documents, most of which are Neo‐Babylonian (the latest known text dates to the third year of Darius I; Pedersén 2005: p. 252); there is also an uncertain number of library texts. From the Amran section of Babylon come several badly‐defined groups of archival texts, including Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic texts, as well as some literary tablets. The Esangila temple, which is situated in this area but was barely excavated, yielded only eight tablets, of which only one is dated (to the reign of Cambyses). From the Sahn area (where the temple tower, Etemenanki, was situated), assorted Neo‐Babylonian and early Achaemenid material was recovered, but no later texts.
Borsippa
This city yielded a rich crop of private archives and remnants of the temple archive of Ezida, the main temple of the city. This material, housed primarily in the British Museum, dates predominantly to the early Achaemenid period. Of the more than 1850 tablets, many are still unpublished (Waerzeggers 2010).3 Some of these archives are large: the Rēˀi‐alpi archive contains more than 400 tablets, the Ilia A archive over 250, and the Ea‐ilūtu‐bani group around 325. Most of the archive‐holding families were of priestly origin, and the texts refer to their involvement in the cult and the management of their estates. The archives are also by far the best source we have on early Achaemenid taxation. The priestly archives and the Ezida texts, in particular the iškaru file, come to an end in 484 BCE and display the pattern typical of “end‐of‐archives” groups: property documents and the like of the last generation are missing (Waerzeggers 2003/2004: p. 156). The only significant archive that straddles the dividing line of 484 BCE is the Tattannu archive (Jursa and Stolper 2007). This archive, whose chronological range is unusually long, from the late sixth to the early fourth century, consists of the business documents of an extraordinarily rich family of landowners who seem to have had contacts to the crown and who in addition to exploiting their holdings engaged in various entrepreneurial activities. The Tattannus are an example of a stratum of Babylonian society that was not affected by the events of 484 BCE. Otherwise Late Achaemenid texts from Borsippa are rare; very few archives can be identified. A small group of Ezida tablets from the reign of Artaxerxes III deserves mention as they are indirectly connected with a similar such group dating later in the Hellenistic period. Also they constitute evidence for the changes in the administration of the Ezida temple that had occurred after the late fifth century BCE (Waerzeggers 2010: p. 10; there is additional material on Ezida from other archives).
Cutha
This northern Babylonian city is one of the few find spots that have not produced important documentation from the Early Achaemenid period but have produced Late Achaemenid material: several small private archives of well‐to‐do Cuthean families from this period are housed in the British Museum. One group also contains retroacts dating back to the reign of Darius I. The texts are mostly relevant for the light they shed on the urban structure of the city, the price levels of the periods, and the indications regarding the continuing importance of the Emeslam, the chief temple of the Cutha (Jursa 2005b: pp. 97–98).
Kiš/
Excavations have yielded several small archives, both private and institutional (Jursa 2005b: pp. 102–107). Three private groups date to the Early Achaemenid period: the archive of the sons of Nabû‐ušallim (ending in 484 BCE) and the Eppēš‐ilī and Rē’i‐alpi archives. Late Achaemenid groups include the archive of a slave engaged in various types of business (Bēl‐ana‐mēre
Isin
Only a small group of tablets dating to the reign of Darius I is of relevance here. These texts document the management of royal estates by a Babylonian businessman (Jursa 2005b: p. 102).
Kissik
From this city in the far south come several (unpublished) contracts, school texts, and administrative documents from a Ningal temple. The extant dated material stems from the reign of Darius I (Jursa 2005b: p. 102).
Dilbat
This important city on the Euphrates yielded one archive belonging to the “end‐of‐archives” group. It belonged to the Dābibī, a family of priests and temple officials employed in the E‐imbi‐Anu, the main temple of the city. The texts include some property documents of the family's core archive as well as records having a bearing on the administration of the E‐imbi‐Anu temple during the reign of Darius I (Jursa 2005b: pp. 98–99). Some Late Achaemenid texts that were written in Dilbat are known, but they do not form a coherent group (Stolper 1992).
Nippur
The textual record from this central town (Jursa 2005b: pp. 110–116) in central Babylonia has played an important role in the history of research on Achaemenid Babylonia owing to the presence of the Murašû archive, probably the single most important source of information on late fifth‐century BCE Babylonia, and certainly the best studied (Stolper 1985; Donbaz and Stolper 1997). Yet the site cannot serve as a paradigm for all of Babylonia owing to the isolated position of the city and to its – relatively speaking – economic “backwardness” during much of the first millennium BCE (Jursa 2010: pp. 405–418).
The tablet groups from Nippur include a fragmentary archive associated with the main temple of the city, Ekur. The archive can be divided into a Late Achaemenid group from the late fifth and the early fourth century and an early group that extends from the late reign of Nebuchadnezzar to the late reign of Darius I and may well belong to the “end‐of‐archives” category even though material dating to the period of the rebellions is still missing. Early Achaemenid private groups include the archive of Bēl‐eṭēri‐Šamaš, an entrepreneur who did business with the Neo‐Babylonian and the Persian administrations (the archive comes to an end in the first year of Cambyses; Jursa 2005a), and a small dossier of business texts originating in the milieu of Carian mercenaries who had been settled in the hinterland of Nippur. The Late Achaemenid period is represented by two private archives: the Murašû archive and the Absummu archive. The latter is a group of more than 50 tablets documenting the activities of the archive holders as temple scribes, administrators, exorcists, and priests working in the Ekur temple. The chronological range extends from the end of the reign of Artaxerxes I to the end of the reign of Artaxerxes II. The Murašû archive of more than 700 tablets, ranging from the tenth year of Artaxerxes I to the first year of Artaxerxes II, is a business archive of a family of entrepreneurs who specialized in agricultural management, working in the hinterland of Nippur in an area that was dotted with the holdings of collectives of soldiers (often of foreign extraction) and large domains of Persian nobles. The archive is an extremely rich source of information on Achaemenid period land tenure and generally on the economic history of the period, as well as on tax and service obligations and the organization of the Babylonian component of the Persian army.
Ur
