the commodities back to a central storage-place — although one cannot in principle preclude (3), which only differs in the timing of record-making. What about scenario (1) ? Scenarios (1) and (2) collapse into one another when the named location is a place like Liduma which is a major centre, but what happens if it is relatively remote ? Some remote sites — ones whose names are known to us from elsewhere in the archive — are not really a problem : the fact that they are known is a sign that they do play a role in the workings of the commodity and worker-management system, and we might choose to assume that offi cials would be content for tax-income to remain there until the time came to use it. But what about the hapax legomena ? The existence of a signifi cant number of these may seem to give allure to the idea that C1 texts are tax-receipts : if the existence of large number of account-holders only attested in C1 documents is supposed to be a sign that we are deal-ing with ordinary tax-payers, who have no other role in the system, then the invisibility of some of their locations might point the same way. But on scenario (1) their invisibility cannot constitute an argument of that sort ; for this would be tantamount to making the location indistinguishable from the tax-payer, whereas we can hardly imagine that the system would leave tax-payments actually in the hands of the tax-payer.

Scenario (1) is therefore not available to supporters of the tax-hypothesis if they wish to give any weight to the fact that 30% of deposit-locations are unattested elsewhere. But, if it is to be accepted that the existence of that proportion of uniquely attested locations does not demonstrate the administrative remoteness of the places in question, then it remains entirely consistent with scenario (4). Since scenario (3) can for most purposes be set aside as not essentially different from (2), the basic choice is really between scenarios (2) and (4).

116 The scenario in which it is at an unnamed place not under administrative control and is moved

to the deposit-location before the record is made is simply one in which the producer takes the

material to another place fi rst — simply an insignifi cant subset of scenario (1).



2.11 Post-deposit useOne might hope that those few texts which give some indication of what happened to the commodity after it had been deposited to someone’s account would cast some light on this issue, but I am not sure that most of them in fact do so.

(a) The appearance of apportioners (nineteen different individuals) in about 22% of C1 memoranda guarantees that the commodity is either being given to the account-holder as a ration-receiver of some sort (the document being a record of that transaction) or is due for expenditure to some other recipient in the future. The fi rst option is neither intrinsically very plausible nor consistent with documents discussed immediately below, but the second option only establishes that the commodity is either entering or being transferred within the system with a view to future use. Group C accounts do suggest that account-holders can be a source of material that is “provided for provisions”, but this need not favour scenario (2) over scenario (4), even in principle 117, and in practice there is reason to identify the account-holders as offi cials (see below p. 79-86).

(b) Of the cases in which reported post-deposit use consists in the statement that the commodity is for the King or a royal woman (see p. 66), only PF 2019 deserves spe-cifi c note : here the tarmu has been deposited as gim at Hunar, but is to be delivered to Šuršunkiri for Irdabama. One might contend that, if the tarmu started out within the system, it is odd that it was deposited at Hunar, only to be delivered somewhere else, but this would be a fairly weak argument in favour of the tax-payment hypothesis. A similar point might be made about documents in which a commodity is deposited to the account of the kar-maker at such-and-such a partetaš but is to be used at the estate of Šuttezza, but the argument would be no stronger — and perhaps weaker if the kar-maker is an offi cial who does something with/to the deposited tarmu before its later use (see p. 82) 118. The Group C Letter Orders discussed elsewhere (p. 68) also present us with a disjunction between deposit-to-account at one place (Gisat) and issue at one of three others. Here we know nothing of the account-holders involved (they are not named) and an open-minded reading of the documents can infer nothing about the nature of the deposit process : Mammanuwiš could be directing some individuals’ tax-payments to a particular use or re-directing quantities of grain or tarmu that had previously been ascribed to the account of some (subordinate) offi cial.

(c) In some other partetaš documents we are told that the deposited commodity is to be kept at the partetaš at such-and-such a place. This may signify that a partetaš is an unusual type of place for such storage to occur (see p. 86), but, if so, that is more a fact (and one of uncertain signifi cance) about the partetaš as category of location than about the C1 process and it does not prove anything about the choice between scenarios (2) and (4) as defi ned here. In the case of century/decury documents (see below p. 89-90) it remains debatable whether they say anything about what happened after the deposit-to-account.

(d) Of more interest, fi nally, is NN 0810, in which we discover that :

117 These documents enter deposited-to-account quantities as part of “provided for provisions” : this

is a simple matter of accountancy and is valid if the material was used in that fashion, irrespec-

tive of its immediately previous status.

118 PF 2079 (a Group C text) is the only explicit evidence that an “estate” might be the appropriate

location for a deposit-to-account.



6 BAR of karukur (fruit) has been deposited as gim to the account of Išdaddakka at Upirrizza.

Rašdama hi dunuš at Kazma, Zimakka to apportion. Year 23.

The untranslated words are troubling 119, but, if hi dunuš is unequivocally “to him he/they gave”, we have here a case not only of a deposited commodity being passed on to another location, as in (b) above, but also apparently of the account-holder being described as the person who passed it on. Whether we understand “gave it to Rašdama” or “gave it to Rašda” or assign some other force to the postposition -ma and role to Rašda, that would ascribe to Išdaddakka a role that does not sound like one appropriate to an ordinary tax-payer.

2.12 Identified depositorsNormally the “deposit (as gim) to the account of PN” is in the passive voice and the agent who did the depositing is not named or identifi ed. However, in PF 0225 (gim hadaš), NN 1560 (gim uggi hadaš) and probably NN 0439 (uggi dašda 120) the statement that a PN or PNs “deposited as gim” coexists with the naming of someone else as account-holder, in NN 1685 we have “deposited as gim the to account of PN1 by PN2”, and “PNs deposited as gim” also appears in one text that does not name an account-holder (PF 0224 : gim ha dašda 121). There is also the Group B text NN 1670 (above p. 40-41) which, if anything to do with C1 transactions at all, names a depositor. In itself the existence of identifi ed depositors does not say much about the signifi cance of deposit or the place of the account-holders in the system : the normal formula could not reasonably be taken to suggest that the account-holder did the depositing and, that being so, someone else must be the deposi-tor 122. Does the identity of the six individuals said to deposit add any illumination ?

119 On the face of it they mean “he/they gave it to Rašdama”. Rašdama is a name found linked with

cattle (not fruit) in PF 1987 (herdsman), NN 1996 (apportioner of cattle-hides). We also report-

edly have Rašdakma in Fort. 7865 (cattle-kurmin) and Rašda[..] (Ra-iš-da(?)-xy) the herdsman

in NN 0506. But N 0810 is seal-linked (PFS 0153 ; and a seal shared with another C1 memoran-

dum, NN 0813) to texts associated with some Persepolis-group partetaš (Upirrizza is an explicit

partetaš site in NN 0813, where, moreover, Zimakka appears as apportioner at Raduma ; he also

apportions in another PFS 0153 document, NN 2088, at Bešanhamek) and in ten such texts

(all at Nupištaš) the apportioner is Rašda, a man widely attested in that role in various places

who also turns up supplying karukur fruit at Nupištaš in NN 1735 to be dispensed for the

King. Royal connections are visible also in the fact that some workers he apportions for belong

to Irdabama or the Abbamuš (e.g., PF 1028-1029, PF 1041, PF 1098, PF 1944 [3 entries]) and

that in NN 1973 he supplies beer in a document bearing an Irdabama seal (PFS 0051). One is

tempted to wonder whether -ma in Rašdama is a postposition (abnormal though it would be in

the formula XX hi dunuš), so that this document too would be referring to Rašda ; but Wouter

Henkelman warns me against succumbing to this temptation.

120 In his database David Lewis took dašda as dušda (= “received”), but it is properly interpreted as

dašda/dašta = “sent, deposited” (cf. Hallock 1969 : 681).

121 If PF 0232 counts as evidence, it might be construed as an example of someone depositing a

commodity to the account of two persons, but what is going on is not very clear. In NN 1670

there is no reason to identify Humitra as a depositor.

122 Contrast Koch 1980, who seems to identify account-holder and depositor.



All recur in the archive in some form or another. The cases of Bakadušda and Kudur (co-kurmins for fruit at Mašlapti in PF 0224 and attested elsewhere as a kurmins in C1 and other document-types 123) are consistent with idea that the “depositors” are kurmins — though only if the commodities do not have to match 124. In the case of Attekama (PF 0225, mixed fruit at Dutaš ; NN 1560, royal kazla at Uššakampaš) and Bakarraduš (NN 0439, mulberries at Kaupirriš) we have a geographical link with persons attested elsewhere, but they are attested only as commodity agents, not kurmins — and it is still the wrong commodity 125. There is a similar situation with Umitra (NN 1670) who recurs only as a grain agent at Rašnumattiš 126. Attekama and his companions in PF 0225 are the group highlighted by Aperghis in his discussion of C1 texts, and on his view (therefore) those doing the depositing are the offi cials at the interface between the recipient storehouse system and the producing tax-payer. I am not sure how damaging it is to his case that Bakadušda and Kudur, if identifi able elsewhere, are kurmins, not agents ; but I do fi nd the fi fth “depositor” name more troubling, for NN 1685 names the person who deposited 293 BAR of tarmu to the account of Ušaya at Matannan as Queen Irtašduna.

