The site in the mountains of Iran of the palaces and graves of the Achaemenid rulers of Persia; a world heritage site. Selected originally by Darius I, the site was extensively developed by his successors Xerxes and Artaxerxes. It was sacked by Alexander the Great in 331 BC.
Persepolis (Old Persian: 'Pars', New Persian: تخت جمشید, 'Takht-e Jamshid') was an ancient ceremonial capital of the second Iranian dynasty, the Achaemenid Empire, situated some 70 km northeast of modern city of Shiraz, not far from where the small river Pulwar flows into the Kur (Kyrus). To the ancient Persians, the city was known as Parsa, meaning the city of Persians, Persepolis being the Greek interpretation of the name (Περσες (meaning Persian)+ πόλις (meaning city).
The largest and most complex building in Persepolis was the audience hall or Apadana with 36 columns, accessible by two monumental stairs.
Construction
The initial works were started in 518 BC. Andre Godard the French archaeologist who excavated Persepolis in early 1930s, believed that it was Cyrus the Great who chose the site of Persepolis, but Darius the Great built the terrace and the great palaces at Persepolis and the construction of the buildings at the terrace was continued until downfall of the Achaemenid dynasty. Darius ordered the construction of Apadana Palace and the Debating hall (Tripylon or the three-gated hall), the main imperial treasury and its surroundings, which were completed at the time of the reign of his son King Xerxes I.
Archaeological Research
The first scientific excavation at Persepolis carried out by Ernest Herzfeld in 1931, who was commissioned by Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
The main characteristic of Persepolitan architecture is its columns.
The remains including the bas-reliefs and sculptures provide an insight into hearts and beliefs of the ancient Iranians. It can be seen that the buildings at Persepolis are divided into three areas, military quarters, the treasury and the reception and occasional houses for King of Kings. These included the Great Stairway, the Gate of Nations (Xerxes), Apadana palace of Darius, the Hall of a Hundred Columns, the Tripylon Hall and Tachara palace of Darius, the Hadish palace of Xerxes, palace of Artaxerxes III, the Imperial Treasury, the Royal Stables and the Chariot house.
Site
The site is marked by a large terrace by the size of 125,000 square metre partly artificial and partly cut out of mountain, with its east side leaning on Kuh-e Rahmet ("the Mountian of Mercy").
Gray limestone is mainly used in the buildings at Persepolis. This dual stairway known as Persepolitan stairway, was built in a symmetrical manner on the western side of the Great Wall.
The uneven plan of part of the foundation of the terrace acted like a kind of castle whose angled walls enabled its defenders to target any section of the external front. The first wall was 7m tall and the second 14m and the third wall, which covered all the four sides, was 27m in height, and today there is no sign of the walls present.
Ruins
On this terrace are the ruins of a number of colossal buildings, all constructed of dark-grey marble from the adjacent mountain. 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 - تخت جمشید ("the throne of Jamshid").
Behind Takht-e Jamshid are three sepulchres hewn out of the rock in the hillside. That the occupants of these seven tombs were kings might be inferred from the sculptures, and one of those at Nakshi Rustam is expressly declared in its inscription to be the tomb of Darius Hystaspis, concerning whom Ctesias relates that his grave was in the face of a rock, and could only be reached by means of an apparatus 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.
The Gate of All Nations
The Gate of all Nations referring to subjects of empire, consisted of a grand hall that was 24.74 square metre, which had four columns and its entrance on the Western Wall.
A pair of Persianized Assyrian man-bulls on the western threshold and another pair with wings and a Persian head (Gopät-Shäh), on the eastern entrance to reflect the Empire’s power was built.
Xerxes' name was written in three languages and was carved on the entrances informing everyone that it was built by him.
Apadana Palace
Darius the Great built the greatest and most glorious palace at Persepolis in the western side. This palace was named Apadana and was used for the King of Kings' official audiences. The palace had a grand hall in shape of square, each side 60.5m long with seventy-two columns, thirteen of them still stand on the enormous platform. The walls were covered with a layer of mud and stucco, to a depth of 5cm, 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.
The Walls were tiled, and decorated with pictures of lions, bulls and flowers. Darius ordered his name and his empire details to be written in gold and silver on plates, placing those 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. The external front views of the palace were embossed with pictures of the The Immortals, the Kings' elite guards. The northern stairway was completed in the time of the Darius, but the other stairway was completed much later.
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). 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.
In the beginning of Xerxes' reign the Throne Hall was used mainly for receptions for military commanders and representatives of all the subject nations of the empire, but later the Throne Hall served to be as an imperial museum.
Other Palaces & Structures
There were other palaces built, these included the Tachara palace which was built under Darius I, the Imperial treasury which was started by Darius in 510 BC and finished by Xerxes in 480BC. The Hadish palace by Xerexes I, which occupies the highest level of terrace and stand 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.
Tombs of King of Kings
Now we know that Cyrus the Great was buried at Pasargadae and if there is any truth in the statement that the body of Cambyses II was brought home "to the Persians" his burying-place must be sought somewhere beside that of his father. Hence the kings buried at Naghsh-e Rustam are probably, besides Darius the Great, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I and Darius II.
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.
Since Cyrus the great was buried in Pasargadae, which is mentioned by Ctesias as his own city, and 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.
It has been universally admitted that "the palaces" or "the palace" burned down by Alexander are those now in ruins at Takhti Jamshid.
Ancient texts
The relevant passages from ancient scholars on the subject are set out below:
(Diod. 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) 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. 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. 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. 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. (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; 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?" 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. (7) But when they came to the vestibule of the palace, they saw the king himself piling on firebrands. (10) The Macedonians were ashamed that so renowned a city had been destroyed by their king in a drunken revel; 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. 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;
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;
After the fall of Ancient Persia
In 316 BC Persepolis was still the capital of Persia as a province of the great Macedonian Empire (see Diod. 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, and must themselves have built largely here, although never on the same scale of magnificence as their ancient predecessors.
At the time of the Arabian conquest Istakhr offered a desperate resistance, but 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.
We learn from Asian writers that one of the Buyid (Buwaihid) sultans in the 10th century of the Flight constructed the great cisterns, which may yet be seen, and have been visited, amongst others, by James Morier and E.
The UNESCO declared the citadel of Persepolis a World Heritage Site in 1979.
Persipolis is also one of the 80 treasures featured on Around the World in 80 Treasures presented by Dan Cruickshank.
In 1971, Persepolis was the main staging ground for the 2,500 year celebration of Iran's monarchy.
Gallery
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Darius I of Persia. |
Gate of Xerxes at Persepolis. |
Darius I of Persia. |
Carvings of flower on the walls of Perspolis. |
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Entry to the Perspolis |
view of Xerxes Gate (Gate of All Nations). |
A view of the wall of Perspolis Palace |
Persepolis museum within the confines of the palace. |
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