The Project
From September 2014 - August 2019 the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam hosted the project „Paying for All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men. A Fiscal History of the Achaemenid Empire“ under the leadership of Kristin Kleber. The aim of this project was to investigate taxation and administration in one of the first world empires, the Achaemenid or first Persian Empire (ca. 550-330 BC). In ancient perception, this empire was a ‘global’ state. According to estimates, it contained slightly less than half of the world’s population at its time. It covered a surface of approximately eight million square kilometers, stretching from Libya to modern day Afghanistan. This immense space had never been united under one rule in history before. The diversity of local customs and institutions posed an unprecedented logistical and administrative challenge. The aim of this project was to find out how the Persian system of taxation and fiscal administration contributed to expanding and maintaining this huge empire.
The project was financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) in the framework of its Innovational Research Incentives Scheme Vidi.
Until few years ago, before scholars like Michael Jursa began to screen the Babylonian sources for information on taxation, it was usually Herodotus’ account of the tribute imposed by the Achaemenid king Darius I on his subject populations that was used as the prime source for information. We are now in the fortunate position to be able to study a large number of primary sources from the Achaemenid Empire itself. Cuneiform administrative and legal texts allow us to gain insights into taxation and administration from a local perspective. Most of our sources come from archives from the empire’s two core regions, Iran and Babylonia. The roughly contemporaneous archives will now be studied together in a larger undertaking for the first time. There are also sources from other regions of the empire (Egypt, Bactria, Idumea) written in Aramaic. In 2018 we organized a workshop to which we invited the scholars working in this field in order to exchange ideas on the interpretation of these documents.
People
Principal Investigator / project leader: Kristin Kleber
PhD subproject „Taxation and Corvée Labour in the Iranian Heartland“: Mark Tamerus (2014-2018)
PhD subproject „Taxation Mirrored in Babylonian Private Archives“: Pieter Alkemade (2015-2019)
Postdocs: Bastian Still (2016/17); Benjamin Dromard (2017-2019)
Publications (scholarly)
Kristin Kleber (ed.) 2021, Taxation in the Achaemenid Empire. Classica et Orientalia 26, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz 2021.
Kristin Kleber 2021, “Taxation and Fiscal Administration in Babylonia”, in: Kristin Kleber (ed.), Taxation in the Achaemenid Empire. Classica et Orientalia 26, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz 2021, 13-152.
Benjamin Dromard 2021. "Nippur and its Region under the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Empires: A Fiscal History", in: Kristin Kleber (ed.), Taxation in the Achaemenid Empire. Classica et Orientalia 26, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz 2021, 177-234.
Kristin Kleber 2021, “Introduction: Taxation in the Achaemenid Empire”, in: Kristin Kleber (ed.), Taxation in the Achaemenid Empire. Classica et Orientalia 26, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz 2021, 1-9.
Kristin Kleber 2021, “Tablet Format and Book-keeping in Eanna: A Dossier on Long-Distance Trade from the Reign of Nabonidus”, in: Archiv für Orientforschung 54, Wien 2021, 62-71.
Kristin Kleber 2021, “Section IV.B: Local Administration. Babylonia”, in: B. Jacobs, R. Rollinger (eds.), A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire. London/New York, Routledge 2021, 905-922.
Kristin Kleber 2019, “The Religious Policy of the Teispid and Achaemenid Kings in Babylonia”, in: R. Achenbach (ed.), Persische Reichspolitik und lokale Heiligümer. Beiträge einer Tagung des Exzellenzclusters „Religion und Politik in Vormoderne und Moderne“, vom 24.-26. Februar 2016 in Münster. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2019, 99-120.
Kristin Kleber 2018, “The Great Adventures of a Small God: New Evidence for the Divine Messenger Staff Huṭāru”, in: Iraq 80, 2018, 139-150.
Mark Tamerus 2018, “Labour in the Achaemenid Heartland", in: A. Garcia-Ventura (ed.), What’s in a Name? Terminology related to Work Force and Job Categories in the Ancient Near East. AOAT 440, Münster 2018, 468-493.
Kristin Kleber 2018, “Dependent Labor and Status in the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Periods", in: A. Garcia-Ventura (ed.), What’s in a Name? Terminology related to Work Force and Job Categories in the Ancient Near East. AOAT 440, Münster 2018, 441-465.
