182 Jennifer Gates-Foster
Elamite, with substantial numbers of Aramaic texts. Akkadian, Greek, Old Persian, and
Phrygian are also present, albeit in very small numbers (Briant 2002; Henkelman and
Stolper 2009).
According to a recent study by Henkelman and Stolper (2009), 26 “ethnonyms” (for
the authors, names associated with groups based on their territorial homeland and/or
language, such as Egyptians or Skudrians) appear in the edited texts, the range and sig-
nificance of which we will return to in a moment. The very small number of ethnonyms
associated with the heartland, however, says much about the formation or existence of
a functional Persian ethnicity. Persian, as a generic ethnic designation, is used on only
four texts, Medes on one, and Elamite, as an ethnic designation, is not used at all in the
archive. The authors see this as evidence that “from an institutional perspective, speak-
ers of Elamite, Median or Persian were all considered to be ‘us’” (278). Surprisingly, on
many of the monumental inscriptions that list the subject peoples of the empire, Persians,
Medes, and Elamites are often listed among the conquered peoples (see the following
section).
The use of “tribal” (as opposed to geographically framed) designations to describe some
individuals and groups in the archive reinforces this interpretation, since it suggests that
meaningful group identities for these individuals were tribal, not ethnic, given the fun-
damentally Persian point of view of the archive’s authors (Henkelman and Stolper 2009:
284–6). Hence, in this respect, we see that the archive reflects a tendency to designate
residents of the Persian heartland with more specific identifiers related to local tribal net-
works, while people from other parts of the empire are categorized by ethnonyms related
to their place of origin or language, although the precise criteria for these “ethnic” des-
ignations are unclear. Indeed, it is not always clear why an ethnonym is provided, and,
in many cases, work groups (kurtâs) are discussed and no identifier is used. Even with
these complexities, the archive reveals what was almost certainly a much more nuanced,
fluid system of cultural identities in place among the residents of the Persian heartland
that was not explored in the royal monuments and remains largely inaccessible, given our
present state of knowledge. The larger point made by Henkelman and Stolper is that, at
least at Persepolis, groups of foreigners were kept functionally separate for administrative
and bureaucratic purposes. This observation is particularly critical when viewed alongside
the “ethnic” rhetoric deployed in monumental contexts.
Ethnicity and Empire: “The King
of the Lands of all Tongues”
Persian kings deployed ethnic or cultural categories as a means for articulating a vision
of an inclusive empire, while at the same time emphasizing the variety of subject peoples
and the wide sweep of Persian dominance (Briant 2002). The use of essentialized ethnic
categories in the depiction of subject communities as well as the incorporation of artistic
traditions and styles associated with conquered peoples were powerful components of
Achaemenid imperial ideology. These categories were emphasized in the programmatic
representation of the empire through a visual presentation of the diversity of subject
peoples, lists of conquered and subdued lands, and an emphasis on multilingualism in
royal inscriptions (Root 1979, 1990; Calmeyer 1982, 1983, 1987).