Aršama and his World: The Bodleian Letters in Context Volume III: Aršama's World

by Tuplin, Christopher J.; Ma, John

• ISBN13: 9780198860716
• ISBN10: 0198860714
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2021-03-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

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 Aršama, 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 Aršama 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, Aršama'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 Aršama 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 Aršama 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 Aršama'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 Aršama and the letters belonged.

Author Biography

Christopher J. Tuplin, University of Liverpool,John Ma, Columbia University

Christopher J. Tuplin is Gladstone Professor of Greek at the University of Liverpool.

John Ma is Professor of Classics at Columbia University.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
1.1. Aršāma: Prince and Satrap, Christopher J. Tuplin
2. Letters and Administration
2.1. Persian in Official Documents and the Processes of Multilingual Administration, Jan Tavernier
2.2. Masterful Missives: Form and Authority in Aršāma's Letters, Jennifer Hilder
2.3. The Aršāma Corpus through the Lens of Babylonian Epistolography, Michael Jursa
3. Control and Connectivity
3.1. The Persian Empire, Amélie Kuhrt
3.2. Frustrated Frondeurs or Loyal Kings Mena Nobles at the Achaemenid Court, Arthur P. Keaveney
3.3. The Royal Road from Herodotus to Xenophon (via Ctesias), Eran Almagor
4. Economics
4.1. Aršāma the Vampire, John Ma
4.2. Silverization, Prices, and Tribute in the Achaemenid Empire, Alain Bresson
4.3. Aršāma, Egyptian Trade, and the Peloponnesian War, John O. Hyland
5. Egyptian Perspectives
5.1. The Multi-Ethnic World of Achaemenid Egypt, Günter Vittmann
5.2. Aramaic Texts and the Achaemenid Administration of Egypt, Lisbeth S. Fried
5.3. The Military Environment of Achaemenid Egypt, Christopher J. Tuplin
5.4. The Passover and the Temple of YHW: On the Interaction between the Authorities and the Judaean Community at Elephantine as Reflected in the Yedanyah Archive, Gard Granerød
5.5. The Fall and Rise of the Elephantine Temple, Christopher J. Tuplin
5.6. After Aršāma: Persian Echoes in Early Ptolemaic Egypt, Dorothy J. Thompson