Persepolis: Ceremonial Capital of the Achaemenid Persian Kings

Persepolis was the great palace city of the Achaemenid Persian kings, founded around 518 BC by Darius I on the Marvdasht plain in southwestern Iran. For nearly two centuries it displayed the wealth and reach of the largest empire the world had yet seen, until Alexander the Great looted and burned it in 330 BC. Its ruins, with their monumental stairways and carved processions, are among the most famous archaeological sites in the world.

Background: an empire needs a showpiece

The Persian Empire was founded by Cyrus the Great in the 550s BC, and by the time Darius I took the throne in 522 BC it stretched from Egypt and Anatolia to the Indus. Cyrus had built his own royal seat at Pasargadae, further north in the same region.

Darius, who came to power after a disputed succession and a year of revolts, set out to build on an even larger scale. At Susa in Elam he raised a vast palace, and in Persis, the Persian homeland, he chose a site at the foot of the Kuh-e Rahmat, the “Mountain of Mercy”. The Old Persian name of the new city was Parsa; the Greeks called it Persepolis, “city of the Persians”.

Building Persepolis

Work began around 518 BC with a huge artificial terrace, partly cut from the mountainside and partly built up with stone blocks. It covers about 125,000 square metres and stands high above the surrounding plain, reached by a broad double staircase. Water channels and drains were cut into the rock beneath it.

On the terrace Darius began the main buildings, and his successors finished and added to them:

• The Apadana, a vast audience hall begun by Darius and completed under Xerxes I. Its roof rested on 72 stone columns about 20 metres tall, topped by capitals in the form of paired bulls, lions or griffins. Only a handful of columns still stand.
• The Tachara, Darius’s private palace, with polished stone door frames and inscriptions.
• The Gate of All Nations, built by Xerxes, guarded by colossal winged bulls with human heads.
• The Hall of a Hundred Columns, or Throne Hall, begun by Xerxes and completed by Artaxerxes I.
• The Treasury, a large complex of storerooms where tribute, booty and royal goods were kept.

Workers came from across the empire. Darius’s foundation inscriptions at Susa name craftsmen from Ionia, Lydia, Egypt, Babylon, Media and elsewhere, and the style of Persepolis blends elements from all of them into something distinctly Persian. Two sets of gold and silver foundation tablets, found in 1933 in the corners of the Apadana, name Darius and describe the extent of his kingdom.

The Apadana reliefs

The most famous carvings at Persepolis line the north and east stairways of the Apadana. On one side, rows of Persian and Median nobles and guards climb the stairs, some holding flowers, some turning to talk to one another. On the other side, delegations from 23 peoples of the empire approach the king, each led by a court official.

Each group is recognisable by its dress and gifts: Lydians with vessels and bracelets, Bactrians with a two-humped camel, Ethiopians with an elephant tusk and an okapi or giraffe, Indians with bags of gold dust, Scythians with horses and clothing. These gifts are often called tribute, though historians debate whether the scene shows a regular annual ceremony or simply an ideal image of the empire.

The reliefs show no battles and no bloodshed. Instead they present the king’s rule as orderly, peaceful and supported by all his subject peoples, a message repeated in Darius’s inscriptions.

Life and administration

Persepolis was also a working centre. In 1933-1934 American excavators found tens of thousands of clay tablets and fragments in the fortification wall, mainly written in Elamite and dated between about 509 and 494 BC. These Persepolis Fortification Tablets record the issue of food and drink to workers, officials, travellers and animals across the region.

They show that the builders were paid in rations of grain, wine and beer, that women formed a large part of the workforce, and that new mothers received extra rations. A second, smaller group, the Treasury Tablets, records payments in silver from about 492 to 458 BC. Together they give one of the most detailed pictures of how an ancient empire was run.

Art and architecture

The architecture of Persepolis combined stone and timber. Columns, door frames, window frames and staircases were of local grey limestone, often polished to a high sheen, while the walls were of mudbrick and the roofs of cedar and other timber beams brought from afar. Much of what visitors see today is the stone skeleton of buildings whose brick walls have long since dissolved.

The carvings were originally painted. Traces of blue, red, green and other pigments have been found on reliefs and sculptures, and some details were probably covered with metal. Recurring motifs include the king seated on his throne or walking under a parasol, heroes wrestling with monsters, and a lion attacking a bull, a scene repeated many times on the stairways and widely read as a symbol of royal power or of the new year.

Inscriptions in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian name the kings who built each structure. A text of Xerxes on the Gate of All Nations states that he built it “by the favour of Ahuramazda”, a phrase that recurs throughout the royal inscriptions and expresses the king’s claim to rule with divine support.

The burning of Persepolis

After defeating Darius III at Gaugamela in 331 BC, Alexander the Great marched into Persis and reached Persepolis in early 330 BC. His troops plundered the city, and the treasury was emptied; ancient sources speak of 120,000 talents of silver, carried off with thousands of pack animals.

Alexander stayed several months. Then, probably in the spring of 330 BC, the great palaces were set on fire. Arrian presents it as a deliberate act of revenge for the Persian burning of Athens in 480 BC, while Diodorus and Plutarch tell a story of a drunken banquet in which the Athenian courtesan Thaïs urged the king to burn the palace. Archaeologists found thick layers of ash in the Apadana and Throne Hall, which confirm a major fire. The full story is told in the burning of Persepolis.

Myths and facts

Myth: Persepolis was built by slaves. The Fortification Tablets show a paid workforce, including skilled craftsmen and many women, receiving regular rations. Some workers were deportees or dependent labourers, but the image of slave gangs building the palaces is not supported by the evidence.

Myth: Persepolis was the everyday capital of the empire. The kings moved between several royal residences. Susa and Babylon were more often the seats of government, while Persepolis was an important ceremonial, administrative and treasury centre in the Persian homeland.

Myth: Persepolis was built for the Nowruz New Year festival. This is a popular modern theory. It is possible, but no ancient text links the city or the Apadana reliefs to Nowruz, so it remains speculation.

Timeline

• c. 518 BC: Darius I begins the terrace and the first buildings at Persepolis.
• c. 509-494 BC: Period covered by the Persepolis Fortification Tablets.
• 486 BC: Darius dies; Xerxes I continues the work, completing the Apadana and building the Gate of All Nations.
• 465-424 BC: Artaxerxes I completes the Hall of a Hundred Columns.
• 330 BC, early: Alexander the Great captures Persepolis and loots the treasury.
• 330 BC, spring: The main palaces are burned.
• 1931-1939: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago excavates the site.
• 1979: Persepolis is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Legacy

Persepolis never recovered its role after 330 BC, although later rulers, including Sasanian kings, left inscriptions there. European travellers from the 17th century onwards described its ruins, and early copies of its inscriptions helped scholars begin to decipher Old Persian cuneiform.

Systematic excavation began only in 1931, when Ernst Herzfeld led a University of Chicago expedition; Erich Schmidt continued the work until 1939, clearing the terrace and recovering the Fortification and Treasury tablets. Iranian archaeologists have excavated and restored the site since then.

The royal tombs cut into the mountain above the terrace, and the earlier tombs at nearby Naqsh-e Rostam, complete the picture of a dynastic landscape. In modern Iran, Persepolis is a powerful national symbol. In October 1971 the last Shah held a lavish celebration of 2,500 years of the Persian monarchy in a tent city beside the ruins.

Persepolis in figures

Why it matters

Persepolis is the clearest surviving expression of how the Achaemenid kings saw their empire: vast, diverse and united around the king. Its reliefs and tablets give historians rare insight into the art, ideology and daily administration of ancient Persia, and its destruction marks the end of the first Persian Empire.