Treasury. 

A general view of Persepolis with the Treasury and other structures in the foreground and the palaces of Xerxes and Darius in the background 

The Treasury of Persepolis belongs to the oldest building phase of Persepolis, the great design by king Darius I the Great. The other main element was the Apadana, where the great king received tribute from all the nations in the Achaemenid Empire, and gave presents in return.

This exchange of gifts was one of the central elements in the Persian royal ideology, and the Treasury (here seen from the northwest) was, therefore, one of the most important symbols of the great king's power. It is no coincidence that Alexander the Great, in 330, selected the Apadana and the Treasury to be destroyed, together with the Palace of Xerxes.

Treasury, seen from the east

Many people were employed to keep the gold and silver shining: from the Fortification tablets, it is known that in 467 BCE, no less than 1348 people were employed in the Treasury (here seen from the southeast). It was rebuilt several times.

In the Treasury, two almost identical reliefs were found, which once decorated the eastern and northern stairs of the Apadana. It is not known why they were removed.

Several weights were found as well: large, heavy blocks of diorite with an inscription. Below, you can see weights of 120 and 60 karša. The inscriptions, which mention king Darius, are known as DWc. The statue to the left is a marble Penelope, which may have been taken away from Greece during the Persian expedition of 480-479. Of course, it can have been a diplomatic gift as well.

Use the Livius website to explore the treasury

https://www.livius.org/articles/place/persepolis/persepolis-photos/persepolis-treasury/ 

Treasury  Tablets. 

Treasury Tablets. 

Persepolis was one of the capitals of the ancient Persian empire, founded by king Darius I the Great in 518 BCE. It was excavated by the Oriental Institute of Chicago: Ernst Herzfeld and F. Schmidt were working in Persepolis from 1931 to 1939. During the excavations, two archives of cuneiform texts were discovered.

The smallest set of tablets is called the Persepolis Treasury Tablets. There are 139 of them, and they describe payments in silver between 492 and 458.

The collection that is known as the Persepolis Fortification Tablets is older and larger: there are 20,000 to 25,000 of them, belonging to about 15,000-18,000 documents. Not all tablets have been published; after decades of neglect, the project was started again in 2002 (more).

The Persepolis Fortification Tablets were written in Elamite, the language of the Persian chancellery, and deal with economic transactions (in kind) up till 493 BCE. Only a couple of them are in Aramaic, Phrygian, Old Persian, or Greek. The men in charge of them were Pharnaces and his deputy Ziššawiš. One example:

130 liters of barley from the possessions of Amavrta have been received by Barîk-'El as his rations. Given in the town of Ithema, in the twenty-first year [of Darius] in the month Shibar [November/December 501].

The ration received by Barîk-'El was some sort of payment for a service he had done to his king. Tablets like these help us understand the administration of the Persian empire. We also know about orders for payments of silver and gold to the chief treasurer (ganzabara), and the dispatching of judges, accountants, caravans and teams of country laborers.