Achaemenid "ritual architecture" vs. "religious architecture": Reflections on the elusive archaeological evidence of the religion of the Achaemenids. Appendix by A. Askari Chaverdi, P Callieri: the monumental buidling of Tol-e Ajori (pp. 394-97).

In the frame of the congress dedicated by the Collège de France to the issue of the religion of Iran during the Achaemenid period, the author was asked to present a contribution regarding the archaeological evidence of Achaemenid age regarding religion. In his contribution, the author proposes the innovative distinction between a religious architecture, which for the Achaemenids has practically no archaeological evidence, and a ritual architecture, in which many Achaemenid buildings can be included. Shifting the focus of interpretation from a religious architecture to a ritual architecture allows a new approach to the Achaemenid world which appears much more fit to a correct understanding. In an appendix written with Alireza Askari Chaverdi, the authors also present the newly discovered monument of Tol-e Ajori, for which at the time of the conference a ritual function seemed possible (an interpretation which successive excavations have modified)