TEHRAN -- At Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire, the stone walls preserve a carefully ordered vision of imperial power. 
Delegations approach the king bearing gifts; guards stand in disciplined ranks; the empire’s peoples appear united beneath the authority of the Great King. 
Women, however, are conspicuously absent from the principal monumental reliefs. Their absence raises a question: did women occupy a marginal position in the society these images represent, or does the architecture tell only part of the story?
The answer lies partly beneath the ground.
The Persepolis Fortification Archive, comprising thousands of administrative documents written principally in Elamite cuneiform, provides evidence unavailable from the palace reliefs. 
Excavated by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, these records document the movement of food, wine, livestock and labor across the imperial heartland. Richard T. Hallock published a major edition of the tablets in 1969, establishing a foundation for subsequent research.
Among the names preserved in these accounts are women who managed substantial economic resources. Their presence challenges the assumption that Achaemenid women were necessarily confined to domestic or secluded spaces.
One of the most remarkable was Irdabama, a royal woman associated with the court of Darius I (522–486 BC). The tablets connect her to estates and workforces, including operations around Tirrazziš, near modern Shiraz. She possessed her own seal, which authorized transactions involving food supplies. Officials acting under their own seals carried out her orders.
Another prominent figure was Irtašduna, identified by scholars with Artystone, a wife of Darius I. The records associate her with estates and administrative activity. These documents do not simply preserve the names of royal women; they reveal their participation in the practical organization of imperial wealth. 
The tablets also document female laborers working alongside men and children. Workforces could be organized under a senior female supervisor, designated in Elamite as arraššara pašabena. Such women could receive some of the highest rations within their working groups.
These allocations were part of an administrative system rather than straightforward evidence of modern-style wages or personal freedom. Nevertheless, they demonstrate that women’s labor was formally recognized and recorded by the imperial bureaucracy. The archive also documents special provisions for mothers who had recently given birth.
The evidence therefore reveals several distinct realities: privileged royal women who controlled