Achaemenid Studies fall between the academic divisions of Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Archeology, Ancient History, Classical Philology, Egyptology and Semitic Languages. No single scholar can cover the many cultures that were united under the umbrella of this huge empire alone and in-depth. Interdisciplinary approaches are a necessity in order to tackle the challenges that the diverse textual records in Akkadian, Demotic Egyptian, Elamite, Aramaic and Greek present us with. This volume, the proceedings of a conference on taxation and fiscal administration in the Achaemenid Empire held in Amsterdam in 2018, contains contributions on Babylonia, Egypt, the Levant, Asia Minor and Arachosia, written by specialists in the respective languages and cultures. The question that lies at the basis of this volume is how the empire collected revenue from the satrapies, whether and how local institutions were harnessed to make imperial rule successful. The contributions investigate what kind of taxes were imposed in what area and how tax collection was organized and administered. Since we lack imperial state archives, local records are the more important, as they are our only reliable source that allows us to move beyond the famous but unverifiable statement on Achaemenid state finances in Herodotus, Histories 3, 89-97.
Author(s): Kristin Kleber
Series: Classica Et Orientalia, 26
Publisher: Harrassowitz Verlag
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 442
City: Wiesbaden
Cover
Title Pages
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Kristin Kleber: Introduction: Taxation in the Achaemenid Empire
Babylonia
Kristin Kleber: Taxation and Fiscal Administration in Babylonia
Part 1: Taxation in Babylonia from the Early Second to the Early First Millennium – an Overview
1. Preliminaries (Part I)
2. The Old Babylonian period
3. The Middle Babylonian period
4. The early Neo-Babylonian period
Part 2: Babylonian Taxation in the Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods
5. Preliminaries (Part II)
6. The administration of Babylonia
7. Land tenure in Babylonia
8. Royal and non-royal taxation: An overview
9. Royal taxation: Assessment, collection / levy and control
10. Taxes in the form of service
11. Taxes in kind and in silver
12. Taxes for the court: Gifts and provisioning duties
13. Uncertain forms of taxation
14. The legitimation of taxation and attitudes toward taxation
15. Babylonian taxation in fiscal history models
Bibliography (for Part I and II)
Odette Boivin: The ilku and Related Fiscal Obligations in Sixth Century Larsa
Benjamin Dromard: Nippur and its Region under the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Empires: A Fiscal History
Olga V. Popova: Taxation in Neo-Babylonian Ur: Evidence from the Archive of the Gallābu Family
Egypt and the Levant
Damien Agut-Labordère: Royal Taxes in Persian Egypt through Demotic Sources
Margaretha Folmer: Taxation of Ships and their Cargo in an Aramaic Papyrus from Egypt(TAD C3.7)
Christopher J. Tuplin: Fiscality in the World of Aršāma
André Lemaire: Achaemenid Taxation and Administration in the Southern Levant(4th Century BCE)
Jason M. Silverman: The Taxes of God and King? Taxation in Persian Period Judaean Materials
Asia Minor and Arachosia
Raymond Descat: Taxation in the Achaemenid Empire According to Greek Sources:The Case of Caria under Mausolus
Alexander Schütze: The Aramaic Texts from Arachosia Reconsidered
Indices
