Persepolis

The Persian kings' capital that Alexander burned

Persepolis is a huge palace-city built 2,500 years ago by the Persian kings Darius and Xerxes. Carved on its stone stairways are envoys of 23 nations bringing gifts — including our ancestors, the Sogdians! Its halls held 72 columns 20 metres tall. In 330 BC Alexander the Great captured the city and burned it. Its ruins still amaze today.

Persepolis (Persian Parsa, 'city of the Persians') was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire, begun by Darius I in 518 BC and continued by Xerxes and Artaxerxes; a 125,000 m² artificial terrace at the foot of Mount Rahmat. The Apadana (audience hall, 72 columns, 10,000 people), the Hall of a Hundred Columns, the Tachara, the Treasury, the Gate of All Nations (lamassu). Reliefs on the Apadana stairways show delegations from 23 satrapies (Sogdians, Bactrians, Khorezmians bearing camels, horses and cloth) and the 'Immortals' guard. It was the centre of spring festival (Nowruz) rites. In 330 BC Alexander captured and burned it (revenge for the burning of Athens, or a drunken act); the fire baked the clay tablets and preserved 30,000 documents (in Elamite — wages, rations). Excavated by the University of Chicago in the 1930s. UNESCO since 1979. A national symbol of Iran.

Fun facts

• Sogdians — our ancestors — are carved on the stairs of Persepolis bringing gifts.
• Alexander's fire baked the clay tablets and preserved 30,000 documents.
• The 72 columns of the Apadana are 20 m — like a 7-storey building.