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Persepolis, locally known as Takht-é Jamshid, is a ceremonial palace dating from the Achaemenid Empire, around 500BC. Its is about 40km north of Shiraz. It was used as a spring palace by the kings of the Achaemenid Empire, and was central to the No Ruz festival (New Year, which is on March 21st — the spring solstice — even to this day) in which all the tribes of the land came to pay tribute to the king.
A staircase whose steps are said to be perfect (10 x 28cm) leads up to the Gate of all Nations, through which visiting delegations walk. The gate is guarded by four winged bulls with human head, which looked to my untrained eye very close to Babylonian or Assyrian art.
There is a cuneiform inscription on the gate that reads: A great God is Ahura Mazda, who created this earth, who created that heaven, who created man, who created happiness for this man, who made Xerxes king, the king of many kings, the one commander of many commanders. [...] I am Xerxes, great king, king of kings, king of of countries having many kind of human beings, the king in this great earth far and wide, the son of Darius the King, the Achaemenid, a Persian, the son of a Persian, an Aryan of the Aryan lineage. [...] Many other beautiful things were constructed in Persia. I constructed them and my father constructed them.
After the Gate of all Nations, a street lined with double headed Homa's leads to the Apadana Palace. The Homa is a symbol of the perfect fighting machine: it is a creature with the body of a lion, the neck of a horse and the head of an eagle. The Homa is the symbol of Iran Air these days...
The Apadana Staircase which leads to the Apadana Palace is the most beautiful and well preserved part of the site. It is covered with bas-relief depicting the 23 nations of the empire coming to pay tribute to the Achaemenid King during the No Ruz celebration, among them: Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Capadocians, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Indians, Ionians, Somalis... This gives an impression of the size and power of the Achaemenid empire at the time. There are also depictions of the Persian and Mede armies and of Ahura Mazda giving power to the king.
The Apadana Palace itself, and the Palace of 100 Columns are not very well preserved... Persepolis was conquered without resistance by Alexander the Great in 330BC. A few months later Persepolis was burned to the ground (only the walls and columns were made of stone, the supporting beams and ceilings were made of wood); yet it is not entirely clear why that happened. According to our guide, Alexander's girlfriend ordered the burning of the city during a celebratory drunken orgy, in retaliation for the sacking of Athens in 480BC by the Persian army.
While the tombs of Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III are on the site of the Persepolis ruins, the tombs of their predecessors Darius I, Artaxerxes I, Xerxes I and Darius II are in the nearby site of Nashqu-é Rostam. The tombs are shaped like crosses, and the remains of the kings and their families (after being picked clean by vultures) were entombed there. The tombs are quite high above the ground and can't be reached, although Shahriar tried to convince the guard to let me climb the scaffolding on Xerxes' tomb. Unfortunately it didn't work...
Interestingly enough, there were many bas-relief below the tombs dating back to the Sassanian Empire (3rd Century AD), some 800 years more recent than the tombs themselves. They relate the great Sassanian victories of the time, in particular the capture of the Roman Emperor Valerian by the Sassanian King Shapur. I guess that they don't qualify as graffiti after being there for 1700 years, but the juxtaposition of the two periods was quite strange...
I was slightly disappointed because a busy road goes right by the cliff, and the constant noise from the trucks detracts from the sacredness of the site. I would have preferred if it was enclosed in a remote valley, like the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.
Shahriar then lead us to a field by the side of the road, which at first sight looked innocuous enough. Soon though he pointed out that we were standing on the location of the town close to the ceremonial grounds of Persepolis. Columns could be seen barely coming out of the ground, and on the ground were not rocks but pieces of broken vases dating back 2500 years. They were just lying there! Admittedly a guard came to talk to us, so the site is now being protected and archeological digs are slowly starting. Still I was blown away just at the though of what lies in the ground below my feet.
