THE PERSIAN PERIOD
the time confirms it. At Persepolis, as at Ecbatana, palaces and treasuries were within the citadel—here three walls insteady of seven but on the same plan—confirming thus to a familiar type.
It is the archive at Susa, however, which is of greatest interest to Biblical history after that at Ecbatana, for it was from this archive that the sleepless King Ahasuerus had brought and read to him the great leather record roll of selected documents and daily happenings—to the good fortune of Mordecai and the hanging of Haman. Whether the story of Esther is true or not, it witnesses most interestingly to the archival practice of the time and especially to the second stage of the practice, the leather roll or book of chronicles—the "book of records of words of days." As the document of the Ecbatana archives was megillah, a little roll, the single document, so this is the sepher, the great roll or book of records. These
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