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

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.