About Achaemenica
An Encyclopaedia of the Achaemenid Persian Empire: a scholarly, source-critical reference on the first Persian empire, from Cyrus the Great to Alexander (c. 550–330 BCE).
Purpose
Achaemenica draws a scattered and technical literature together, subject by subject, into a single clear account. Each article weighs the evidence and sets out where scholarship stands, including what remains debated. The writing rests on the standard of evidence described below.
The standard
Every substantive claim carries a citation, reachable through the numbered footnotes: a verifiable primary source (an inscription, a tablet, a classical author), a verified modern reference cited to the page, or, where a position is represented without a page-level source, an honestly flagged consensus citation. No reference is ever fabricated. The primary sources are quoted verbatim in named translations, and where scholars disagree, the disagreement is reported rather than smoothed away; every article ends by saying how we know what it claims.
How it is built
Each article is a structured entry rendered by a small static generator; the whole encyclopaedia is versioned, and every article carries the date of its last substantive revision, so a cited version can always be identified. The research behind it draws on a large reading library of the standard editions and current scholarship, and articles are revisited as new work is read.
Verification
The citation standard is enforced by machinery, not good intentions. Every quotation in the encyclopaedia is checked verbatim against the page of the edition it cites, and the checks run automatically on every change: an altered or unverifiable quotation blocks publication until it is corrected or honestly reflagged. The same automated gates hold the structural conventions of the articles, so a claim's citation tier (primary, secondary, or flagged consensus) always means what the References key says it means.
How articles change
Articles are revised as the scholarship develops and as new works are read into the library; an entry is never finished, only current. Each article carries the date of its last substantive revision at its foot, the citation box quotes that version date, and the Atom feed lists recently updated articles. Corrections sent by readers are checked against the sources before any change is made, and a change of substance is a new version on the public record.
Corrections and contact
Corrections, suggestions and material for the encyclopaedia are welcome on the contact page. You can also use the Suggest a correction box on any article, the Discussion tab at the top of each article, or write to [email protected]. Every message is checked against the sources before any change is made.
Licence
The text of the encyclopaedia is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0); the generator code is MIT. Quotations from primary and secondary sources are short excerpts reproduced with citation under fair dealing, and remain the rights of their authors and translators.
Bibliography
The modern scholarship cited across the encyclopaedia is compiled automatically in the bibliography; the primary sources are surveyed under Sources.