Kristin Kleber (with R.J. van der Spek, J.G. Dercksen and M. Jursa) 2018, “Money, Silver and Trust in Mesopotamia”, in: R.J. van der Spek, B. van Leeuwen (eds.), Money, Currency and Crisis. In Search of Trust, 2000 BC to AD 2000, London/New York, Routledge 2018, 102-131.
Kristin Kleber 2017, “Achaemenid Administration in Babylonia”, in: B. Jacobs, W.F.M. Henkelman and M.W. Stolper (eds.), Die Verwaltung im Achämenidenreich – Imperiale Muster und Strukturen / Administration in the Achaemenid Empire – Tracing the Imperial Signature. Classica et Orientalia 17, Harassowitz, Wiesbaden 2017, 699-714.
Kristin Kleber 2016, “Arabian Gold for Babylonia”, Kaskal 13, 2016, 121-134.
Kristin Kleber 2016, “The Kassite Gold and the Post-Kassite Silver Standards Revisited”, in: K. Kleber, R. Pirngruber (eds.), Silver, Money and Credit. A Tribute to Robartus J. van der Spek on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. PIHANS 128, Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, Leiden 2016, 39-60.
Mark Tamerus 2016, "Elusive Silver in the Achaemenid Heartland: Thoughts on the Presence and Use of Silver according to the Persepolis Fortification and Treasury Archives", in: K. Kleber, R. Pirngruber (eds.), Silver, Money and Credit. A Tribute to Robartus J. van der Spek on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. PIHANS 128, Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, Leiden 2016, 241-294.
Kristin Kleber 2015, “Taxation in the Achaemenid Empire”, in: Oxford Handbook Online of Classical Studies. Online Publication Date: Nov. 2015. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935390.013.34 .
Lectures for a scholarly audience
Kristin Kleber, „Taxation and Sovereignty in the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Empires“ held in Florence, Italy at an interdisciplinary workshop on 'Taxation and Sovereignty’ organized by New York University on 15 May 2014.
Kristin Kleber, “Steuern und Abgaben im Achämenidenreich” held in Münster, Institut für Altorientalische Philologie on 30 January 2014.
Kristin Kleber, "Elite Management and Administration in the First Persian Empire (c. 550-330 BC)". Lecture held at the Nederlandse Oudhistoricidag, Amsterdam on 26 January 2016.
Kristin Kleber, "Religious Tolerance or Pragmatic Indifference? Teispid and Achaemenid Religious Policy in Babylonia". Invited lectures held at the conference “Die Religionspolitik der Achaimeniden und die Rolle der Lokalheiligtümer” organized by Excellenzcluster “Religion und Politik" on 24-26 February 2016 in Münster.
Kristin Kleber, "Tablet Format and Book-keeping in Eanna". Invited lecture held at the workshop “Towards a Diplomatics of Archival Cuneiform Documents” organized by the research project “Diplomatics and Palaeography of the Neo- and Late Babylonian Archival Documents” at the Vienna University on 6-7 October 2016.
Mark Tamerus, “Thoughts on Taxation in the Achaemenid Heartland”. Lecture held on 30 May 2016 at the 4th Neo-Babylonian Network (NBN) Conference in Leuven.
Meetings / other activities
Meeting with the NaBuCCo-Project (Katholieke Universiteit Leiden), Prof. Dr. Kathleen Abraham, Dr. Shai Gordin at the VU Amsterdam. Presentation given by Dr. Shai Gordin on the NaBuCCo-Database on 9 December 2014.
Kick-Off-Meeting Vidi-Project “Paying for All the Kings’ Horses and All the King’s Men: A Fiscal History of the Achaemenid Empire” with a lecture presenting the project’s aims held by Kristin Kleber, at VU Amsterdam on 22 January 2015.
Meeting of the Neo-Babylonian Network Initiative on 1st and 2nd June 2015 in Paris, organized by Prof. Dr. Francis Joannès, Université Paris-Sorbonne 1. Response paper by Kristin Kleber on a presentation held by M. Djabellaoui on ethnic groups first Millennium Babylonia
The project workshop 'Taxation and Administration in the Achaemenid Empire' was held on 25-27 October 2018 at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. It constituted the project's concluding conference, in which research about taxation and fiscal administration in the various parts of the empire was brought together and reviewed. The flyer and the program can be found here and here respectively. The procedings oft he conference were published in 2021 in the series Classica et Orientalia: