Persepolis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the ancient city. For other uses, see Persepolis (disambiguation).
This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (September 2008)
Persepolis*
UNESCO World Heritage Site

State Party Iran

Type Cultural
Criteria i, iii, vi
Reference 114
Region** Asia and Australasia

Inscription history
Inscription 1979 (3rd Session)

* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List.

** Region as classified by UNESCO.

Persepolis (Old Persian ���� Pārsa, Takht-e Jamshid or Chehel Minar) was the
ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (ca. 550-330 BCE). Persepolis is situated
70 km northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In
contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid (Throne of Jamshid) and
Parseh. The earliest remains of Persepolis date from around 515 BCE. To the ancient
Persians, the city was known as Pārsa, which means "The City of Persians". Persepolis is
the Greek interpretation of the name Πέρσης πόλις

UNESCO declared the citadel of Persepolis a World Heritage Site in 1979.[citation needed]

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Construction
• 2 Archaeological Research
• 3 Site
• 4 Ruins
o 4.1 The Gate of All Nations
o 4.2 Apadana Palace
o 4.3 The Throne Hall
o 4.4 Other palaces and structures
o 4.5 Tombs of King of Kings
• 5 Ancient texts
• 6 Destruction
• 7 After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire
• 8 Modern events
o 8.1 Sivand Dam controversy
• 9 Museums (outside of Iran) that display material from Persepolis
• 10 Notes
• 11 Panoramic view
• 12 See also
• 13 References
• 14 External links

• 15 Further reading

[edit] Construction

Location of Persepolis
Archaeological evidence shows that the earliest remains of Persepolis date from around
515 BC. André Godard, the French archaeologist who excavated Persepolis in the early
1930s, believed that Cyrus the Great chose the site of Persepolis, but that Darius the
Great built the terrace and the great palaces.

Darius ordered the construction of the Apadana Palace and the Council Hall (the Tripylon
or three-gated hall), the main imperial Treasury and its surroundings. These were
completed during the reign of his son, King Xerxes the Great. Further construction of the
buildings on the terrace continued until the downfall of the Achaemenid dynasty.[1]

[edit] Archaeological Research

Plan of Persepolis

Odoric of Pordenone passed through Persepolis c.1320 on his way to China. In 1474,
Giosafat Barbaro visited the ruins of Persepolis, which he incorrectly thought were of
Jewish origin.[2] Antonio de Gouveia from Portugal wrote about cuneiform inscriptions
following his visit in 1602. His first written report on Persia, the Jornada, was published
in 1606.

The first scientific excavations at Persepolis were carried out by Ernst Herzfeld and Erich
F Schmidt representing the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. They
conducted excavations for eight seasons beginning in 1930 and included other nearby
sites.[3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Herzfeld believed the reasons behind the construction of Persepolis were the need for a
majestic atmosphere, a symbol for their empire, and to celebrate special events,
especially the “Nowruz”. For historical reasons, Persepolis was built where the
Achaemenid Dynasty was founded, although it was not the center of the empire at that
time.

Persepolitan architecture is noted for its use of wooden columns. Architects resorted to
stone only when the largest cedars of Lebanon or teak trees of India did not fulfill the
required sizes. Column bases and capitals were made of stone, even on wooden shafts,
but the existence of wooden capitals is probable.

The buildings at Persepolis include three general groupings: military quarters, the
treasury, and the reception halls and occasional houses for the King. Noted structures
include the Great Stairway, the Gate of Nations (Xerxes the Great), the Apadana Palace
of Darius, the Hall of a Hundred Columns, the Tripylon Hall and Tachara Palace of
Darius, the Hadish Palace of Xerxes, the palace of Artaxerxes III, the Imperial Treasury,
the Royal Stables and the Chariot House.

Site

Persepolis (R)

Representation palace of Darius at Persepolis

Persepolis is near the small river Pulwar, which flows into the river Kur (Kyrus). The site
includes a 125,000 square meter terrace, partly artificially constructed and partly cut out
of a mountain, with its east side leaning on Kuh-e Rahmet ("the Mountain of Mercy").
The other three sides are formed by retaining walls, which vary in height with the slope
of the ground. From 5 to 13 meters on the west side a double stair, gently slopes to the
top. To create the level terrace, depressions were filled with soil and heavy rocks, which
were joined together with metal clips.

Around 518 BC, construction of a broad stairway was begun. The stairway was planned
to be the main entrance to the terrace 20 meters above the ground. The dual stairway,
known as the Persepolitan stairway, was built in symmetrically on the western side of the
Great Wall. The 111 steps were 6.9 meters wide with treads of 31 centimetres and rises of
10 centimetres. Originally, the steps were believed to have been constructed to allow for
nobles and royalty to ascend by horseback. New theories suggest that the shallow risers
allowed visiting dignitaries to maintain a regal appearance while ascending. The top of
the stairways led to a small yard in the north-eastern side of the terrace, opposite the Gate
of Nations.

Grey limestone was the main building material used in Persepolis. After natural rock had
been levelled and the depressions filled in, the terrace was prepared. Major tunnels for
sewage were dug underground through the rock. A large elevated water storage tank was
carved at the eastern foot of the mountain. Professor Olmstead suggested the cistern was
constructed at the same time that construction of the towers began.

The uneven plan of the foundation of the terrace acted like a castle whose angled walls
enabled its defenders to target any section of the external front. Diodorus writes that
Persepolis had three walls with ramparts, which all had towers to provide protection
space for the defense personnel. The first wall was 7 meters tall, the second, 14 meters
and the third wall, which covered all four sides, was 27 meters in height, though no
presence of the wall exists in modern times.

[edit] Ruins

Persepolis aerial view.

Bas-relief in Persepolis - a symbol Zoroastrian Nowruz - in day of a spring equinox
power of eternally fighting bull (personifying the Earth), and a lion (personifying the
Sun), are equal (Though lions were not a symbol of royalty in the achamenid era and
were in fact a game to be hunted)

Ruins of a number of colossal buildings exist on the terrace. All are constructed of dark-
grey marble. Fifteen of their pillars stand intact. Three more pillars have been re-erected
since 1970. Several of the buildings were never finished. F. Stolze has shown that some
of the mason's rubbish remains. These ruins, for which the name Chehel minar ("the forty
columns or minarets") can be traced back to the 13th century, are now known as Takht-e
Jamshid - ‫"( ددد ددددد‬the throne of Jamshid"). Since the time of Pietro della Valle,
it has been beyond dispute that they represent the Persepolis captured and partly
destroyed by Alexander the Great.

Behind Takht-e Jamshid are three sepulchres hewn out of the rock in the hillside. The
façades, one of which is incomplete, are richly decorated with reliefs. About 13 km NNE,
on the opposite side of the Pulwar, rises a perpendicular wall of rock, in which four
similar tombs are cut at a considerable height from the bottom of the valley. The modern
Persians call this place Naqsh-e Rustam - ‫ ددد دددد‬or Nakshi Rostam ("the picture
of Rostam"), from the Sassanian reliefs beneath the opening, which they take to be a
representation of the mythical hero Rostam. It may be inferred from the sculptures that
the occupants of these seven tombs were kings. An inscription on one of the tombs
declares it to be that of Darius Hystaspis, concerning whom Ctesias relates that his grave
was in the face of a rock, and could only be reached by the use of ropes. Ctesias mentions
further, with regard to a number of Persian kings, either that their remains were brought
"to the Persians," or that they died there.

[edit] The Gate of All Nations

Two Persian Soldiers in Persepolis(R)

The Gate of all Nations, referring to subjects of the empire, consisted of a grand hall that
was a square of approximately 25 meters (82 feet) in length, with four columns and its
entrance on the Western Wall. There were two more doors, one to the south which
opened to the Apadana yard and the other opened onto a long road to the east. Pivoting
devices found on the inner corners of all the doors indicate that they were two-leafed
doors, probably made of wood and covered with sheets of ornate metal.
A pair of Lamassu's, bulls with the head of a bearded man, stands by the western
threshold. Another pair, with wings and a Persian head (Gopät-Shäh), stands by the
eastern entrance, to reflect the Empire’s power.