So far as her royal status goes, one might compare nine texts which record that a deposited commodity is for people who are certainly or presumably part of the royal family, viz the King (PF 0161) and the women Udušana (PF 0162-0163), Irdabama (PF 2019) 127 and — again — Irtašduna (PF 0164-0168, NN 2081, all at Matannan) 128. In seven cases

123 Bakadušda. C1 memoranda : NN 0945, NN 1881 (both tarmu and at Liduma, explicitly or by

seal-association). Other categories : NN 2438, NN 1094 (grain, Liduma), NN 0437 (grain,

Uškannaš), NN 0674, NN 1570, NN 1618, NN 1998 (fl our, unlocated), NN 0177, NN 1284

(grain, unlocated). Kudur. NN 1987 (grain ; linkable through a co-kurmin, Šati-Dudu, to Gisat,

Tandari, Liduma, Hunar, Zakzaku).

124 Among possibly relevant Group B texts PF 0231 would fi t with this.

125 Attekama. NN 1001 (grain, unlocated), NN 1834 (fl our, Uranduš), NN 0027 (wine, unlocated).

Bakaradduš : frequent attestations as agent for grain (Kaupirriš, Matannan, unlocated), fl our

(Uzikurraš) or beer (Matannan).

126 There are various attestations of the name Umiša, a different form of Umitra, as apportioner at

Susa (PF 0091, 0092, NN 1762), assigner (PF 1945), grain agent for travellers (PF 1405), grain

offi cial at Antarrantiš in years 19-22 (PF 1023, 1945, 1971) and deliverer of grain at Liduma

(PF 2015). But, given that the satus of NN 1670 is doubtful in the fi rst place, I do not think

we are entitled to stretch things further by assuming that Umitra is here interchangeable with

Umiša.

127 In another C1 memorandum, NN 0422, 31 BAR of da ?-tan ? is supplied (kurmin) by someone

called Irdabama (and deposited to the account of Bakabawukku). The male/female determina-

tive is missing. Hallock initially supplied <SAL> because location (Shiraz) and apportioner

(Rašda) suggested the female Irdabama. Later he opted for <HAL>. Jones & Stolper kept that

when re-collating in May 1992, but suggested that the text might have meant to say kurmin

<HAL .....-na, SAL> Ir-da-ba-ma-na.

128 A tenth document (NN 1850) reads “86 BAR of tarmu kurušan, supplied by (kurmin) Irdubama

of the abbamuš-women (abbamušbena) in year 24 has been deposited as gim at Hidali”. This

may be designating women-workers of the abbamuš (a royal lady, cf. Brosius 1996 : 135-41) as

the persons for whom the deposited commodity is eventually intended in the same way that



(PF 0162-0168, NN 2081) an account-holder is explicitly named, so we are in formulaically standard territory. In PF 2019 the material is deposited at Hunar but “to be delivered at Šuršunkiri for Irdabama”, and there seems no reason to doubt that in all of the nine texts the deposited commodity is intended for the use of the royal personage in question. This is striking but probably does not prove anything either way about the nature of the deposit process : one might be uneasy about the idea of regular hypothecation of an individual’s tax-burden to the royal economy, but the texts could be disclosing a non-standard situa-tion and thus leave open the hypothesis that account-holders are indeed tax-payers. But NN 1685, which reverses the relationships and makes Irtašduna not the end-user of some putative tax-income but (even if via her estate-offi cers) an active player in its collection, is more worrying. In view of the common association of royal women with groups of work-ers whose rations come from sources within the (non-royal) Persepolis economy, it would seem easier if deposit-to-account belonged somehow to the management and feeding of workers than to tax-collection.

Apart from the toponym “Pulabeli of the King” in NN 1475, the only other explicit royal sign in C1 memoranda is that the deposited commodity is sometimes described as royal 129. (Many relevant texts are associated either with Tamukkan group partetaš or with the Shiraz area 130. For a possible further royal association a Shiraz document, PF 2018, see below on zippi-keepers : p. 80.) Assuming this designation has some substantive bureau-cratic signifi cance, the material involved is presumably moving between the royal and the non-royal economy. If it is going from the former to the latter, not vice versa, then, whether or not the unnamed depositor in these cases is royal (i.e. whether or not the situation precisely resembles that in NN 1685), it is hard to see in what sense we could be dealing with tax-income : are we to imagine that producers (whoever they were exactly) within the royal economy owed tax to the non-royal economy ? But is it going from the royal to the non-royal economy ? That seems to me to be likely, because I fi nd it much harder to believe that the addition of the single word sunkina to the commodity-name serves as an assertion that the material is going out of the non-royal economy (it being, moreover, a purpose of the document to record this fact) than that it provides a sort of footnote about the origins of material that is now wholly the business of the non-royal economy (contrast explicit reference to deposit at a royal storehouse in NN 2238). But I concede that others may feel differently about the matter.

To return to the question of named depositors : these also occur in four Group C documents (PF 1849-1851, NN 2578). All are Letter Orders and contain instructions from

individual royal women are the end users in the nine documents discussed in the main text.

There seems to be no precise parallel for the expression (cf. the tables at Brosius 1996 : 136-7).

129 NN 1998, 0158-0160, NN 1998, 2018, NN 0273, NN 1088, NN 1278, NN 1418, NN 1560,

NN 2423, NN 2576, NN 2599 (fruit of various sorts), PF 0150-157, NN 0023, NN 1981 (tarmu).

There is also hasur of Irdabama in NN 1849.

130 Partetaš : PF 0150-0157, C1-1981, C1-1991 (tarmu) ; PF 0158 (dates). Shiraz and seal-related

(PFS 286, etc.) places : PF 0159, PF 0160, C1-1278 (Shiraz), PF 2018 (various locations), C1-

2423 (Rappittan), C1-2599 (Miyamatizzan), C1-2576 (Mišdubaš), C1-273 (Nuraya/Maka[x]san),

C1-1088 (unlocated, but seal PFS 0286). Other sites : Uššakampaš (C1-1560), Pirrašetaš (C1-

1418), unknown (C1-0023).



Mammanuwiš to named individuals (Šati-Dudu, Irkanda and Miššuna) to issue a quantity of grain or tarmu at Rakkatammu, Šagi or Hidali that another named individual is said to have deposited at Gisat. Mammanuwiš, who issues the instruction, is known elsewhere as kurmin, sometimes explicitly at Gisat (and with one or both of the seals — PFS 0020, PFS 0053 — found on the present letter orders) 131. The recipients of the instruction can be associated as kurmin with the places of issue (Šati-Dudu with Rakkatammau and Šake ; Irkanda and Miššuna with Hidali 132). The depositors (Bakagiya, Huttaš, Kitindu and Appuma) include one who is otherwise unknown (Huttaš) but three who can be identifi ed elsewhere : two (Appumanya, Bakagiya) are attested as offi cials associated with the same commodity, while the third (Kitindu) is of uncertain status, but could be a wine and/or fruit offi cial in the relevant area 133. This profi le is broadly in line with the depositors in Group A documents, and what is going on in these Letter Orders could certainly be read as the real or virtual transfer of commodities between the accounts of administration offi cials.

2.13 The term kurminReference to the term kurmin leads us to the incidence of that term in Group A docu-ments 134. Nineteen texts give the name of a kurmin (18 different names, if Atti = Attiya). Fifteen of these texts name no account-holder. But NN 0039, NN 0422, NN 1214 and Fort. 3547 have “deposited to the account of PN1” and “kurmin PN2” in the same text. So (pace Hallock 1969 : 14) kurmin PN is not the same as gim PN uggi and, even if kurmin is translated “entrusted to” (as it was by Hallock), there can be no question of the recipient of the commodity being an account-holder or of explaining the lack of an account-holder name in certain documents in those terms. It is a separate question whether kurmin should be translated “entrusted to” in the fi rst place. Hallock’s choice of this seems to have been

131 PF 0352, PF 0550, PF 0745-0747, PF 1058, PF 1609-1610, PF 1680, NN 0566, NN 2597 (all

PFS 0020, with PFS 0053 or other seals). In PF 0305 and PF 0311 he receives grain in docu-

ments marked with PFS 0020 and 0053.

132 This is clear for Šati-dudu (PF 1849-1850 : cf. PF 0106, NN 1987) and Irkanda (PF 1851 : cf.

NN 1332) ; and it seems likely in the case of Miššuna in view of NN 1860 (supplying grain to

Mamanuš = Mammanuwiš) and NN 2242 (where the left edge seal PFS 0117 has links with

Hunar and Šuršunkiri and puts him in the right general region).

133 Appumanya (Appuma) : tarmu, grain or fl our kurmin (PF 0040, PF 0316, PF 1306, NN 1960),

associated with Zakzaku, Šuršunkiri. He deposits grain at Gisat (NN 2578), delivers fl our at

Kurdušum NN 0316), is linked with sesame in NN 1016 (again Zakzaku-linked) and is an

apportioner in NN 2070, NN 2250. He is also a category A account holder (NN 2233), but for

fi gs (not grain). Bakagiya : ullira at Gisat for tarmu/beer (PF 1996) and wine (NN 1012). The

apportioner at Tandari (NN 1176) is presumably the same man. Kitindu : a man of this name

receives fl our from Mammanuwiš in NN 0670 (at Liddu, ? = Liduma) and from Nappupu in

PF 0422 (no location, but Nappupu is linkable with Ibat and Ibaraš, which in turn have links

with Tašpak, Hišema, Šurkutur and Zila-Umpan). We also have a wine kurmin at Zatukka

(PF 2000), Tašpak (PF 1200) and unlocated (PF 0779, NN 0271, NN 0340, NN 1150) and a

fruit kurmin at Atuk (PF 2081), a place linkable with Tašpak.

