Persepolis, an ancient city in Iran, was the capital of the Persian Empire. It was sacked by Alexander the Great, leading to its decline. The bas-reliefs and tombs are popular tourist attractions.
Persepolis is an ancient city located in present-day Iran. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has been since 1979. The ruins of Persepolis are located just under 40 miles (60km) north of the city of Shiraz and are one of the most popular tourist attractions in Iran.
Cyrus the Great, the founder of the immense Persian empire, chose the site of Persepolis as the capital of his powerful new kingdom, in the 6th century BC It was his son, however, Darius the Great, who built the mighty city. The city was known simply as Parsa, but the Greeks called it Persepolis, which simply means City of the Persians.
Persepolis’ glory was short-lived however, just like the Persian Empire itself. In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great fought his way through the Empire to the Persian gates. He captured the city and held it for months, before finally allowing his troops to sack the place. After sacking it, a huge fire broke out and much of the city was destroyed. It is unknown whether this burning was a deliberate act of revenge by Alexander’s soldiers in retaliation for the Persian burning of the Acropolis, or whether it was simply a drunken accident.
Over the following centuries, Persepolis declined in importance, merely serving as a regional capital for the now ascendant Macedonian Empire. Eventually the capital moved a few miles north to the new city of Stakhr. Eventually Stakhr also fell in importance, and by the 10th century there was little centralized power in the region of the once mighty Persepolis.
The first Westerners to visit Persepolis in modern times were from Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. These travellers, especially the Portuguese visitor Antonio de Gouveia, wrote extensive notes of their visits, but undertook no formal archaeological investigations. The first studies in this sense did not occur until the first part of the 20th century, led by Ernst Herzfeld.
The bas-reliefs of Persepolis are perhaps their most famous feature. These illustrate various battles, rituals and examples of homage paid to the Empire. The best known of these is the Satrap Staircase, which shows the various regional rulers under the Persian Empire, from all angles, including Bactrians, Indians and Scythians, paying homage to the emperor.
The tomb of Cyrus the Great is in Pasargad, and is isolated and rather austere, little more than a squat mausoleum of reddish stone. The tombs of the other great sovereigns, on the other hand, are all gathered in a single necropolis. Here are the tombs of Darius the Great, Darius II, Artaxerxes I and Xerxes.
The Gate of All Nations is another popular site in Persepolis. Though now in ruins, the gate still stands, with Xerxes’ name engraved in several languages, to make it very clear that it was he who ordered the construction of the mighty hall. Of particular note here are the statues of Lamassu, with the head of a man and the body of a bull, in a sort of opposite of the minotaur of Greece.
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