Topic: the record (1)

• Survey essayThe Sources & How We Know

  A survey of all the evidence for the Achaemenid empire and its problems: why no Persian wrote its history; the kings' own propaganda in stone; the Greek writers and Janett Morgan's "looking glass" (their Persia reflects Greek concerns as much as Persian fact); the Near-Eastern documents, each with its agenda; the unpropagandised administrative tablets; the material record; and the modern method of triangulation that reads through the Greek mirror while keeping the uncertainties visible.