ĀĀҴ, a Middle and New Persian word designating a person holding a particular administrative post.
The term which yielded Middle Persian 峾 is first attested in the 5th century B.C. as a loanword in two Semitic languages: ḫ]----(-)첹--ڳ?, am-mar-kar-ra, am-ma-ri/ru-a-kal in Late Babylonian and ʾ (later ʾ) in Aramaic. Together with the later loanword in Armenian hamarakar these show only that the word began with an h-; the lengths of the vowels are uncertain. Since in Iranian the root *hmar (cf. Skt. smar, IE. *(s)mer) “think of” early and everywhere lost its first consonant directly before -m- (except when, after i, it was preserved as -š-), it is clear that the word must have been compounded of ham and a form of mar and not, as assumed by many writers, contain a form *. This is corroborated without being proven by the Babylonian spellings, which all have -mm-. Later Parthian spellings with initial ʾ- (Nisa ʾ, Paikuli ʾḥm) do not disprove it: cf. Mid. Pers. ʾḥmʾ, Parth. ʾḥmٲ (and Armenian Ahmatan) < Old Pers. Ჹ()Բ-. Only in Mid. Pers. inscriptions (Paikuli ʾʾ) and seals (also ḥmʾ) is the length of the second vowel revealed. Thus Old Pers. *-첹- became *, then 峾 in Mid. Pers., just as *ham + ⊠mauk gave Manichaean Parth. ʾɳٲ, ʾɳ- against Man. Mid. Pers. hmwxtn, hmwc-, but later N. Pers. 峾ōٲ, 峾ō- “to teach.”
Bibliography:
J. C. Greenfield, “*Hamarakara > ʾamarkal,” W. B. Henning Memorial Volume, London, 1970, pp. 180-86.
See also the bibliography to part ii.
(D. N. MacKenzie)
During the Sasanian period the 峾 was a sort of tax collector or chief fiscal officer. The function of *hamarakara is referred to from the Achaemenid period, especially in the 5th century B.C. Elephantine documents (A. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C., Oxford, 1923, 2nd ed., 1967, no. 26; G. A. Driver, Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B.C., Oxford, 1954, 2nd ed., 1968, letters no. 8, 9, 10; R. T. Hallock, Persepolis Fortification Tablets, Chicago, 1969, no. 281; on the different duties of this Achaemenid functionary, cf. J. C. Greenfield, “Hamarakara > ʾamarkal,” W. B. Henning Memorial Volume, London, 1970, pp. 180-86, and Acta Antiqua Academia Hungarica, 1977, pp. 115-16); the title is also attested in Akkadian (W. von Soden, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch I, Wiesbaden, 1965, p. 44). An 峾 (ʾ) is mentioned at Nisa in 81 B.C. (I. M. Diakonov and V. A. Livshits, Peredneaziatskiĭ sbornik II, Moscow, 1966, no. 394, p. 146). Under the Sasanians, the 峾 was essential to provincial administration; he could be assigned to one, two, or even three towns (which were undoubtedly chief district seats). The most important 峾 could have an entire province assigned to him, e.g., Kermān (R. N. Frye, Iranica antiqua 8, 1968, p. 124, nos. 21, 22), Sind (ibid., p. 128, no. 44), Fārs (idem, ed., Sasanian Remains from Qasr-i Abu Nasr, 1973, p. 63, D209), Beth Aramāyē or Asorestān (P. Bedjan, Vie de Mar Iabalaha, Leipzig, 1893, p. 210; cf. P. Peeters, Recherches d’histoire et de philologie orientales, Brussels, II, 1951, p. 121), Media (Ph. Gignoux, Catalogue des sceaux, camées et bulles de la Bibliothèque Nationale et du Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1978, p. 91), Ādurbādagān (Pahlavi inscriptions at Derband; cf. K. Trever, Ocherki po istorii i kul’ture drevneĭ Albanii, Moscow and Leningrad, 1959, pp. 347f.), and *Vāspuragān (Sebeos, History of Heraclius VI, tr. F. Macler, Paris, 1904, p. 32; a different and more convincing interpretation is given by H. Hübschmann, Die altarmenischen Ortsnamen, Strassburg, 1904; repr. Amsterdam, 1969, p. 262: This refers to the tax collector of the ܳ, i.e., the “higher nobility”). In the 4th (?) century, Garamea (Beth Garmaï) and Adiabene were served by the same functionary (A. D. H. Bivar, Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum. Stamp Seals II, London, 1969, p. 117). In one case, at the end of the 3rd century, 峾s are mentioned alongside satraps and other officers (P. O. Skjærvø, The Sassanian Inscription of Paikuli 3.1, Wiesbaden, 1983, pp. 42-43). At the height of the Sasanian dynasty an Ērān-峾 was in charge of the financial services of the empire (Yaʿqūbī, p. 202). A. Christensen (Iran Sass., pp. 524-26) proposes reading ŧԳḡa in the -峾 of Ebn al-Balḵī (p. 91), making the Ērān-峾 a deputy of the ɳܳܰ-ڰ. In the Sasanian period, the 峾 was qualified to do property evaluation, handle real estate matters, etc. (MHD, ed. Anklesaria, Bombay, 1913, pp. 27.12-28.3; cf. A. Perikhanian, Revue des études arméniennes 5, 1968, p. 10; M. Macuch, Das sasanidische Rechtsbuch “Mātakdān i Hazār Dātistān” [Teil II], Wiesbaden, 1981, pp. 190-91, 204). He also had to collect and store the taxes within his jurisdiction (e.g., the Isfahan collector under Ḵosrow II; Sebeos, History of Heraclius XIII, tr. p. 42). A Christian text refers to the trial of an 峾 and to that of other provincial functionaries (Synodicon orientale, ed. J. B. Chabot, Paris, 1902, p. 77, tr. p. 329). On the seal of the 峾, see MHD, ed. Modi, p. 93.5. In recent times the term 峾 has been revived by the Farhangestān with the meaning “statistician, census official.”
Bibliography:
See also E. Herzfeld, Paikuli, Monument and Inscription of the Early History of the Sassanian Empire I, Berlin, 1924, p. 130, no. 51.
R. Altheim-Stiehl, Epigraphica Anatolica I, 1983, p. 17.
(D. N. MacKenzie, M. L. Chaumont)
Originally Published: December 15, 1989
Last Updated: August 2, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 9, pp. 925-926
D. N. MacKenzie, M. L. Chaumont, “ĀĀҴ,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/9, pp. 925-926, available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/amargar (accessed on 30 December 2012).