134 For recent comments on kurmin cf. Henkelman, Jones & Stolper 2006 : 14-17.



based on PF 0228 (at least, that is the example he chooses to cite in 1969 : 14). But the case does not strike me as unequivocal and the document is in any case — from my point of view — a non-standard text 135. Among Group C documents kurmin appears twice. One is NN 0530, in which Kunda is kurmin at a granary (whose name is lost) where 164 (BAR) of grain “was deposited to their accounts”. The other is PF 1889, a label that reads :

Grain of (the place) Pirmiš, supplied by [kurmin] Dutukka. 21st year. To be given(?) to

Mirinzali. To his (account) it (is) to be deposited [uggi ir zikkan].

One notes that in this case Hallock rendered kurmin as “supplied by” not “entrusted to”, presumably because of the annotation about Mirinzali. There is an element of uncer-tainty about that annotation, but this refl ects uncertainty about the reading of one sign in the Elamite word which is written over an erasure, not about the meaning of the word, and, unless an alternative reading could be found which would turn the annotation into “Mirinzali gave it” or the like, it is hard to disagree with Hallock’s conclusion about kurmin. But I also think it is quite hard to see why PF 1889 should not count as good evidence about Group A documents with kurmin 136. A good deal is at stake here. If we knew that kurmin meant “supplied by” and that the annotation about Mirinzali merely made explicit what was always implicit, we would have a strong reason to assert that C1 memoranda were dealing with commodities already within the storehouse system, not ones whose arrival there was only just being recorded, and that the account-holder is a receiver of such commodities, not (for example) a tax payer putting something into the system. The reverse situation (i.e. if kurmin were known to mean “entrusted to”) would not, of course, prove the reverse contention, but it would leave open the possibility that tax payments were in question.

There are two other Group C documents that it is perhaps appropriate to mention at this point. One is a truncated Letter Order (PF 1829) :

Ušbaka spoke as follows : 280 sheep (in) the district have been deposited (to the account

of ) Tumamarrimea the Hakuziyan. (Included) among them (are) : 120 taken (from ?) Tiriya,

160 taken (from ?) Bakapikna. As Darius the king ... 137 15th(?) year, ..th day(?)

The other is a Journal (PF 1956), in which, after a set fi gures relating to grain at Rašnumattiš supplied by Bamiya and his fellow-offi cials, we get the following entry :

135 Anruna receives 114.5 (BAR of tarmu and deposits it for (making ?) beer, kurmin Saktiti. See

above p. 42 (on Group B documents). In PF 0227, which is similar, save that the kurmin phrase

comes straight after the commodity, Hallock translates “supplied by(?)” (the offi cial’s name is

missing).

136 Indeed the case for saying it should do is as strong as for any Group C document : the right

terminology is present and its label-format makes it is closer in form and substance to Group

memoranda than the journal or account texts that make up most of Group C. The Letter Orders

are also, incidentally, a special set, close to memoranda in relating to a single transaction, even if

their relationship to that transaction is one of anticipation rather than post eventum record.

137 x-te(?)-ma har(?)-raš(?), wherein the latter word was taken as šeraš (“ordered”) in Hinz & Koch.



(Included) in it (is) 78 irtiba which Antarma received (and) took (to) the zamataš of

Harriyauzaka (at) Mankada : he removed it by road. It was deposited to his (account),

(and) he will be making sut.

In the second text it is theoretically ambiguous whether the account-holder is Antarma or Harriyauzaka, but in either event he is the recipient of a commodity, not the person who supplied it. The same sounds to be the case in PF 1829, and this aligns both documents with 1889 and with the potential implications of all C1 kurmin texts 138. One may add that (a) the man in PF 1956 makes sut and is therefore on the face of it an offi cial and (b) it is hardly natural to read PF 1829 as a statement about the payment of Tumamarrimea’s tax obligations 139.

2.14 Absent account holders : general observationsBefore proceeding to look at the generality of account-holders, the fi fteen texts that name no account-holder (already mentioned as the majority sub-group of kurmin texts) deserve comment in their own right 140. The lack of a name is odd (in view of the fact that the overwhelming majority of relevant documents see fi t to include one), but it might seem marginally more peculiar in a document putatively recording receipt of tax (is it not essen-tial to know who has paid ?) than it would be in one in which the transaction involved was more wholly inside the system (i.e. the commodity was being transferred from one part of the system to another). But things are not perhaps that simple.

In one of the documents (NN 1475) three locations are named : one possibility, therefore, is that texts of this sort are a bureaucratic summary a set of deposit-to-account transactions involving more than one person and sometimes (as in this case) more than one place. It would be consistent with this that most of the relevant texts involve quantities in the upper median (and generally the top quartile) for the commodity in question 141 and that one of them contains the largest quantity of tarmu registered in any C1 memorandum

138 In PF 0231 (a Group B text : cf. p. 42) 773.1 BAR of grain is deposited, together with 701.5 set

aside (for seed ?), kurmin Mandarašba. If this document is adjudged relevant, it can fi t here as

well. Compare also PF 1955 (below p. 83).

139 The name Tiriya is that of a herd accountant in NN 0066, NN 1972, Fort. 2569 (years 23-24) and

is associated with animals in NN 2671 as an assigner of horses in years 16-18. But one hesitates

to assert personal identity with the man in PF 1829.

140 Many appear at places associated with seal PFS 0099 (Liduma, Hidali, Tiliman, Uratma,

Tandari, Ullapitbena, Mušlir, “Pulabeli of the king”), but there are also single items from

Hunar (PFS 0117 : also at the Elamite end of the overall archive region), Rappišbena (no seal :

associable with Liduma), Nuraya/Makas[x]san (PFS 0286 — so in the Shiraz area), Baktiš

(Kamfi ruz ?), Nupištaš and Mašlapti.

141 The overall distributions are rather skewed. Fruit : the 100 clearly preserved quantities range from

1 to 675 (average 48.4, median 23). 75% of the fi gures are 45 or less, and 12% account for 51.2%

of the total value. Tarmu : the 119 fi gures range from 1 to 7070 (average 569.2, median 152). 75%

of the fi gures are 383 or less ; 5.9% account for 52% of the total value and 16.8% for 75.3% of

value. If these are tax payments proportionate to production, the wealth that is being taxed is

unevenly distributed. The same observation was made above about G-documents (p. 34), but

the statistics are, if anything, more skewed in the present case.



(more on this document below). But, if anything like this were the case, the inference above from the occasional absence of account-holder names that C1 memoranda cannot be tax-receipts might not be valid, since, in comparing texts with named account-holders and texts without them, we should not be comparing like with like : the former could still be tax-receipts, the latter summaries of the quantity of commodity in a number of such receipts which once existed but are now not preserved in the archive.

Is that a plausible scenario ? One could regard such summaries as the fi rst stage towards a proper global account. But does that fi t with the fact that the same seal praxis applied as in individual receipts ? If the seal praxis is supposed to show that groups of offi -cials are travelling around collecting tax-income, then one might be surprised to discover that these same offi cials, having ex hypothesi made records (now lost) for a number of tax-payers, then occasionally made summaries of these records as well. But, if we discard the hypothetical lost records from the scenario, we are back to where this particular line of argument started, with the putative roving offi cials making records of tax income that do not include the name of the tax payer — and the fact that this would be a summary of the payments of several unnamed tax payers would not make the situation less surpris-ing. Moreover, the idea that memoranda lacking named account-holders are summaries of several transactions, though tempting, is vulnerable : for, alongside the thirteen such texts with high or very high commodity-fi gures, there are also two reporting 1 BAR of fruit and 13.25 BAR of sesame respectively — fi gures that are at or close to the bottom of the scale 142.

The absence of a named account-holder in some texts is certainly not a knock-down argument against the tax hypothesis — they could just be examples of bureaucratic inadvertence (though it would be disturbing that they generally happen in cases where relatively large amounts of income are involved !) — but it is a legitimate source of some unease. Do these texts have any other oddities that might allow us to get a handle on the process ?

2.15 Absent account holders : other featuresThe most remarkable document in the set is PF 200, which records the deposit as gim at Hidali of a total of 7,070 BAR of tarmu, made up of “3,630 (for/of ) the storehouse and 3,440 for/of the taššup (taš-šu-íp-na)”. The seal set is (4) in n. 103, associated with Liduma, Hidali, Tandari and other places, and on this particular tablet it includes the unique use on a C1 document of PFS 0064, a seal frequently attested on the l.e. of ration documents in the same area. Only taššup has a grammatical postposition (-na). This can be understood as going with both words but, although it can be translated “of ”, this does not get us very far, since the sense can be subjective or objective. In practice, there are two options : either (1) the tarmu belongs to the storehouse and the taššup before it is deposited as gim or (2) the storehouse and the taššup represent an end-user, a bit like the royal personages discussed above (p. 66-67) or — though in these case the document is more explicitly phrased — those who will use kar at the estate of Šuttezza (p. 81).

142 Since the sesame payment is a singleton, one can only categorize it in terms of tarmu

quantities.



On the second interpretation we learn (in a sense) no more about the deposit-to-account procedure than from any other memorandum lacking a named account-holder — though the idea that a single tax-payer producing the largest quantity of tarmu in the surviving C1 memorandum archive is unnamed does stretch one’s credulity severely. But the question does arise of what is meant by designating the storehouse and taššup as the benefi ciaries of his payment. I defer consideration of the taššup but, so far as the store-house is concerned, one could reason as follows : a storehouse is the default benefi ciary of C1 deposits, unless otherwise stated, and normally does not have to be mentioned ; the present case is unusual in that the 7,070 BAR of tarmu was being divided between two benefi ciaries and, because the taššup had to be mentioned, so did the storehouse. The only clear alternative to this line of reasoning is to deny that the storehouse was the default benefi ciary, i.e. to suppose that — even where the deposit location is a place like Hidali which will have had a storehouse — the deposit-to-account procedure normally puts the deposited commodity somewhere else, either physically or bureaucratically (or both). Disjunction between deposit-location and storehouses might be helpful in the case of otherwise unknown locations where we do not want to posit a full-blown storehouse, but we would have to be able to make sense of the cases like Hidali. Our best course is perhaps to go for storehouse-as-default, but to understand that in some locations the relevant storehouse is a virtual benefi ciary and the commodity in question is not literally placed within it.

