Recording Persian Antiquities in Crisis: The Persepolis Fortification Archive Project

In 1933, Oriental Institute archaeologists made a startling discovery at Persepolis, near the palaces that Darius and Xerxes built in the heartland of the Achaemenid Empire (near the Fars Province of modern Iran): tens of thousands of clay tablets, with texts in several ancient languages and the impressions of thousands of seals. Oriental Institute researchers have been studying them ever since, with results that have transformed our understanding of the Persian Empire at its zenith. But since 2004, researchers have been working under the shadow of litigation that threatens the future of the tablets. Since 2005, the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project has marshaled electronic tools and techniques in a race to preserve a comprehensive record of the Archive and to enable new kinds of research.