Atossa Re-Enters: Cyrus's Other Daughter In Persepolis Fortification Texts

Of the Achaemenid royal women mentioned in the Persepolis Fortification Archive, two names predominate: Irtaštuna, Greek Artystone, the daughter of Cyrus whom Herodotus (vii.69.2) called Darius’s “favorite wife,” and Irdabama, unknown to Herodotus and other Classical writers. As David Lewis observed (1984:599) “it has proved distressingly difficult to find Atossa.”