TEHRAN -- An Achaemenid stone tablet has recently been discovered near the city of Ramhormoz in Khuzestan Province in southern Iran.

Residents of the village of Shifteh stumbled upon the tablet at an Achaemenid site that was discovered near the village in mid March, the Persian service of CHN reported on Monday.
Bearing some figures and large cuneiform inscriptions written on its two sides, the tablet weighs eight kilograms.
“The Khuzestan Cultural Heritage Lovers Society (Tariana) was informed about the discovery as soon as the locals found the tablet and afterwards, it was transferred to the Ramhormoz Cultural Heritage Office,” Tariana spokesman Mojtaba Gahestuni told CHN.
“Initial examination determined that the artifact dates to the Achaemenid era and it has been inscribed on a stone similar to those being extracted from a mine in the Rud-e Zard region (near Ramhormoz),” he added.
The inscription has not been deciphered yet.
The Achaemenid site, which includes ruins of two Achaemenid palaces, is located on a mound that is traversed by a road built upon it four years ago.
Only the ruins of four columns of the palaces remain as most of the structures on the mound were demolished during the construction of the road.
According the villagers, traces of 18 columns of the palaces were observable at the site before construction of the road began.
In May 2007, two U-shaped coffins containing skeletons of a girl and a woman, who are surmised to have been members of an Elamite royal family, were discovered along with a great number of artifacts during a grading operation by the Khuzestan Water and Waste Water Company in Ramhormoz.
Since the grading operation continued even after this extraordinary discovery, the gravesite has been almost completely obliterated.
Photo: A clay Achaemenid tablet (file photo)