Xerxes' name was written in three languages and carved on the entrances, informing
everyone that he ordered it to be built.

[edit] Apadana Palace

Detail of a relief of the eastern stairs of the Apadana

The Apadana Palace, northern stairway (detail)

Darius the Great built the greatest and most glorious palace at Persepolis in the western
side. This palace was called the Apadana (the root name for modern "ayvan").[citation needed]
The King of Kings used it for official audiences. The work began in 515 BC. His son
Xerxes I completed it 30 years later. The palace had a grand hall in the shape of a square,
each side 60 m long with seventy-two columns, thirteen of which still stand on the
enormous platform. Each column is 19 m high with a square Taurus and plinth. The
columns carried the weight of the vast and heavy ceiling. The tops of the columns were
made from animal sculptures such as two headed bulls, lions and eagles. The columns
were joined to each other with the help of oak and cedar beams, which were brought from
Lebanon. The walls were covered with a layer of mud and stucco to a depth of 5 cm,
which was used for bonding, and then covered with the greenish stucco which is found
throughout the palaces. At the western, northern and eastern sides of the palace there was
a rectangular veranda which had twelve columns in two rows of six. At the south of the
grand hall a series of rooms were built for storage. Two grand Persepolitan stairways
were built, symmetrical to each other and connected to the stone foundations. To protect
the roof from erosion, vertical drains were built through the brick walls. In the four
corners of Apadana, facing outwards, four towers were built.

The walls were tiled and decorated with pictures of lions, bulls, and flowers. Darius
ordered his name and the details of his empire to be written in gold and silver on plates,
which were placed in covered stone boxes in the foundations under the Four Corners of
the palace. Two Persepolitan style symmetrical stairways were built on the northern and
eastern sides of Apadana to compensate for a difference in level. Two other stairways
stood in the middle of the building. The external front views of the palace were embossed
with pictures of the Immortals, the Kings' elite guards. The northern stairway was
completed during Darius' reign, but the other stairway was completed much later.

[edit] The Throne Hall

Next to the Apadana, second largest building of the Terrace and the final edifices, is the
Throne Hall or the Imperial Army's hall of honour (also called the "Hundred-Columns
Palace). This 70x70 square meter hall was started by Xerxes and completed by his son
Artaxerxes I by the end of the fifth century BC. Its eight stone doorways are decorated on
the south and north with reliefs of throne scenes and on the east and west with scenes
depicting the king in combat with monsters. Two colossal stone bulls flank the northern
portico. The head of one of the bulls now resides in the Oriental Institute in Chicago.[8]

In the beginning of Xerxes's reign the Throne Hall was used mainly for receptions for
military commanders and representatives of all the subject nations of the empire. Later
the Throne Hall served as an imperial museum.

[edit] Other palaces and structures

Other palaces and structures

There were other palaces built. These included the Tachara palace which was built under
Darius I, and the Imperial treasury which was started by Darius in 510 BC and finished
by Xerxes in 480 BC. The Hadish palace by Xerxes I, occupies the highest level of
terrace and stands on the living rock. The Council Hall, the Tryplion Hall, The Palaces of
D, G, H, Storerooms, Stables and quarters, Unfinished Gateway and a few Miscellaneous
Structures at Persepolis near the south-east corner of the Terrace, at the foot of the
mountain.
[edit] Tombs of King of Kings

Apadana Hall, Persian and Median soldiers

Lapis lazuli and paste plaque from Persepolis (National Museum of Iran)

It is commonly accepted that Cyrus the Great was buried at Pasargadae. If it is true that
the body of Cambyses II was brought home "to the Persians", his burying-place must be
somewhere beside that of his father. Ctesias assumes that it was the custom for a king to
prepare his own tomb during his lifetime. Hence the kings buried at Naghsh-e Rustam are
probably Darius the Great, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I and Darius II. Xerxes II, who reigned
for a very short time, could scarcely have obtained so splendid a monument, and still less
could the usurper Sogdianus (Secydianus). The two completed graves behind Takhti
Jamshid would then belong to Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III. The unfinished one is
perhaps that of Arses of Persia, who reigned at the longest two years, or, if not his, then
that of Darius III (Codomannus), who is one of those whose bodies are said to have been
brought "to the Persians."

