In the first days of September, this year (Amordad), news about the discovery of the Achaemenid palace in Phanagoria in Russia was published on some websites. But, it was surprising that no well known domestic news agency reports this news. A news reader will automatically ask himself: “What is the story behind finding an Achaemenid palace in Russia? and to what extent is it true?”
The websites that reported this news tried to choose provocative titles to attract the attention of users to their news titles, such as: “The incredible discovery, by the Russian network, of the Achaemenid palace in Phanagoria”, “A spectacular report of the discovery of the Achaemenid palace in Russia,” “The discovery of the Achaemenid palace in Russia upset all equations!” and similar examples. The news of those websites only contained a one-line reference: “The discovery of the Achaemenid palace with the inscription of Darius the Great in Phanagoria in the territory of current Russia changes all historical equations about the extent of the Achaemenid kingdom.” Then comes a few minutes of footage showing an announcer speaking in Russian and footage of archaeologists digging. Then, a small cuneiform petroglyph and images of Pasargad and other signs of achaemenid rle in Iran are shown without a news summary or Persian sub-titles. Therefore, the viewer of this news (if he does not know the Russian language) needs help understanding something from those words and knowing the issue.
A 7-years old report
3rd para But, the truth is that the report that some websites have reflected about the discovery of the achaemenid palace in Russia is not only not new, but 7 years have passed since the announcement, and nothing more has been reported since.
The story goes that on 16th Amordad 1393 (September 2014), the news agency: “A team of Russian archaeologists managed to find valuable remains from the Achaemenid Empire in their new excavations in the ancient area of Phanagoria, in Temryuk district, located in the south of Krasnodar. In this excavation, the remains of a tablet made of marble and an inscription of Darius the Great (Darius I, the third king of the Achaemenid dynasty) were found.
Then he added: “In this regard, Oleg Deripaska, a member of the research foundation, announced: This discovery is of global importance and is considered very valuable.” The text of the above inscription indicates that someone in this area wrote this inscription on behalf of Darius the Great. The text of the inscription carved on the body of this tablet is in ancient Persian cuneiform and belongs to the first half of the fifth century BC. Then he pointed to the discovery of the remnants of the military fortress and its walls and added: “Currently, this inscription is being carefully and scientifically studied, and its restoration and maintenance operations are being carried out at the cultural research center” (report). Sinapress- 16 Amordad 1395).
Three years after the first report
three years had passed since the above report was published, when, on Bahman 11, 1398 (February 2019) the “Voice of Heritage” website gave out more news about this discovery, and had an interesting interview with one of the archeologists in this respect. The title of the Sinapress article is as follows: “Darius on the threshold of the land of the Scythians/ a conversation with Ehsan Shavarbi about the new Achaemenid inscription from the south of Russia”; (The report was by Mohammad Ali Davirhavi).
The archeologist interviewed was Ehsan Shavarebi, a professor of archeology and numismatics, who at that time was engaged in research at the numismatics institute of the University of Vienna in Austria and collaborated with the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Sinapress wrote that “the main field of his research is numismatics, epigraphy, iconography and historical geography of the Iranian world in ancient times.” Then, he added that he had a conversation with him to learn more about the Achaemenid inscription discovered in Russia. The text of the interview is given in the continuation of the Sinapress report.
First, they asked this archaeologist: Where and how was the inscription of Cyrus the Great’s military expedition to Lydia and Ionia, and came to this region with their ships.
In the summer of 2016, during the excavations of a team of Russian archaeologists in the ancient city of Phanagoria, a broken piece of an Achaemenid inscription on marble was discovered… The old town of Phanagoria is one of southern Russia’s largest and most important ancient sites. This city was an Ionian colony in the north of the Black Sea, which some Ionian immigrants founded in the middle of the 6th century BC. These immigrants had fled from the coastal city of Teos in western Asia Minor after Cyrus the Great’s campaign to Lydia and Ionia. They came to this region with their ships.
He continued: “The place where Darius’ inscription was discovered, as I said above, was an Ionian city. But the entire region north of the Black Sea, including the Crimean Peninsula and the vast plains and steppes today in Russia, Ukraine, and Romania, was dominated by nomadic and warrior Scythian tribes in ancient times. The immigrants of Greek descent lived only in coastal areas so they could travel by sea to other Greek-inhabited regions and do business. But, the areas away from the coast were entirely under the control of the Scythians.
Shavarbi then mentions the Scythians and their Aryan race: ” It should be noted that the Scythians knew these plains well, and on the other hand, these areas were unknown to the Achaemenid army. Note that the Scythians knew these plains well, but all these areas were unknown to the Achaemenians. This was the first time in history that the Achaemenians crossed the Bosphorus and entered Europe.
A small piece of an inscription, which is missing
This archeologist was asked: “Is the newly found inscription fully readable?” Shavarbi answered: “The discovered fragment of Phanagoria is only a small fragment of a large inscription. There is no trace of the rest of this inscription. The text of this remaining fragment is written in ancient Persian cuneiform and is limited to parts of a few words in six lines. Fortunately, parts of Darius’ name can be seen in this inscription’s first two lines, making it possible to date this inscription… The discovery of an Achaemenid inscription was completely unexpected. When this inscription was found, the Russian explorers first sent it to Mr. Dr. Alexander Nikitin, an archeologist of ancient Iran at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, for reading. Dr. Nikitin provided a preliminary reading of the inscription, which was published in the Phanagoria Excavation Report at the beginning of 2018. I was in Russia to give a few speeches when the news of the discovery of the inscription spread in 2016. I immediately sought more information from archaeologist colleagues in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Finally, I received a blurry image of the inscription, based on which I could read the remaining text. But the custom among us archaeologists is that every find is first published by its discoverer. Other researchers have the right to publish their analysis about that finding only after the discovery. In those days, therefore, I only reported, in short, about the discovery, in Farsi.”
When the Sinapress reporter asked this archaeologist to read the found inscription, he answered: “There is not much left of the text of this inscription. We need help seeing a complete word on this surviving fragment. Only signs of the beginning or end of a few words at the end of six lines of the inscription remain. The only thing that could be done was reconstructing these words based on ancient Persian vocabulary and grammar rules, which I did in my article. The result was that the name “Dariush Shah” can be reconstructed in the first two lines. I have only made some guesses in my article to reconstruct the following lines. If my guess about the reconstruction of the verb in line 4 is correct, then Darius in this line refers to “crossing” a sea or strait (probably the Bosphorus?).
In the fifth line, a part of the verb “to make” remains in the past tense of the first-person singular (“I made”). We cannot say with certainty whether Darius is talking here about building a floating bridge over the strait or referring to some other action. In the sixth line, only the word “man” remains. (Website “Voice of Heritage; Analytical News Site of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism” – Bahman 11, 1395). This archaeological discovery is precious and gives new knowledge about the Achaemenids, but contrary to what some websites pretend, it is not recent news!
