Imperial Aramaic as an administrative language of the Achaemenid period

This chapter describes the role of Imperial Aramaic as the administrative language of the Achaemenid Empire (539-331 B.C.E.), one of the large empires of the Ancient Near East. After a general discussion of the terminology (1.), the rise and distribution of Aramaic as an administrative language of the Achaemenid Empire (2.) and the use of other (administrative) languages in this empire (3.), follows a description of the most important characteristics of Achaemenid Imperial Aramaic (4.). These characteristics are particularly strongly present in the official correspondence of Arsames, a satrap of Egypt (late 5 th century). The spelling of these letters displays a uniformity not encountered within less formal texts. The Arsames letters also have some syntactic, lexical and stylistic characteristics.