Another small group of ruins in the same style is found at the village of Hajjiäbäd, on the
Pulwar, a good hour's walk above Takhti Jamshid. These formed a single building, which
was still intact 900 years ago, and was used as the mosque of the then-existing city of
Istakhr.

Cyrus the Great was buried in Pasargadae, which is mentioned by Ctesias as his own city.
Since, to judge from the inscriptions, the buildings of Persepolis commenced with Darius
I, it was probably under this king, with whom the sceptre passed to a new branch of the
royal house, that Persepolis became the capital of Persia proper. As the residence of the
rulers of the empire, however, a remote place in a difficult alpine region was far from
convenient. The country's true capitals were Susa, Babylon and Ecbatana. This accounts
for the fact that the Greeks were not acquainted with the city until Alexander the Great
took and plundered it.

At that time Alexander burned "the palaces" or "the palace," universally believed now to
be the ruins at Takhti Jamshid. From Stolze's investigations it appears that at least one of
these, the castle built by Xerxes, bears evident traces of having been destroyed by fire.
The locality described by Diodorus after Cleitarchus corresponds in important particulars
with Takhti Jamshid, for example, in being supported by the mountain on the east.
[edit] Ancient texts

Cuneiform inscription from the Gate of All Nations in Persepolis

The relevant passages from ancient scholars on the subject are set out below:

(Diod. 17.70.1-73.2) 17.70 (1) Persepolis was the capital of the Persian kingdom.
Alexander described it to the Macedonians as the most hateful of the cities of
Asia, and gave it over to his soldiers to plunder, all but the palaces. (2) +It was
the richest city under the sun and the private houses had been furnished with
every sort of wealth over the years. The Macedonians raced into it, slaughtering
all the men whom they met and plundering the residences; many of the houses
belonged to the common people and were abundantly supplied with furniture and
wearing apparel of every kind….
72 (1) Alexander held games in honour of his victories. He performed costly
sacrifices to the gods and entertained his friends bountifully. While they were
feasting and the drinking was far advanced, as they began to be drunken a
madness took possession of the minds of the intoxicated guests. (2) At this point
one of the women present, Thais by name and Attic by origin, said that for
Alexander it would be the finest of all his feats in Asia if he joined them in a
triumphal procession, set fire to the palaces, and permitted women's hands in a
minute to extinguish the famed accomplishments of the Persians. (3) This was
said to men who were still young and giddy with wine, and so, as would be
expected, someone shouted out to form up and to light torches, and urged all to
take vengeance for the destruction of the Greek temples. (4) Others took up the
cry and said that this was a deed worthy of Alexander alone. When the king had
caught fire at their words, all leaped up from their couches and passed the word
along to form a victory procession [epinikion komon] in honour of Dionysius.
(5) Promptly many torches were gathered. Female musicians were present at the
banquet, so the king led them all out for the komos to the sound of voices and
flutes and pipes, Thais the courtesan leading the whole performance. (6) She was
the first, after the king, to hurl her blazing torch into the palace. As the others all
did the same, immediately the entire palace area was consumed, so great was the
conflagration. It was most remarkable that the impious act of Xerxes, king of the
Persians, against the acropolis at Athens should have been repaid in kind after
many years by one woman, a citizen of the land which had suffered it, and in
sport.
 (Curt. 5.6.1-7.12) 5.6 (1) On the following day the king called together the
leaders of his forces and informed them that "no city was more mischievous to the
Greeks than the seat of the ancient kings of Persia . . . by its destruction they
ought to offer sacrifice to the spirits of their forefathers."…
7 (1) But Alexander's great mental endowments, that noble disposition, in which
he surpassed all kings, that intrepidity in encountering dangers, his promptness in
forming and carrying out plans, his good faith towards those who submitted to
him, merciful treatment of his prisoners, temperance even in lawful and usual
pleasures, were sullied by an excessive love of wine. (2) At the very time when
his enemy and his rival for a throne was preparing to renew the war, when those
whom he had conquered were but lately subdued and were hostile to the new rule,
he took part in prolonged banquets at which women were present, not indeed
those whom it would be a crime to violate, but, to be sure, harlots who were
accustomed to live with armed men with more licence than was fitting.
(3) One of these, Thais by name, herself also drunken, declared that the king
would win most favour among all the Greeks, if he should order the palace of the
Persians to be set on fire; that this was expected by those whose cities the
barbarians had destroyed. (4) When a drunken strumpet had given her opinion on
a matter of such moment, one or two, themselves also loaded with wine, agreed.
The king, too, more greedy for wine than able to carry it, cried: "Why do we not,
then, avenge Greece and apply torches to the city?" 5) All had become heated
with wine, and so thy arose when drunk to fire the city which they had spared
when armed. The king was the first to throw a firebrand upon the palace, then the
guests and the servants and courtesans. The palace had been built largely of cedar,
which quickly took fire and spread the conflagration widely. (6) When the army,
which was encamped not far from the city, saw the fire, thinking it accidental,
they rushed to bear aid. (7) But when they came to the vestibule of the palace,
they saw the king himself piling on firebrands. Therefore, they left the water
which they had brought, and they too began to throw dry wood upon the burning
building.
(8) Such was the end of the capital of the entire Orient. . . .
(10) The Macedonians were ashamed that so renowned a city had been destroyed
by their king in a drunken revel; therefore the act was taken as earnest, and they
forced themselves to believe that it was right that it should be wiped out in exactly
that manner.
(Cleitarchus, FGrHist. 137, F. 11 (= Athenaeus 13. 576d-e))
And did not Alexander the Great have with him Thais, the Athenian hetaira?
Cleitarchus speaks of her as having been the cause for the burning of the palace
at Persepolis. After Alexander's death, this same Thais was married to Ptolemy,
the first king of Egypt.

