This chapter analyses the role played by coinage in the Achaemenid empire, exploring the dynamics of royal policy and iconography within the multifaceted political and economic within its imperial space. The vast Persian empire stretched from Mesopotamia and further east to the Aegean Sea. When the Persians captured the Lydian kingdom of Kroisos in 546, at first they took over his coinage in gold and silver, and later, from around 515, they produced distinctively Persian coinage of gold darics and silver sigloi, which had images of an archer, as a symbol of the Persian king. These were only for the western part of their empire, and even there they were not part of a fully coin-using economy. Their purposes were probably gift-giving and payments to mercenary soldiers. Other coinages continued to be made, in electrum, for example at Kyzikos, and especially in silver. A large variety of silver coinages were made at many cities in western Asia Minor and in Cyprus. Some were very small denominations, perhaps to facilitate daily market exchanges. The famous deposits of coins in the Apadana of Persepolis are analysed in detail, and the controversial puzzle of their selection is discussed.

This chapter explores the invention of coinage and asks what this can tell us about the world before coinage. Money has various functions and can be documented before the invention of coinage. For example, from Sumerian times metals, especially silver, became the dominant form of money, replacing grain, and measured by weighing. Standard weights were used in Egypt, and are mentioned in the Bible. Monetary transactions can also be observed in Homer’s poems and some rare early inscriptions from Greece. Spits (obeloi) were used, sometimes in a handful (drachm), and these words were used later to denote coins. By the early sixth century, silver had become a standard form of money also in Greece. The first coins in the Mediterranean world derived from such practices and were struck in the kingdom of Lydia in western Asia Minor around the middle of the seventh century and were made of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver. Several Greek cities established on the Aegean coast, and controlled by the Lydians, shared in this development, as they did also in a distinct second stage, when in the majority of cities coinage in electrum gradually gave way to coinages of silver and (rarely) gold.

The models posited in Chapter 2 are applied to the problem set out in Chapter 1. Sources in Greek, Elamite, and Old Persian, taken together, give every reason to believe that mass nonnative acquisition of Persian was underway from the reign of Darius I onward. The cooperation of multiethnic groups of armed forces, work forces, and especially domestic staff, such as concubines and eunuchs, with their Persian-speaking masters evidently played a large role in the formation of Middle Persian. Contrary to a widespread assumption, Aramaic turns out not to be a lingua franca of the Achaemenian Empire, except at the level of provincial administration, but rather Persian was probably the best candidate for such a role. Middle Persian arose from Old Persian through a process of semicreolization as the term was defined carefully in Chapter 2.

Final reflections on the meaning of the transformation of ancient Persian, from Old to Middle Persian, put these events in the context of growing human mobility, migration, and population contact from the first millennium BCE until today, with its effects on language. This study has also unexpectedly shed light on the role of conquered people, particularly enslaved people in the domestic spaces of the Persians. Such people have left very little trace otherwise, but their role in the shaping of the Persian language and culture is remarkable. Their effects on Persian culture are still evident in the reduced morphology of Persian until toay. Prospects for new research linguistic history along these lines come into view.

The first inscription in Old Persian was carved into the mountainside of Bisitun, in present-day Iran, in 520–518 BCE. Less than two hundred years later, Old Persian inscriptions in the same written tradition appear to be “getting the grammar wrong” – drastically wrong. Scholars agree on the linguistic phenomena but have disagreed about how to explain them. The problem of this book is how the Persian language came to be restructured grammatically so quickly, in about five generations. The outcome was Middle Persian, which apparently was in use in an early form by the time of Alexander. This first chapter frames this problem and explains what is at stake in its resolution.

In addition to the Old Testament’s Primary History, we have a Chronistic History comprised of 1–2 Chronicles and Ezra–Nehemiah. The two histories contain some of the same materials. We will see that the Chronistic History, however, includes events of the postexilic community down to the late fifth century bce. With the Persian Empire as the background, we will note also a different perspective, characterized by different themes, stylistic devices, portions written in Aramaic, and particular emphases on the Davidic dynasty and Israel’s religious practices associated with Jerusalem.

Chronicles and Ezra–Nehemiah are sequenced differently in various canons, indicating independent collections, but we will see that they are linked literarily by the edict of King Cyrus. This historical event marked the return of Israelite exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem, now part of the Persian province Yehud, and the subsequent restoration and rebuilding of a community. Indeed, these books are significant in the Old Testament for the way in which they confirm the postexilic community as the legitimate successor of preexilic Israel.

Most studies of narrative art in the Bible scarcely mention Chronicles, but this chapter explores ways that readers can build a greater appreciation for the unique art and style of Chronicles, and for its theologically rich portrait of history.

The opening chapter presents an overview of some of the historical-critical issues that shape a theological reading of the text. A better understanding of literary, historical, and social issues provides an interpretive control for theological articulation.

A retrospective look at the 1980 Dumbarton Oaks Symposium “Beyond Byzantium” noting its groundbreaking aspects, omissions, and the evolution of the field in subsequent years. A particular emphasis is the increasing breadth of topics in the study of the Byzantine Near East as scholarly interest has moved beyond primarily philological and religious topics. The community of scholars interested in these traditions has also changed. At the 1980 Symposium several presenters were clergy who came to the field via the study of biblical languages. Few were women. Today the field is much more diverse, with many active scholars who belong to Near Eastern Christian communities. Manuscripts are used to illustrate cultural exchanges among Eastern Christian traditions and to highlight issues of ownership and removal of cultural heritage from its original context. A particular emphasis is placed on liturgical manuscripts as a source of information about language acquisition.

This chapter presents new, annotated translations of the principal testimonia and fragments of Skylax of Karyanda (late 6th century BC), arranged as fourteen extracts. Skylax, we are told by Herodotos, was recruited by King Darius of Persia to explore the Indus. The chapter introduction assesses recent studies that trace the echoes of his travel narrative in Philostratos’ Life of Apollonios (3rd century AD) and suggest that Skylax descended the Ganges to the east coast of India, perhaps voyaging as far as Taprobane (Sri Lanka). A specially drawn map indicates the area within which he most likely travelled.