What would be the implications of the fi rst interpretation of the role of storehouse and taššup in PF 0200, under which tarmu belonging to these two entities is deposited as gim at Hidali ? When discussing the second option I left the taššup to one side, and that was possible because there might in principle be a variety of types of end-user and the identity of the taššup (debatable) would not necessarily affect our understanding of the storehouse (in principle, an understood entity). But in the fi rst option we are directly concerned with the source of the tarmu and, since the source of C1 commodities is at the heart of a central question about these documents (are they tax receipts or not ?), we have to deal with the taššup.

The word appears a fair number of times in the archive and also turns up in the Elamite version of Darius’ Behistun inscription, in which latter context it can be trans-lated “army”. This was also Hallock’s translation in PF 0200 but it was the only archive document for which he adopted that translation — and he marked it with the query that habitually accompanied his renderings of taššup. A survey of all archive uses of the word prompts the following observations.

(1) In many documents (a number of which are travel texts) it designates large or very large groups of ration-receiving persons 143. In some cases they are plain taššup, in oth-ers they are labelled as susunurimaš, mišakašbe (“of the palace”), map, hallinup, lin-makers (“delivery-makers”, according to Henkelman 2007) or Bezimatiyan. This last designation applies to a group with Karkiš, but the same adjective describes an individual (Ukama)

143 PF 0328-0330, PF 0397, PF 1551, PF 1595, PF 1596 (cf. PFa 20), PF 1600, PF 1602, PF 1603,

PF 1622, PF 2027, NN 1199, NN 1159, NN 1254, NN 1310, NN 1375, NN 1711, NN 1763,

NN 1816, NN 2261, Fort. 7250, R558 = Jones & Stolper 2006 : 19. In addition to these uncontro-

versial cases, D-0059, R-0156 and PF 0301 probably also belong here.



who is often associated with ration-receiving taššup (in one case a group called lin-makers, in another a group of map taššup, but otherwise unlabelled). Some of these people may be kurtaš (map is used of kurtaš in PF 1140 ; and Hinz & Koch would put the hallinup in that category too, by equating them with harrinup and understanding the latter to be “Landarbeiterinnen” 144) ; others perhaps are not or, at any rate, are somewhat special groups of people of subordinate status, and Henkelman has been prepared to identify Ukama’s taššup as soldiers 145. But, if there is sometimes something special about taššup, it is context or speculation that suggests it, not anything intrinsic to the word taššup itself.

(2) There are up to three documents in which an official is said to “write the taššup” 146. Two of the offi cials are karamaraš, the third can be identifi ed with an “investi-gator” and a “spear-bearer”. Spear-bearers and karamaraš are reciprocally associated catego-ries, and at least one spear-bearer is found “counting kurtaš (NN 2493)”. Perhaps “writing taššup” and “counting kurtaš” are closely linked enough to entitle the conclusion that taššup can be kurtaš, but in any event they are personnel in groups that seem to be large, relatively low-status and remote enough from Persepolis (or Susa) for someone to have travel to keep the records about them up-to-date 147.

(3) In partial contrast are the taššup who appear in a series of account texts doing mazzimazzi or sut : these are certainly administrative functionaries (“offi cials”), since they perform tasks appropriate to such persons 148.

(4) Finally, there are 13 documents (8 accounts, 5 others) in which material is said to come “from the taššup”. In eight cases (6 accounts, 2 others) there is good reason to identify the taššup as administrative offi cials 149. The other fi ve are more tricky. In PF 1985 (one of the Group C C1 documents) a tabulation of pit for years 15 (40 irtiba) and 16 (50 irtiba) under the headings Deposited, Delivered, Withdrawn is followed by the annotation “from the taššup at Tiliman, for Irtuppiya to apportion”, and the 90 irtiba in question constitute the total On Hand, from which 65 were dispensed and 25 carried forward. Similarly in NN 2490 there are entries for 70 irtiba in year 18 and 27 irtiba in year 19 “from the taššup”. The latter is the only entry for year 19, but in year 18 there are also entries marked with a personal name and/or a geographical location. The material in all entries contributes to the total On Hand in each of the two years. In these texts, then the taššup are treated as one of a storehouse’s sources of material, and we arguably fi nd an analogous situation in

144 For Hallock the hallinup were a separate entity, attested only once. The harrinup are discussed

in Brosius 1996 : 166-180 ; she concludes that they are indeed workers (predominantly female)

but that “an acceptable translation cannot be offered”.

145 2003 : 133-4 n. 54. In 2007 he seems think more in terms of “personnel”.

146 PF 1620 (taššup tallišdana), Fort. 3562 (taššup tallišda) and NN 2556 (where it is tempting to emend

the taššup lišda in Hallock’s transcript). For wider context cf. Stolper 1977, Henkelman 2002.

147 Two further texts (PF 1280, NN 0954), of obscure meaning, may be mentioned here. In PF 1280

someone “accounted for them as marduš taššup”, while in NN 0954 someone with royal authori-

zation “made battikamaš of the taššup”.

148 NN 0546, NN 1006, NN 2189, NN 2361, NN 2662. — A reference to grain “(distributed) among

the taššup” at the end of PF 1968 (cf. 2007 ad fi n., perhaps a truncated version of the same

thing) is hard to assess.

149 PF 0113, PF 1973-1977, NN 0776, NN 2084.



three disparate memoranda (PF 0454, NN 2085 and NN 1354) 150. Who are these taššup ? The quantities in the two account texts are relatively modest, but they are quite large in the three memoranda, so there is no clear pattern there that might help. Our best indication lies in the parallel between the taššup at Tiliman in 1985 and the putative account-holders named individually in a number of other Group C documents in which “deposited” fruit contributes to what is “provided for provisions” (PF 1982-1984, PF 1986-1988, PF 2079, NN 2188, NN 2346) 151 and in the fact that one of those documents (PF 1987) has anno-tations about šaumarraš and a comment that Upizza “did not expend (the amount with-drawn in col.iii) on the herd” that suggest that we are dealing with offi cials 152. I see no reason why the same conclusion could not also apply to the three memoranda.

Returning to the “storehouse- and taššup-tarmu” in PF 0200, we have a choice. Either the terms both designate an administrative entity — the storehouse and a group of offi cials (perhaps, in order to make sense of their separate mention, offi cials within the storehouse’s ambit, but physically remote from it : the sort of model suggested by the texts under [4] in the immediately preceding discussion) — or they belong to two categorically distinct entities.

The latter must have been Hallock’s view, and he presumably opted for the specifi c translation “army” because it ascribed to the taššup a clear institutional character. It is certainly true that it is not easy to devise other (modern) categories to embrace at least some of the other taššup-groups surveyed in (1)-(2) above 153. But we do not have to make more than modest allowance for the tendency of the authors of an archive document to assume that readers know what it is about to concede that some quite particular group

150 PF 0454 : Maupirrada receive and sets aside for seed 2000 (BAR of ) grain supplied by Dakka,

“included in it being 1800 from the taššup”. NN 2085 : Marduka received a large quantity of grain

from the taššup and gave it to Kimur at Hunar (Kimur may be Kinimur, a tarmu kurmin at Hunar

in NN 1926). NN 1354 : grain from the taššup was provided for/at the store-shed (intur).

151 In PF 2079 an annotation “all this was sent from various places” confi rms that the putative

account-holders are, from the point of view of the account-makers, sources, not recipients, of

a commodity. The process of “deposit to account” is also a source of grain eventually “provided

for provisions” in PF 1968-1970 (and probably in NN 0530 and NN 2665, though these are less

lucid), but in none of these texts are there individually named account-holders. The opening

words of PF 1969 (“322 irtiba grain deposited [annually] to their accounts and they were holding

it”) and an analogous phrase in PF 1968 and NN 2665 make one wonder if the commodity was

always physically transferred, but they are certainly consistent with the account-holders being

offi cials. — The label PF 1897, “fruit deposited to their accounts at Aškamanta in year 23”,

parallels anonymous report of a “deposited” commodity in Group C accounts. Group A also,

of course, contains a records in which no account-holder is named.

152 Some account holders in PF 2079 are qualifi ed as GIR-makers (“Scherbetbereiter”, “Mostmacher” :

Hinz & Koch) or marduš (“Safthersteller”, “Weinbereiter” : Hinz & Koch ; for taššup with this

latter designation cf. n. 147). These are not necessarily inconsistent with some sort of offi cial

status.

153 It does not have to embrace all of them, any more than “army” might. Taššup is too intrinsically

general a term for us to assume a univocal reference where large groups of ration-receivers are

concerned.



of taššup might be in his mind here : this is already plainly true if they are offi cials — the question “which offi cials precisely ?” would be asked in vain — and it is true if they are a large group of taššup as well.

