Administrative document from Bactria dated to the seventh year of Alexander’s the Great’s reign (324 BC), bearing the first known use of the “Alexandros” form of his name.
Administrative document from Bactria dated to the seventh year of Alexander’s the Great’s reign (324 BC), bearing the first known use of the “Alexandros” form of his name.
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The text is written in Aramaic, as seen from the used alphabet. It makes part of a larger correspondence between the officials of the satrapal administration in Bactria, modern Afghanistan. A large number of the documents dates back to the Persian times and the reigns of Artaxerxes III, Darius III and most probably even Artaxerxes V (commonly known as Bessus).
It’s pretty much the only known archive that provides us with a glimpse on the administrative structure of ancient Afghanistan in Achaemenid and Argead times and also demonstrates the remarkable continuity between the bureaucracies of Darius, Bessus and Alexander.
That’s how Alexander’s name was written in Aramaic (transcribed in the Latin alphabet obviously): ‘lksndrs. The spelling of the name is actually different than the one used in the Idumean ostraca (‘lksndr), which is again a valuable corpus for the imperial (Persian and Macedonian) administration. All the names mentioned in the text are Iranian, which is not surprising, because the newcomers dominated the upper and not the middle echelons of the administrative hierarchy.
Τι το ανεβάζεις εδώ αφού δεν είμαστε εμείς οι Μακεδόνες/ς
Είχα προσπαθήσει να χτισω ένα ocr με αυτό το dataset.