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 record books of the Persians, written on the "skins" are in fact famous in diplomatic history—the "royal hides" on which the Persians wrote their ancient records, or "royal anagraphs," which were the sources from which Ctesias derived his facts.

The third stage of ancient archival practice i.e. the publication through inscription is also uncommonly well evidenced in Persian use. Such inscriptions, covering the period from 541-340 and found in some eight localities, are enumerated by Jackson. The most famous of these and one of the most famous inscriptions in the world is the Behistan Inscription which gave Rawlinson the key to the cuneiform writing. It contains 400 lines and it has a unique interest at this point because it says that "there is much else besides done by me, which is not written in this inscription" pointing thus, like the Egyptian, to fuller records in the