Since, under the current hypothesis, 3,630 BAR of the tarmu belonged to the store-house (i.e. could in principle be discovered in its accounts), taššup has to designate some entity with a comparable capacity of ownership (the document effectively records the transfer of the relevant quantities from the accounts of both to another physical or insti-tutional place by the deposit-as- gim process). Hallock’s translation raises the possibility of an “army-economy”, alongside the royal and non-royal ones with which we are familiar. The apparent general diffi culty of fi nding the military wing of the Persian state in the Fortifi cation Archive has prompted others to wonder whether the army was the business of an entirely separate bureaucracy, so such a possibility could doubtless be entertained. Perhaps it is not inconceivable that something similar could apply to other (non-military) categories that were also distinct from the basic kurtaš-workers proper to the archive as we have it. But Ockham’s Razor does rather favour sticking with taššup = offi cials : we know that people who could be so designated contributed to the holdings of storehouses ; we would only have to assume that in the case of PF 0200 (not an entirely ordinary case anyway, given the quantities involved) a large amount of tarmu went straight from them to deposit-as- gim instead of passing through the storehouse 154. In this context it is tempting to note that Tiliman (the place whose taššup appear in PF 1985) is one of the locations for which the seal-impressions on PF 0200 would be appropriate.

So, if we take the storehouse and taššup in PF 0200 to be existing owners of the tarmu, we can give a reading of the document that accounts for both terms — and indi-cates that commodities deposited-to-account are ones already in the storehouse or in the hands of offi cials whose holdings are part of what is at the disposal of the storehouse. On this showing we are dealing with transfers within the system, not with receipts of tax-pay-ments from outside. But the other option defi ned at the outset, that of regarding store-house and taššup as different end-user benefi ciaries of the deposit, does still exist. However exactly we play the presence of the storehouse, we can give an account of the taššup on that option too, either as offi cials or as a larger group of ration-receiving personnel, and (aside from the worry about so much putative tax being unattributed to a named tax-payer) the idea that deposit-to-account is a mark of tax payments remains theoretically open.

2.16 Account holders : identity and statusThe most copiously attested category of person in C1 memoranda are, of course, the account-holders. 213 documents name account-holders bearing 179 distinct names (33 [18%] of which occur more than once). Most documents relate to a single account-holder, though sometimes to various sorts of fruit or of tarmu, and once to fruit and tarmu together (NN 2088). PFa 01 and NN 0700 record two and four account-holders respec-tively, in both cases with one apportioner. PFa 01 lists commodities deposited to their accounts separately before adding the fi gures together ; NN 0700 attributes a global sum to the four without differentiation, but I assume that this is an abbreviated version of a docu-

154 Put that way, their relation to the deposit process would, of course, be different from that in which

they are effectively account holders.



ment like PFa 01 and does not mean that the four individuals constitute a “joint” account-holder. In PF 2018 we have records for 16 account-holders : they are collectively described as zippi-keepers at Shiraz, but have individual locations too, though these cover a rather wide geographical range : once again there is no question of “joint” account-holders 155.Ninety-six account-holder names (54% of the sample) are otherwise unknown in the archive 156. That is a high proportion 157, and may create the impression that we are deal-ing with a group of people who are remote from the general run of the archive 158. (As we have seen there is a similar phenomenon in the case of locations, but it is less marked and cannot perhaps be used to bolster the tax hypothesis 159. The pattern with the kurmins and apportioners named in the documents — smaller numbers in each case, of course — also probably does not demonstrate any special disjunction between C1 texts and the rest of the archive 160, and arguably it would be odd if it did.)

At the same time, some account-holders have titles.(1) Mišparma (PF 0158) is a kurdabattiš and apportioner, Karkutiya (PF 0207) a

decurion — in other words, they are offi cials in the worker-management system (there is more to say about centuries and decuries : see below p. 89-90).

(2) The zippi-keepers at Shiraz have an otherwise unattested title, but there are plenty of instances of a word variously represented as zibba, zip, zippan, zippi, zippin, or zippiš which designates “a special kind of ration” (Hallock) and has been seen more specifi cally as “(königliche) Unterstützung” 161. Because in the phrase “zippi-keeper” the

155 One document (NN 0023) is too damaged for it to be certain whether an account holder was

named or not.

156 This includes fi ve damaged names. Some 14 other names appear no more than once elsewhere.

157 Contrast the 31 out of 129 G-text kurmins are who are otherwise unattested (24%) or the 33 out

of 115 receivers in F-texts (29%).

158 Koch 1980 made this point.

159 See above p. 45-46, 60, 62.

160 Apportioners Three are otherwise unattested, 11 otherwise attested from 2 to 13 times, and fi ve ap-

pear extremely commonly in the role. That pattern is applicable to the archive as a whole, which

contains a large number of relatively rarely attested apportioners. Kurmins 17 names appear,

six of which are otherwise unknown as kurmins (and sometimes at all). The other 11 include

seven who can be identifi ed as kurmins in non-C1 documents. Anzaduš (tarmu, Šursunkiri) :

cf. PF 0119, PF 0374, PF 1626, NN 1659. Atti(ya) (Liduma, fi gs) : cf. NN 0406, NN 0834,

NN 0916, NN 1147, NN 1605. Bakadušda (Liduma, tarmu) : cf. e.g., NN 0088, NN 0132,

NN 0740, NN 1117, NN 2438, NN 1094, NN 0437. Saktiti (Ullapitbena, tarmu) : cf. e.g.,

PF 0056, PF 0394-0395, NN 1122. Irdubama (Hidali, tarmu) : cf. PF 0249. Kinimur (Hunar,

tarmu) : cf. PF 0055, NN 0198, NN 2426. Karkiš (Uratma, tarmu) : Uratma is unknown, but

PFS 0099 puts him in the Liduma/Tandar/Hidali region, where he is also well-attested as

kurmin for grain or tarmu. Two other cases, Kuntukka and Irdupma, have homonyms with an

appropriate commodity, but no geographical link can be made because the C1 documents are

unlocated. Group C documents mention two kurmins, both of whom are account- holders in

Group A documents, but not otherwise found as kurmin.

161 Hinz & Koch 1987, svv., after Koch 1983 : 27-29. Over 50 documents demonstrate that zippi

designates a form of payment made to people on rations. The royal connection is based on the



word has the determinative for fruit (as it does occasionally elsewhere 162), Hinz & Koch offer for this particular phrase the rather bland translation “Obstwart”. But we are surely entitled to insist on a specifi c reference to zippi (fruit zippi here because it is a document about fruit) and see them as offi cials concerned with a particular type of worker-ration. The fruit deposited to their account is described as “royal”, which is concordant with the royal overtones detected by Koch (a fact that she does not note).

(3) Sixteen documents describe account-holders as kar-makers. Ten of these docu-ments record seven different kar-makers dealing with royal tarmu in the Tamukkan group of partetaš (Karakka appears in 4 documents in three different years and in relation to two different partetaš), fi ve are century texts (with fi ve different kar-makers), and one (NN 2238) associates a kar-maker with a royal storehouse (the only occurrence of that term in C1 documents).

The Hinz/Koch view is that kar-maker = Kronbauer. Such people were either organ-ized in decimal groups or were on Domänen unter Aufsicht, each being a Domänenpachter (domain-leaser or domain-tenant) who owed a tax or levy of some sort (Abgabe). They take it that kar = corn (cf. Hinz 1973 : 85) and presumably understand kar-maker as (in effect) “corn-grower”. There were, no doubt, lots of people growing corn in the Persepolis economy, so these ones stood out because they did it on a particular land-holding basis. The title, in other words, does not (in their view) literally express what is actually its important semantic signifi cance 163.

But partetaš-related kar-maker texts standardly say either that “Šuddayauda will apportion the kar” or that “they will use the kar at the estate of Šuttezza” and this suggests to me that the kar element in the kar-maker’s title is not merely incidental : although (royal) tarmu is what is deposited, it is kar that will be used. Since this kar has to come from somewhere and since on the face of it kar is something made by a kar-maker, the most economical hypothesis is that the kar-maker turns the tarmu into kar : Hallock suggested that kar was a food product made from tarmu, but it is not impossible that the transformation of tarmu involved was of an institutional or bureaucratic rather than a

claim that the term hu-EL gal (“gate ration”), which seems to include zippi in PF 1097 (and

recurs in NN 1707 and NN 1085, though without zippi in the context) refers to the royal gate.

Oddly Koch does not seem to mention the fact that zip (zí-ip) is the word for the king’s gate in

DB 32 : 56. Note also that in PF 1152 Parru supplied 120 (BAR) of grain for zippi and Tuamuka

and companions counted and delivered it to the zipu : Hallock (1969 : 775) sees this as zip =

door, and Hinz & Koch s.v. actually speak of a delivery “to the court”.

162 PF 1986, NN 1705. The former is an annotation “they did not take the zippiš ” attached to the

“provided for provisions” heading in an account-tabulation. The latter appears to say that a

quantity of karukur “was made zippi”, this in the context of what is something like a standard

ration-payment text. The idea of a commodity (this time grain) being “made zippi” recurs in

NN 0421 (grain made zippi at the treasury at Kurra). I do not think these examples require us

to believe that when the fruit determinative is attached to zippi it loses connection with the

zippi-ration.

163 Cf. (in that respect) Uchitel’s judgment (1997) that the kar-maker is the partetaš-manager.



culinary character 164. But does the kar-maker act before or after the tarmu is deposited to his account ? In the former case he “makes kar” from tarmu whose source is unstated and then “pays” it to system, the document being a record that he has done so. In the latter case tarmu is provided to the kar-maker who then (before it is used) turns it into a new commodity or in some other way changes its status. The latter strikes me as the more natural supposition (especially since it is royal tarmu), and the exceptional formulation of PF 0156 (where the use-annotation speaks of Šuddayauda apportioning “that tarmu”, not “that kar”) hardly stands against it.

