ABSTRACT
Persian religion has been the subject of furious debate in the study of Zoroastrianism. While most scholars of Zoroastrianism today believe that the Achaemenid Persians were Zoroastrians, current research in the field of Achaemenid studies depicts Persian religion differently from its conception within the field of Iranian studies. The current approach to Persian religion within Achaemenid studies represents it as the product of long-term acculturation between Persian and Elamite culture. The evidence for this hybrid religion comes mainly from administrative documents written in non-Iranian languages. In contrast to these documents, textual sources in Iranian languages have many similarities to Zoroastrian sources. The relation between these two different expressions of religion has, for the most part, remained unexplored, mostly due to the apparent contrast between the Zoroastrian undertones of the Achaemenid Royal inscriptions and the unfamiliar conception of religion found in the Persepolis Fortification Archive that, upon first glance, is anything but Zoroastrian. The present chapter seeks to provide a new analysis of these administrative documents within the framework of the history of Zoroastrianism and to highlight the importance of these documents in understanding the role the Persians and the Achaemenid administration played in the historical development of Zoroastrianism.