There is, however, one formidable difficulty. Diodorus says that the rock at the back of
the palace containing the royal sepulchres is so steep that the bodies could be raised to
their last resting-place only by mechanical appliances. This is not true of the graves
behind Takhte Jamshid, to which, as F. Stolze expressly observes, one can easily ride up.
On the other hand, it is strictly true of the graves at Nakshi Rustam. Stolze accordingly
started the theory that the royal castle of Persepolis stood close by Nakshi Rustam, and
has sunk in course of time to shapeless heaps of earth, under which the remains may be
concealed. The vast ruins, however, of Takhti Jamshid, and the terrace constructed with
so much labour, can hardly be anything else than the ruins of palaces; as for temples, the
Persians had no such thing, at least in the time of Darius and Xerxes. Moreover, Persian
tradition at a very remote period knew of only three architectural wonders in that region,
which it attributed to the fabulous queen Humgi (Khumái)the grave of Cyrus at
Pasargadae, the building at HäjjIãbãd, and those on the great terrace.

It is safest therefore to identify these last with the royal palaces destroyed by Alexander.
Cleitarchus, who can scarcely have visited the place himself, with his usual recklessness
of statement, confounded the tombs behind the palaces with those of Nakshi Rustam;
indeed he appears to imagine that all the royal sepulchres were at the same place.

[edit]
Destruction
After invading Persia, Alexander the Great sent the main force of his army to Persepolis
in the year 330 BC by the Royal Road. Alexander stormed the Persian Gates (in the
modern Zagros Mountains), then quickly captured Persepolis before its treasury could be
looted. After several months Alexander allowed his troops to loot Persepolis. A fire broke
out in the eastern palace of Xerxes and spread to the rest of the city. It is not clear if it had
been a drunken accident, or a deliberate act of revenge for the burning of the Acropolis of
Athens during the Second Hellenic-Persian War. Many historians argue that while
Alexander's army celebrated with a symposium they decided to take revenge against
Persians. In that case it would be a combination of the two. The Book of Arda Wiraz, a
Zoroastrian work composed in the 3rd or 4th century CE, also describes archives
containing "all the Avesta and Zand, written upon prepared cow-skins, and with gold ink"
that were destroyed. Indeed in his The chronology of ancient nations, the native Iranian
writer Biruni indicates unavailability of certain native Iranian historiographical sources in
post-Achaemenid era especially during Ashkanian and adds "..And more than that. He
(Alexander) burned the greatest part of their religious code, he destroyed the wonderful
architectural monuments in the mountains of Istakhr, nowadays known as the mosque of
Solomon ben David, and delivered them up to the flames. People say that even at the
present time the traces of fire are visible in some places."[9][10]

[edit] After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire

This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may
be challenged and removed. (May 2010)
Persepolis in 1827

Graffiti from visitors.

