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The second of three volumes offering a detailed presentation of a set of letters associated with Arš¿ma, satrap in Egypt in the later fifth century BC and the
bullae that sealed them. This volume presents a catalogue of the
bullae and chapters examining the regional context of the seals.
List of contents
- 1: Mark B. Garrison and Deniz Kaptan: Catalogue of Bullae
- 2: Mark B. Garrison and Wouter F. M. Henkelman: The Seal of Prince Arš¿ma: From Persepolis to Oxford
- 3: Mark B. Garrison and Deniz Kaptan: The Stamp Seal
- 4: Deniz Kaptan: Anatolian Connections
- 5: Wouter F. M. Henkelman: Nakht¿or in Persepolis
- Appendix: Seals Associated with Satraps and Satrap-Level Administrators
About the author
Christopher J. Tuplin is Gladstone Professor of Greek at the University of Liverpool.
John Ma is Professor of Classics at Columbia University.
Summary
During the Second World War the Bodleian Library in Oxford acquired a set of Aramaic letters, eight sealings, and the two leather bags in which the sealed letters were once stored. The letters concern the affairs of Aršāma, satrap of Egypt in the later fifth century. Taken with other material associated with him (mostly in Aramaic, Demotic Egyptian, and Akkadian), they illuminate the Achaemenid world of which Aršāma was a privileged member and evoke a wide range of social, economic, cultural, organizational, and political perspectives, from multi-lingual communication, storage and disbursement of resources, and satrapal remuneration, to cross-regional ethnic movement, long-distance travel, religious practice, and iconographic projection of ideological messages.
Particular highlights include a travel authorization (the only example of something implicit in numerous Persepolis documents), texts about the religious life of the Judaean garrison at Elephantine, Aršāma's magnificent seal (a masterpiece of Achaemenid glyptic, inherited from a son of Darius I), and echoes of temporary disturbances to Persian management of Egypt. But what is also impressive is the underlying sense of systematic coherence founded on and expressed in the use of formal, even formalized, written communication as a means of control. The Aršāma dossier is not alone in evoking that sense, but its size, variety, and focus upon a single individual give it a unique quality.
Though this material has not been hidden from view, it has been insufficiently explored: it is the purpose of the three volumes of Aršāma and his World: The Bodleian Letters in Context to provide the fullest presentation and historical contextualization of this extraordinary cache yet attempted. Volume I presents and translates the letters alongside a detailed line-by-line commentary, while Volume II reconstructs the two seals that made the clay bullae that sealed the letters, with special attention to Aršāma's magnificent heirloom seal. Volume III comprises a series of thematic essays which further explore the administrative, economic, military, ideological, religious, and artistic environment to which Aršāma and the letters belonged.
Additional text
three superb volumes ... based on an impressive cross-disciplinary collaboration between specialists in Greek, Egyptian, Aramaic, Jewish, Babylonian, and Iranian studies; one can only dream that one day they will be required reading in all graduate programmes in ancient history.