There are also cases where reference to a kar-maker does not go together with refer-ence to kar.

Five texts picture the kar-maker delivering what has been deposited to his account to a named century — a scenario that again represents him as positively doing some-thing with the material after it is deposited to his account (rather than having no further engagement once an obligation to pay is fulfi lled 165) and connects him directly with worker-groups. In another case a quantity of tarmu at the royal storehouse at Makarkuš is deposited to account of a kar maker (Šuddayauda to apportion) but nothing demands or precludes the kar-maker’s subsequent involvement (as is, of course, the case with most C1 memoranda). It is interesting that account-holder kar-makers are thus always associated with special locations (partetaš, century, royal storehouse).

There are only two kar-maker attestations outside the C1 memoranda. In NN 0460 we read that Ziššuka the grain-handler, Ukbama the delivery-man and the matiras and kar-makers withdrew 400 (BAR) of grain and afterwards in year 24 made sut at Dutaš (Šuddayauda apportioning). In this text matiras (= bazikara : see above) and kar-makers replace the expected etira, and the text certainly seems to cast kar-makers as offi cials rather than e.g., domain-leaseholders. NN 1405 records rations for 29 Skudrian kar-makers at a location using Elamite month-names (they are supplied by Karma, and the apportioner is Irtuppiya, whose seal, PFS 0002, appears on the tablet). It does not seem specially likely that Skudrians would be either Kronbäuer or indeed offi cials. Rather they are best seen as worker-groups engaged in the business of a super-ordinate kar-maker : one may recall the parallel of the 71 Skudrian baziš-handlers of NN 2616 (surely of a lower order than the man in PF 1065 or those in 2025/2070 : see above p. 16) — and the parallel may not be merely formal, since it is very tempting to suppose that the 71 Skudrians of NN 2616 (in month 13 of year 22) are the same as the 71 Skudrians of Fort. 2562 : both groups are at Baktiš, both receive rations sourced at Kurištiš and provided by Turpiš, both have an identical composition, save that one of the girls in NN 2616 has become a woman in Fort. 2652 at the turn of year 22 to year 23. Moreover the change in function-designation from baziš-handlers to kar-makers is strangely evocative of the linkage between matiras (i.e.

164 NN 2084 is tantalizing. The document concerns utilization of 1043.25 BAR of tarmu for the

King. Having listed fi ve persons in fi ve ansara-offi ces who have played a role (as sources for the

material ?) we have the curt notice “it was provided from kar” (w.ka4-ir-ik-mar ha du-ka4). Does

this imply a category of tarmu that is kar, perhaps in institutional terms ?

165 This assumes, surely inevitably, that in “he is delivering” (ullimanra : cf. PF 0120-0121, where PN

ullimanra clearly = “PN is delivering”) “he” is the kar-maker. — One other C1 text (PF 2019)

speaks of “delivery” (ullamana = “it is to be delivered at...”).



bazikaras) and kar-makers that we have just seen in NN 0460. It look as though workers might pass between what are on the face of it two species of offi cial.

(4) The account-holder is for the most part essentially a passive fi gure in the texts’ presentation of him. NN 0810 (above p. 64) may be one exception, and the two C1 memo-randum entries in PF 1955 (a Mezama grain journal) also buck this trend. They read as follows :

(a) 223 (irtiba of grain) Dutukka took to (the place) Pirmiš ; it was deposited to his (account). 40 (irtiba) was not received

(b) 25 (irtiba of grain) Mapramatiya received at the zanza ; it was deposited to his (account).

Prima facie these represent different situations, of which the latter seems inconsist-ent with the tax-payer scenario and the former neither requires nor (indeed) sits very easily with it, bearing in mind that Dutukka is separately attested as a grain kurmin at Pirmiš in a C1-style label (the grain there is deposited to the account of Mirinzali) and — whatever our preferred translation of kurmin — this makes him an offi cial.

In addition to the fact that some account-holders are explicitly recorded with a title, we should recall that at least some of those who are not so recorded may nonetheless be recognisable elsewhere in the archive, whether (mostly) as commodity suppliers (kurmins) or in other offi cial roles. The proportion of those potentially recognisable elsewhere (i.e. of those with names that are not hapax legomena) is modest (30%) but not absurdly low. It certainly helps to reinforce the impression created by the material under (1)-(4) imme-diately above that the account-holder class is not in essence disjoined from the class of those who (at various levels) made the Persepolis economy work and did so by doing more than simply producing and handing over as levies the commodities that it then distrib-uted 166. Moreover, a number of Group C documents also reinforce this impression. We have already noticed the sut-performing account-holder in PF 1956 (27f ) 167. A process of “depositing to account” is also followed by sut-making in NN 2189, though in this case no individuals are named (the document speaks of “the taššup” 168) and the commodity is small cattle — indeed, virtual small cattle, since fractional quantities enter the calcula-tion 169. PF 2009 and PF 2085 provide another variation with the same commodity : here

166 Given the claims advanced about G-text kurmins and F-text receivers (above p. 31), I note that

the list of C1 account-holder names contains 19 items that recur in a list of G-kurmins and 16

that recur in a list of F-receivers. Apart from a couple of cases in the G-kurmin list, there are

no positive grounds for personal identifi cation ; and, given the size of each of the three lists,

the overlap is hardly statistically signifi cant, even if one allowed that there may be more actual

overlap of individuals than can now be demonstrated.

167 If the account-holder is Antarma, an identifi cation is available with a homonym attested elsewhere

in an appropriate offi cial role.

168 That guarantees that “deposit to account” is being used here of the transfer of a commodity to

the account of administrators.

169 A group of 686 animals appears at outset (on hand in year 15) ; it is divided into 246 dispensed

and transferred/replaced and 440 alive. This takes us to line 34. In lines 47-58 the addition of

241 animals (lines 47-49) described as hapikanuš and of 47 births (mentioned in line 39) to the

440 gives 728 (the 246 having gone out of the tally because dispensed/replaced). That is all clear.



small cattle deposited to an individual’s account are for that individual to apportion ; they evidently represent income into the bit of the system in which the persons in question do their apportioning — and this is, of course, an offi cial function 170. The evidence for account-holders as offi cials in fruit-related documents adduced in the earlier discussion of taššup (p. 74-77) points in the same general direction 171.

One of the titled account-holders (Karakka) is among the 25 account-holders (out of 179) who recur as such in more than one C1 record 172. They are normally associated on both or all occasions either with tarmu or with fruit, though in the latter case it is often with different types of fruit 173. Kaštiš (fruit : PF 0217-0218 ; tarmu : NN 0752) is the only defi nite case of someone who is an account-holder for fruit and tarmu in different records (in the same year, as it happens), just as we have only one case of an individual appearing with both commodities in the same record (NN 2088 : Tamaddama, at Besanhamek). There are at most fi ve cases in which the same account-holder is prima facie on record at different locations : Karakka (a kar-maker) and Šedda appear at different locations within (respectively) the Tamukkan and Persepolis partetaš-groups, while two of the Shiraz zippi-keepers (Dadumanya and Mišbesa) are registered at Širam and Halmarrašda respectively in PF 2018 (year 19) and at Shiraz in year 23 onwards and a third (Pitukka) appears both at Halmarrašda and Marriš in the year 19 document. But, fairly obviously, none of this requires us to postulate any great geographical displacement in their account-holder activi-ties. In the nine cases where an individual is recorded for tarmu in different years there is no year-to-year pattern in the quantities involved (that is also, less surprisingly, true for individuals recorded for fruit of different types in different years). In four cases where we fi nd two deposits made to the account of the same individual in the same year (three of tarmu, one of fruit) the quantities involved are markedly different : one could, I suppose, see this is a tax-payer making up a shortfall in his fi rst payment (not that we know in which order the two payments were made), but it is hardly a necessary interpretation — especially

The piece we are interested in — lines 38f, including “93.6666 haduš mazzimazzi (yield with-

drawal) which then were deposited to the account of the offi cials” — is in a less lucid section.

93.666 is 140.666 minus 47, where 47 is the number of births and 140.666 (“as haduš = yield

go to it”) is two-thirds of 211, the total of pregnant ewes from the two categories (dispensed/

transferred/replaced ; and alive) given straight before. The situation resembles PF 2008 : 24f and

esp. PF 2009 : 65f, PF 2010 : 35f, PF 2083 : 83f, PF 2087 : 28f, and it looks as though we have a

calculated fi gure of yield from 211 ewes and a fi gure for actual yield (47), with the system getting

to keep the difference between the two fi gures. Unfortunately the PF texts have no analogue for

the remark about deposit or the statement that sut was made for grain.

170 Sut also recurs in relation to “deposited to account” cattle in PF 2085 : 11-12.

171 One might also mention here the “people of Hunar” in Fort. 6411 (above p. 41), in the (perhaps

unlikely) event that the document has a bearing on C1 transactions.

172 A subset of the simple list of homonymous account holders : The case for personal identity

requires a positive match of location and/or sealing.

173 Individual C1 memoranda not infrequently record deposits-to-account consisting of more than

one sort of fruit (and of tarmu for that matter), so this is no great surprise.



in the case of Karakka (a kar-maker) where the deposits for 381 and 1450 BAR of tarmu are at different Tamukkan-group partetaš locations (PF 0151, PF 0153) 174.

