The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period

by Amélie Kuhrt

This lavish set of books contains the most complete collection of raw material for reconstructing the history of the Achaemenid Persian Empire to date.
Studying Achaemenid history has been difficult in the past because original sources include texts from hugely disparate origins, many different languages and various periods in history; the risk is to rely too heavily on biased and often inaccurate Greek and Roman sources.
Amelie Kuhrt presents here an unprecedented collection of key texts to form a balanced representation of all aspects of the Empire, in translations from their original Greek, Old Persian, Akkadian, Hebrew, Aramaic, Egyptian or Latin.
Kuhrt selects from classical writers, the Old Testament, royal inscriptions, administrative documents and Babylonian historical writing, as well as the evidence of monuments, artefacts and archaeological sites. All material is accompanied by a detailed introduction to the sources and guidelines to their interpretation.
A truly monumental achievement, this collection will prove to be a major resource for any student of Persian history, from undergraduate level to the advanced scholar.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Iran

1080 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Born 1944, she is a historian specialist in the history of the ancient Near East.

Reviews

[Briana Grenert]

I read most of volume one over the course of my semester on Persia and the Greeks.
The sources themselves are awesome, but the organization is horrendous. Could we get some Chapter headers, please?

[Joseph Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am breaking my number one rule here by rating this before I have finished it, but considering it is >1,000 pages, many of which are 2,500-year old accounting entries recorded on clay tablets, I can give myself a little grace.

According to the back cover, it is "the most complete collection of raw material for reconstructing the Achaemenid Persian Empire in existence..." and I'd believe it. The author translated (from multiple dead languages) much (or maybe all) of the material herself, annotated all of it and arranged it in chronological and topic order. Reading this may be my new life's work. 5 Stars

[Nima ُShoa · Rating 4 out of 5]

متاسفانه خاطرم نیست کجا خوندم ولی در این کتاب هم اشاره‌ای بهش شده که در متن کتیبه‌های متقدم هخامنشی بین سال‌های ۵۵۰ تا ۴۰۰ قبل از میلاد فقط نام اهوره‌مزدا دیده میشه.
و در کتیبه‌های متاخر هخامنشی ( در اصل از زمان اردشیر دوم به بعد) شاهد اضافه شدن اسامی مهر و ناهید به اهوره‌مزدا هستیم.

[Atena · Rating 4 out of 5]

خلاصه و عاقلانه.