In 316 BC Persepolis was still the capital of Persia as a province of the great Macedonian
Empire (see Diod. xix, 21 seq., 46 ; probably after Hieronymus of Cardia, who was living
about 316). The city must have gradually declined in the course of time; but the ruins of
the Achaemenidae remained as a witness to its ancient glory. It is probable that the
principal town of the country, or at least of the district, was always in this neighborhood.

About 200 BC the city Istakhr (properly Estakhr), five kilometers north of Persepolis, is
the seat of the local governors. There the foundations of the second great Persian Empire
were laid, and there Istakhr acquired special importance as the center of priestly wisdom
and orthodoxy. The Sassanian kings have covered the face of the rocks in this
neighborhood, and in part even the Achaemenian ruins, with their sculptures and
inscriptions. They must themselves have built largely here, although never on the same
scale of magnificence as their ancient predecessors. The Romans knew as little about
Istakhr as the Greeks had known about Persepolis—and this despite the fact that for four
hundred years the Sassanians maintained relations, friendly or hostile, with the empire.

At the time of the Arabian conquest Istakhr offered a desperate resistance. The city was
still a place of considerable importance in the first century of Islam, although its
greatness was speedily eclipsed by the new metropolis Shiraz. In the 10th century Istakhr
dwindled to insignificance, as may be seen from the descriptions of Istakhri, a native (c.
950), and of Mukaddasi (c. 985). During the following centuries Istakhr gradually
declined, until, as a city, it ceased to exist.

In 1618, García de Silva Figueroa, King Philip III of Spain's ambassador to the court of
Shah Abbas, the Safavid monarch, was the first Western traveller to correctly identify the
ruins of Takht-e Jamshid as the location of Persepolis.

The fruitful region was covered with villages till the frightful devastations of the 18th
century; and even now it is, comparatively speaking, well cultivated. The "castle of
Istakhr" played a conspicuous part several times during the Muslim period as a strong
fortress. It was the middlemost and the highest of the three steep crags which rise from
the valley of the Kur, at some distance to the west or north-west of Nakshi Rustam.

Asian writers[who?] state that one of the Buyid (Buwaihid) sultans in the 10th century of the
Flight constructed the great cisterns, which may yet be seen. Amongst others, James
Morier and E. Flandin have visited them. W. Ouseley points out that this castle was still
used in the 16th century, at least as a state prison. But when Pietro della Valle was there
in 1621, it was already in ruins.

[edit] Modern events

In 1971, Persepolis was the main staging ground for the 2,500 year celebration of Iran's
monarchy.

[edit] Sivand Dam controversy

Construction of the Sivand Dam, named for the nearby town of Sivand, began September
19, 2006. Despite 10 years of planning, Iran's own Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization
was not aware of the broad areas of flooding during much of this time[citation needed] and there
is growing concern about the effects the dam will have on Persepolis' surrounding areas.

Many archaeologists[who?] and Iranians worry that the dam's placement between both the
ruins of Pasargadae and Persepolis will flood these UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Scientists involved with the construction refute this claim, stating its impossibility
because both sites sit well above the planned waterline. Of the two sites, Pasargadae is
the one considered the more threatened.

Archaeologists are also concerned that an increase in humidity caused by the lake will
speed Pasargadae's gradual destruction, however, experts from the Ministry of Energy
believe this would be negated by controlling the water level of the dam reservoir.

Other archaeologists and political analysts believe that the real motivation for destroying
Persepolis is the Islamic Fundamentalism of the Ayatollahs, who view the pre-Islamic
heritage of Iran as shirk (idolatry) and Jahillya (the dark times) and wish to distance Iran
from its ancient heritage[11]. Ayatollah Khomeni once expressed such negative opinions
about Persepolis. In 1979, Khomeini's right-hand man, the Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali,
tried to demolish Persepolis by bulldozers on these grounds.[12] He was stopped by the
provisional government, who criticized the decision on the grounds that Persepolis was a
defining feature of Iran's cultural heritage, and is a major source of income from tourism.
[13]
.

