Trips to the king, taxation, and the New Year in the Persepolis fortification archive

Rhyne King

doi:10.1080/05786967.2022.2101936

Trips to the king, taxation, and the New Year in the Persepolis fortification archive

Rhyne King^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Classics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Trips to and from the court of King Darius I are richly documented from 509 to 493 BCE thanks to the Persepolis Fortification Archive. This paper analyzes patterns in the timing of these trips and demonstrates that trips to and from the court of the King peaked around the Persian New Year. The peak around the New Year is especially pronounced for trips between the King and distant regions. A number of these trips around the New Year involved the presentation of tax, as the article will show. In addition to the collection of tax, meetings at the royal court around the New Year served both the symbolic purpose of demonstrating the unity of a heterogenous empire and the administrative purpose of organising the imperial government.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-14
Number of pages	14
Journal	Iran: Journal of British Institute of Persian Studies
Volume	Latest Articles
Early online date	28 Jul 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/05786967.2022.2101936
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 28 Jul 2022

Keywords

Achaemenid Empire
Persepolis fortification archive
Darius I
Taxation
Nowruz

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10.1080/05786967.2022.2101936

Cite this

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title = "Trips to the king, taxation, and the New Year in the Persepolis fortification archive",

abstract = "Trips to and from the court of King Darius I are richly documented from 509 to 493 BCE thanks to the Persepolis Fortification Archive. This paper analyzes patterns in the timing of these trips and demonstrates that trips to and from the court of the King peaked around the Persian New Year. The peak around the New Year is especially pronounced for trips between the King and distant regions. A number of these trips around the New Year involved the presentation of tax, as the article will show. In addition to the collection of tax, meetings at the royal court around the New Year served both the symbolic purpose of demonstrating the unity of a heterogenous empire and the administrative purpose of organising the imperial government.",

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note = "Funding: This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft project “The Unexplored Heartland” (grant number SPP 2176).",

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Trips to the king, taxation, and the New Year in the Persepolis fortification archive

Abstract

Keywords

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