Oriental Institute takes Persian Empire into digital age

The Oriental Institute is using modern technology to digitally record thousands of tablets that, when pieced together, will tell an unusually detailed story of the Persian Empire.These ancient tablets from the palaces of Persepolis include pieces of language and art from the center of the Persian Empire, all made when it extended from India and Central Asia to Egypt and the Mediterranean.Most have texts in impressed cuneiform characters, many have inked texts in Aramaic writing and almost all of the tablets have seal impressions. They are now being recorded and distributed with digital processes that will allow scholars and viewers across the world to examine them as if they had picked them up and rotated them under a light.With a substantial grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a team of researchers began work in 2007. Now, with a second Mellon grant, the team will continue this work through 2010. By that time, researchers hope to have about 10,000 tablets and fragments recorded.