[edit] Museums (outside of Iran) that display material

from Persepolis
Head of a bull that once guarded the entrance to the Hundred-Column Hall in Persepolis.
Now at the Oriental Institute, Chicago.

The British Museum has an outstanding collection. The Fitzwilliam Museum in

Cambridge, England has a number of bas reliefs form Persepolis.[14] The Persepolis bull at
the Oriental Institute, Chicago is one of the university's most prized treasures, but it is
only one of several objects from Persepolis on display at the University of Chicago. The
Metropolitan Museum houses objects form Persepolis,[15] As does the University of
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

[edit] Notes
1. ^ 2002. Guaitoli. M.T., & Rambaldi, S. Lost Cities from the Ancient World. White
Star, spa. (2006 version published by Barnes & Noble. Darius I founded
Persepolis in 500 BCE as the residence and ceremonial centre of his dynasty. p.
164
2. ^ Historical account of discoveries and travels in Asia, Hugh Murray, Edinburgh,
A. Constable and Co; 1820., p.15 [1]
3. ^ [2] Ernst E Herzfeld, A New Inscription of Xerxes from Persepolis, Studies in
Ancient Oriental Civilization, vol. 5, 1932
4. ^ [3] Erich F Schmidt, Persepolis I: Structures, Reliefs, Inscriptions, Oriental
Institute Publications, vol. 68, 1953
5. ^ [4] Erich F Schmidt, Persepolis II: Contents of the Treasury and Other
Discoveries, Oriental Institute Publications, vol. 69, 1957
6. ^ [5] Erich F Schmidt, Persepolis III: The Royal Tombs and Other Monuments,
Oriental Institute Publications, vol. 70, 1970
7. ^ [6] Erich F Schmidt, The Treasury of Persepolis and Other Discoveries in the
Homeland of the Achaemenians, Oriental Institute Communications, vol. 21, 1939
8. ^ Oriental Institute Highlights
9. ^ "Al-Beruni and Persepolis". Acta Iranica (Leiden: Brill) 1: 137–150. 1974.
ISBN 978-90-04-03900-1.
 10. ^ Biruni (2004). he Chronology of Ancient Nations. Kessinger Publishing.
pp. 484. ISBN 0766189082. p. 127
11. ^ See references in Pasargad Heritage Foundation
12. ^ The Epic of Iran by Reza Aslan
13. ^ Sciolino, Elaine, Persian Mirrors, Touchstone, (2000), p.168
14. ^ A Persepolis Relief in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Richard Nicholls
and Michael Roaf Iran, Vol. 15, (1977), pp. 146-152 Published by: British
Institute of Persian Studies
15. ^ Harper, Prudence O., Barbara A. Porter, Oscar White Muscarella, Holly
Pittman, and Ira Spar. "Ancient Near Eastern Art." The Metropolitan Museum of
Art Bulletin, v. 41, no. 4 (Spring, 1984).

[edit] Panoramic view

Panoramic view from Persepolis

Panoramic view from Persepolis

[edit] See also

Persian guards

• García de Silva Figueroa

• Achaemenid dynasty, Iran's first Empire and the creator of Persepolis.
• David Stronach
• Erich Schmidt
• Naqshe Rostam
• List of megalithic sites
• Cities of the Ancient Near East

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Persepolis

[edit] References

Palaces of Assyria
Assyrian palaces are some of the largest and most important ancient buildings
found in Mesopotamia. They demonstrate the wealth and achievements of the
Assyrian empire in the first millennium B.C.

In the palace the king took care of the business of the empire, received foreign
visitors and performed religious rituals. Palaces were built to show the power of
the king as well as to inspire loyalty and fear in ordinary people and visitors.
 Story Explore

Read about how one king Explore the palace of

built a spectacular palace King Ashurnasirpal II

Challenge

Protect yourself from demons

This game requires Shockwave