2.17 Estates and centuriesTurning to some further circumstances and consequences of deposit, we can fi rst go back to the partetaš. In 18 of the 20 Persepolis-group partetaš texts (the exceptions are NN 0619 and NN 1178) the commodity deposited to account of PN “is to be kept at the partetaš at GN”. Is the implied alternative that it might be kept somewhere else (i.e. that a partetaš is not a normal place-of-storage) or that it will be kept rather than being expended (whether at the partetaš or somewhere else) ? Since both the tarmu in kar-maker texts and the fruit in these other texts is subject to apportioning and there is thus in any case the prospect of the commodity being expended (hence not in the long run kept at the partetaš), the second alternative is hard to sustain without arbitrary hypotheses about the length of time before expenditure takes place. Some version of the fi rst alternative may therefore be preferable. This is consistent with (a) the existence of kar-maker partetaš texts that specify use of the kar at another location and the rarety of C1 partetaš texts that make no comment about the fate of the deposited commodity, (b) the existence of two non-partetaš texts in which the deposited commodity (sesame and fruit respectively ) is to be “kept as tintaš” (evidently a comment on an unusual way of keeping things, not on the length of time for which it was kept) and (c) the lack of evidence about partetaš as storage places in documents that are not C1 memoranda 175. Deposited-to-account material is characteristically stored and expended ; C1 partetaš texts are special inasmuch as the partetaš is a somewhat special type of location (whether because it is not a straightforward part of the normal storage network or indeed for some other reason) not because anything else unusual is going on 176. We thus learn nothing further about the nature of the deposit process.

174 The possibility that the preserved archive may under-represent double or multiple payments in

the same year (cf. p. 34, on G-documents) applies here too. Some apparently small quantities

may once have been paired with larger ones.

175 Workers receive rations in PF 1815, NN 1638 (Parsaraš at Persepolis), NN 1612 (anonymous),

PT 048 (anonymous), PT 049, PT 059 (Višpašiyatiš), PT 1963-9 (Ammašiš at Murdarizza or

Hardarizza). A lan-ceremony is celebrated in NN 2259 (Pasargadae). Tree-seedlings are kept at

Appištapdan, Pirdubatti and Tikranuš in PFa 33 — clearly a special matter, peculiarly appropri-

ate to what is evidently a tree-paradise. Note that at Pirdubatti there is both a partetaš and a

storehouse with different offi cials in charge (PFa 33). The only counter-indications are NN 0619,

where fruit is deposited to someone’s account “at Kandukka at the partetaš in the treasury

(kapnušgima)” and NN 2280, where offi cials hand over an animal account at the Persepolis

partetaš. The former is opaque, the latter need not imply a storehouse at the partetaš, especially

given that the account is for Maknan.

176 The quantities of fruit in the relevant documents (16 fi gures) cover the whole range of quantities

attested for fruit in the totality of C1 memoranda (100 fi gures), though they cover it unevenly,

the fi gures for successive quartiles being 7, 3, 1 and 5. So the fruit is not “kept in the partetaš”

because the quantities involved are either unusually large or unusually small. — Although both

the tarmu and fruit groups of partetaš texts have distinctive seals, these are not all confi ned to

partetaš texts or to C1 documents.



Next, there are 14 texts (all dealing with tarmu and all, apart from an undated item from years 25 or 28) in which reference is made to the century of PN (and in fi ve cases also to the decury of PN2) 177. In one case we have a place-name as well (Fort. 8625 : Kunturrukan), so the century/decury constitutes an administrative rather than a geo-graphical location for the transaction — albeit one generally thought adequate for pur-poses of record 178. Since it seems likely that centuries and decuries are worker groups, one’s natural assumption is that the tarmu involved is for consumption by workers 179. Eleven of the documents have seals, either PFS 0161 (twice with PFS 0451) or PFS 0155 and PFS 0156. Both PFS 0161 and PFS 0155/0156 appear with the centuries of Uštana and of Zaratiya 180. (The century of Ullabaziš occurs only once, without a seal.) Apart from the appearance of PFS 0155-0156 on two documents located at Baktiš (cf. n. 103), these seals are peculiar to this particular set of C1 memoranda. Five of the 14 account-holders involved — all in year 25 texts — are kar-makers (see further discussion elsewhere). Homonyms of two other account-holders, Kurtera and Katukka, recur in the same capacity in other C1 memoranda — Katukka at Halmarrašda (linked with Shiraz) for a different commodity and nine years earlier (PF 2018), Kurtera two years earlier for the same commodity at a place associated with seals 8, 19, 22 (NN 1449) and so conceivably in the same region as some other century-texts (cf. n. 178).

The reference to centuries occurs in two forms : (1) a statement, “he is delivering (for ?) the century of PN, decury of PN2 181” ; (2) an unelaborated annotation about “the PN century”. (The fi rst form is associated with account-holders who are kar-makers and with PFS 0155 and 0156, the second with PFS 0161. Both are found with the centuries of Uštana and of Zaratiya 182). The second form in turn comes in two forms : (a) “PN

177 The centuries attested are of Zaratiya (6 texts), Uštana (6) and Ullabaziš (1). There is one named

decury for Zaratiya (Harripirtan : one text) and two for Uštana (Mannanda [3], Haturdada [1]).

In one document (PF 207) that does not otherwise mention centuries/decuries the account-

holder, Karkutiya, is a decurion. — Zaratiya and Harripirtan recur nowhere, Ullabaziš only

once (see next n.). The name Haturdada reappears most often as kurmin or receiver of fl our

(sometimes at Kurdušum). Uštana is a very commonly attested name and I have not pursued

possible identifi cations. The name Mannanda is that of (inter alios) a bazikara and spearbearer

(see p. 22-24).

178 A pair of seals associated with the Uštana and Zaratiya centuries (PFS 0155-0156) also appears

at Baktiš (PF 0199, NN 1151), probably in the Fahliyan region. One of the century-document

account holders (Kurtera, NN 1449) recurs in a C1 text whose seals make a link with Baktiš ;

and the century-eponym Ullabaziš is only attested elsewhere in PF 1593, where he is to deliver

fl our at Baktiš in year 28. On the other hand Kunturrukan, a rarely mentioned place, may be

put “close” to Persepolis by NN 0524 and NN 0579 (via the offi cial Bakabad(d)a) and so prima

facie in a different area from Baktiš.

179 No apportioners are identifi ed, but that is not a serious counter-indication.

180 PFS 0155-0156 : Zaratiya (1), Uštana (3). PFS 0161 : Uštana (2), Zaratiya (4).

181 Hallock’s translation of satukbam PN dasabam PN2 ullimanra, in which the two nouns have no

postpositions or other explicit indication of their grammatical relationship to ullimanra (“he is

delivering”) — hence the question-mark appended to “for”.

182 For Ullabaziš see n. 177.



sadabaumma” 183 and (b) “sadabaum PN” 184. Hallock translated the unelaborated form “at the PN century”, but bracketed “at” in PF 0143, the sole example of 2(b) occurring in PFT. However, Jones & Stolper 2006 translate their two newly-published examples of 2[b] as “of the PN century” (despite the fact that the Elamite noun has no postposi-tion), apparently making the annotation a rather more explicitly direct qualifi cation of the named account-holder, and one has to assume that they would take a similar view of 2(a). There is no obvious reason why the longer formula (i.e. [1]) should be intended to say something fundamentally different, so the Jones-Stolper view would imply that all the relevant account-holders in some sense belong to the century/decury involved (one recalls that in one other document — PF 0207 — the account-holder is a decurion). The next question, then, is when their “delivery for(?)” that century/decury is supposed to occur in relation to the deposit of the commodity to their account. Are they delivering to their century something that has already deposited to their account ? Or is the deposit of the commodity to their account the result of their making a delivery on behalf of their century ? Imprecision in the original Elamite and the relative arbitrariness of the prepo-sitions adopted in English translations mean that these questions cannot be dealt with in an objective fashion. Still, on the face of it, the tarmu is either being delivered to the century/decury or on behalf of it and (granted that centuries and decuries are part of the system of worker-management) this is hard to square with any idea of the account-holder (alias deliverer) being someone entirely outside the administrative system 185. Moreover, a delivery on behalf of a century/decury could hardly be a tax payment, since we can (I take it) assume that worker-groups were not taxed as such.

Conclusion

What conclusion should we draw from all of this ? The hypothesis under examination is that the standard C1 memorandum records the collection of tax from the individual named as the account-holder. Although lacking any cogent explicit terminological evidence in its favour 186, this is a seductive hypothesis. Many of the phenomena inspected above are

183 PF 0141-0142, NN 1174.

184 PF 0143, MWS 1 = Jones & Stolper 2006 : 3, ex-Erlenmeyer = Jones & Stolper 2006 : 21, NN 1854,

NN 2022, Fort. 8625.

185 Although worker-groups can be very large, the quantities of tarmu in century documents are not

exceptionally high : nine of the thirteen relevant fi gures are between the median and upper

quartile, with just two fi gures in each of the bottom and top 25%.

186 (a) On uggi and gim see above p. 51. (b) PFS 0019 (a regular C1 seal, part of seal-set (3) in n. 103)

once appears on a text (PF 1129) naming Battišša, who might be the dasaziya (tithe-collector ?)

of PF 1942 : this is a thin connection, especially as Battišša appears in PF 1129 as a commod-

ity-agent. Battišša is also the name of a C1 account holder from the Zaratiya century (Jones &

Stolper 2006 : 21), but on the tax-hypothesis that would make him a tax-payer, not a collector.

