While catching up on my blog reading, I ran across this article about how an "everyday text shows that Old Persian was probably more commonly used than previously thought".

quote:

For the first time, a text has been found in Old Persian language that shows the written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display. The text is inscribed on a damaged clay tablet from the Persepolis Fortification Archive, now at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. The tablet is an administrative record of the payout of at least 600 quarts of an as-yet unidentified commodity at five villages near Persepolis in about 500 B.C.

There's also a link to a scholarly article with high-resolution scans of the tablet and transcription, too.

[via the LingFormant blog]

The Oriental Institute at the U. of C. is excellent. We will have to go there and see that clay tablet. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to visit it when the Wordcrafters were here.

I have heard about those tablets. I'm not sure but I think Chicago university is the same university that has broken its promise. They borrowed tablets for studying but now they refuse to return the tablets to Iran! I remember we had much about it in the Iranian newspapers.

Anyway, as far as I know, these tablets contain valuable information and most notably about the status of women in the pre-Islmaic Persia. They show kind of insurance system, etc. My information is not complete. Does anybody know something about these?