Bulla

This bulla (a lump of clay used in an administrative context) bears the impression of a stamp seal. It is difficult to make out the image on the seal, but it seems to show a human figure emerging from a winged disk.

This bulla was excavated at Pasargadae in southwestern Iran, about 90 km northeast of Shiraz. Pasargadae was the first capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great c. 546 B.C. The bulla was found in a room near the eastern corner of the Tall-i Takht, a massive artificial platform presumably built as the site of a royal palace but converted into a fortified compound after Darius established a new capital at Persepolis around 520. Presumably it was once attached to a document of some kind – a clay tablet or papyrus or parchment document. Alternatively, it may have been used as a token, indicating the bearer was authorized by a superior to do some particular action. Without more bullae, or indeed any documents, it is impossible to do more than speculate. Nevertheless, the presence of bullae at Pasargadae suggest the existence of a bureaucracy there. Indeed, the Takht may have served as a storehouse or treasury during the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.; Elamite tablets from Persepolis refer to a treasury there during the reign of Darius, and according to the Greek historian Arrian (3.18.10), Alexander the Great captured a treasury at Pasargadae. This bulla thus may be a remnant of the management of that treasury.

The identity of the figure in the winged disk remains a major topic of scholarly discussion. The two most frequent suggestions are that it is Ahuramazda, the god who figures prominently in many Achaemenid royal inscriptions, or that it represents a divine aura or spirit of the Persian king. The latter possibility is based on extrapolations from later Avestan texts, whereas the depiction of a god as a figure in a winged disk has precedents in Assyrian art, from which the Persians drew inspiration. Thus the identification of the figure as Ahuramazda is the more plausible of the two interpretations.