Stein described the tablets as providing "the first chance to hear the Persians speaking of their own empire".[1] Charles Jones, Research Associate and Librarian at the Oriental Institute and tablet expert, compared them to "credit card receipts".[2] Most current knowledge about the ancient Persian empire comes from the accounts of others, most famously the Greek storyteller Herodotus.[8] Stein added: "It's valuable because it's a group of tablets, thousands of them from the same archive.