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Achaemenid grain measures, from the Persepolis tablets to Herodotus. Part of the Ancient Measures collection.
Every unit converts through liters. The artaba follows Herodotus 1.192 — the Attic medimnos (52.4 L) plus 3 choinikes (3.27 L) = 55.67 L; the griw follows the Persepolis Fortification tablets at 9.32 L. Worked example: the 100,000 artabas of grain Herodotus says the Nile-fed army stockpiled (7.187, in artabas of his reckoning) ≈ 100,000 × 55.67 = 5.57 million liters. The tablets’ artaba is half Herodotus’s — diachronic change or regional standard; the page says which is which.
It depends on the century: Herodotus’s artaba (1.192) is the Attic medimnos plus three choinikes — about 55.7 L. The Persepolis tablets’ artaba is ~28 L. This converter uses Herodotus and says so.
The Fortification tablets (c. 500 BC) record rations in BAR (griw, 9.32 L) and QA — the working bureaucracy’s units, half the literary artaba. Two archives, two standards, one empire.
Three centuries and 3,000 km separate Herodotus from Persepolis. Ancient measures drifted like languages — the disagreement is the data.
Persian Length Persian Weight Greek Volume Jewish Volume Roman Volume