(c) The eponym of a decury in the Uštana century is called Mananda, a name shared by a

bazikara (see above p. 23). Since decuries were part of worker-management this is not a particu-



neither inconsistent with nor demonstrative of it. Contrary indications include NN 0810, Irtašduna’s role as a depositor and perhaps more generally the deposit of “royal” commodi-ties, the argument (from PF 1889) for interpreting kurmin in C1 memoranda as “supplied by” and other signs of account-holders as recipients (not suppliers) of commodities, the existence of individual memoranda that fail to name an account-holder. Seal praxis has distinctive features (though there is a degree of alignment with texts in categories B, K3, M and N) but the facts in themselves do not objectively distinguish between a scenario in which commodities are being collected and one in which they are being distributed. That, of course, is the choice that keeps recurring : do the commodities go to or from the deposit-locations ? are account-holders recipients or suppliers ?

When we look at the account-holders there is a tension between various explicit or indirect indications that they are agents of the economic apparatus (“offi cials”) and the rather high number of otherwise unattested proper names. Offi cials might also be tax-pay-ers, of course, so there is not an immediate inconsistency between the tax hypothesis and the impression that some account-holders are offi cials. But when, for example, we fi nd putative account-holders performing sut operations, we are reading about offi cials acting as offi cials and it is very hard to see how the documents in question can have anything to do with those offi cials’ personal tax liabilities. In view of that evidence, then, we have to conclude either that the deposit-to-account terminology is never about tax-receipts or that it is not always about tax-receipts — in other words, it is a generic terminology for setting a quantity of a commodity against the name of an individual (or a group of individuals) and one that could be used in entirely different circumstances. Other things being equal, the second option is less attractive 187, but if we go with the fi rst and simply reject the tax hypothesis, any model put in its place will have to allow for a considerable variety in the “offi cial” status of account-holders.

One could achieve that, perhaps, by suggesting that what C1 documents provide is a glimpse of one of the (possibly numerous) processes by which foodstuffs were moved around the system in large and small quantities to ensure that they were available where they were actually needed — processes that (a) lie beneath in a different part of the admin-istrative forest from what we see in the classic records of ration-disbursement to groups

larly compelling link. (d) Two Group C texts (PF 1968, NN 2665) are among the documents

referring to rušdabaziš- or irišdabaziš-persons that were discussed earlier, but, even if that offi ce-

title shows that grain can be baziš, nothing emerges about the “deposit to account” procedure,

not least because these are texts in which there are no named account-holders. (e) Maušuma,

a putative account holder in Fort. 8960 (a wine journal for Dakana), recurs in PF 2004, where

(again at Dakana) he is one of a number of individuals who provide wine collectively described

as “wine (as) hapiršimaš sent (to the place) Marriš, entrusted to Mantiti(?) the apparnabara,

(and) Upizza the etira”. One of the various explanations of hapiršimaš is as Erntezins (see above

n. 45). But, even if that is correct, PF 2004 by itself cannot tell us whether Maušuma is a wine-

producer handing over his payment of a harvest-levy or an offi cial forwarding a contribution

to such a levy from another source.

187 The fact that kurmin can mean both “supplied by” and “entrusted to” is not a satisfactory anal-

ogy, as kurmin is grammatically ambiguous in a way that the deposit-to-account formula is (I

think) not.



of workers or travellers, (b) are in some way procedurally distinct from the sort of activ-ity found in e.g., category A, B or D documents, (c) can embrace both the annual fi xed quantity deposits-to-account seen in some Group C accounts (PF 1969-1970, PF 2077) and the absence of obvious regularity from year to year in C1 memoranda in the few cases in which one can test the matter 188, (d) sometimes involve small disbursements 189 and/or recipients who were very minor cogs in the machine.

The administrative landscape of the Persepolitan economy had (we may assume) many loci of activity of various degrees of substance. It need not be the case that the acces-sible archive documents all of these evenly or through the same kinds of textual evidence. In this context something like the century documents are of great interest, because they take us to a local level of management/consumption and because they refer explicitly and in some sort of systematic administrative or procedural context to a phenomenon (deci-mally organised worker-groups) which must have been commonplace but which does not often get into the textual record. A stray C1 memorandum (207) names its account-holder as a decurion ; I should not be surprised if there were many more such among the untitled account-holders. But this line of thought does face one major challenge. On three occa-sions (PF 0171, PF 0193, NN 1136) the account-holder is female 190. Supporters of the tax hypothesis can presumably accommodate this on the assumption that they are high status non-royal women and that such women could be tax-obligated landowners. The alternative, bearing in mind the large numbers of women workers in the system and the need for them to be organised in some fashion, is to speculate about female equivalents of the decurion or centurion. Such speculation need not occur in an entire vacuum in view of the evidence that in at least one category of female workers (the pašap) worker-groups were headed by a female chief, the araššara pašabena 191. The system was not universal (there is no sign of a similar thing among harrinup) and the fact that pašap-workers are attested at Baktiš (the locus of our three female account-holders : n. 191) should perhaps not be pressed too hard, but the case is suffi cient to indicate that the concept of a female “offi cial” is not simply inappropriate. The fact that one of the araššara-women (Matmabba) also turns up as an apportioner in NN 2068 only serves to underline the point.

In the present state of our understanding of the Fortifi cation Archive, and against the background of a desire for simplifying models, an approach along these lines may seem less attractive than the tax hypothesis. But I hope to have shown that the question is, at least, still open, and it may be that there are other non-tax hypotheses that could address the phenomena. Further investigation is needed both here and on other matters broached

188 Only three C1 memoranda are dated to a specifi c month, so for the most part it did not mat-

ter exactly when the transaction happened : the number of transactions per year involving a

given individual was never high enough to make greater precision necessary for accounting

purposes.

189 But cf. n. 174.

190 One is explicitly located at Baktiš (with seal-set [2]) ; the others have seal-set (3), which would in

fact be appropriate for the same location (for seal-sets cf. n. 103).

191 Brosius 1996 : 146-166, 179, 181. When reviewing Brosius’s book (Tuplin 1998b) I wondered

whether the lie of evidence actually required the araššara to be linked only with pašap workers.

I have not revisisted the question.



in this paper before we can pass on from the grim business of extending the boundaries of ignorance and ascend to the sunny uplands of academic certainty 192.

192 This study was researched and written during tenure of a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.

I should like to take this opportunity to thank the Leverhulme Trust for the fact that, although

work on the Fortifi cation archive can never really be described as a leisure activity, the circum-

stances in which this particular investigation was carried out were at least as unencumbered by

other obligations as one could reasonably wish. The other obligation to be acknowledged is to

Wouter Henkelman. All serious students of the archive, and of Achaemenid history, owe him

much for his published work on this material. But I must also thank him on a more personal

basis for his encouragement of my intermittent attempts to derive enlightenment from the

archive and in particular for his assistance with many substantive and linguistic details of this

paper. I have tried to follow his guidance at all relevant points, but responsibility for what is

amiss in the consequences remains, of course, mine.



Appendix

The relationship of PFT baziš with OP baji- as found in royal inscriptions has occasioned comment. Herrenschmidt 1989 : 115 reckoned that since Persia is baji-paying in DB but not DPe or elsewhere, Darius’ reforms happened in between the date of those two texts, and this reform involved a change in the sense of baji- (as used in royal inscriptions) from King’s Share to “tribute”. Meanwhile, PFT shows that the old sense (baji = King’s share) continued to be live and applicable in Persis. Briant 2002 : 947 observes that, if baji did shift from king’s share to tribute (as he thinks it did), this did not just happen after DB but over a longer period, and he adduces the possibility that PFT-like royal administration had a prehistory in Persia going back to Cyrus. Is that meant to imply that baji- already = tribute in DB ? In any case, the discourses of PRI and PFT are arguably simply differ-ent, so that there is no telling whether the semantics of baziš in PFT are a guide to the meaning(s) of baji in PRI.

In the royal inscriptions the King affi rms the subjection of peoples to him (they did I what I said ; they obeyed my data). The presence or absence of Persia in the attached lists of peoples, if it is signifi cant at all, is signifi cant in relation to this package of statements. The absence of Persia does not mean that Persians did not (have to) obey the King, so why should it mean that they did not bring baji ? We are dealing with some broad catego-ries of behaviour that demonstrate submission : making material gifts, obeying specifi c instructions unconditionally, acknowledging general regulations (that the latter two are distinguished is interesting in itself, incidentally). If “bringing baji” is an ideological, not an administrative or fi scal, proposition, then we cannot draw any specifi c conclusion about fi scal behaviour except insofar we may feel sure that some particular sort of fi scal behaviour would be inconsistent with Persia being in a different category of submission to the Great King from the other lands. If the post-DB exclusion of Persia is a way of say-ing that Persia is more bound up with the king than external to him and similar to other (conquered) territories/peoples, then any fi scal or quasi-fi scal arrangement which explicitly expressed externality and submission — e.g., “tribute” in the ordinary heavy sense of the word — would logically be excluded. But baji cannot simply mean “tribute”, because, although we could say Persia went from being tribute-paying to not being tribute-paying, we cannot so easily say she also went being obedient to not-obedient. We must take bring baji more generally to mean (so to say) “pay their dues” (in unspecifi ed form) — just as obey my data means obeying generic regulations where appropriate (in unspecifi ed form) — and in those circumstances we have no reason to be sure that Persia was actually trib-ute-paying even in the DB state of affairs. After the change it is not the case that Persia does not “pay her dues” and the rest, just that the ideologically charged statements of the PRI choose not to say so. The absence of a Persian delegation from Apadana can be a strict parallel, if we read the gift-bearing there as an icon of “paying dues”, not a picture of some sort of ceremony.



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