Persepolis
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Persepolis
(pərsĕp`əlĭs) [Gr.,=city of Persia], ancient city of Persia, ceremonial capital of the AchaemenidAchaemenids, dynasty of ancient Persia. They were descended presumably from one Achaemenes, a minor ruler in a mountainous district of SW Iran. His successors, when Elam declined, spread their power westward.
..... Click the link for more information. empire under Darius I and his successors. The administrative capitals were elsewhere, notably at SusaSusa
, ancient city, capital of Elam. The site is 15 mi (23 km) SW of modern Dizful, Iran. It is the biblical Shushan, and its inhabitants were called Susanchites. From the 4th millennium B.C., Elam was under the cultural influence of Mesopotamia.
..... Click the link for more information. and BabylonBabylon
, ancient city of Mesopotamia. One of the most important cities of the ancient Middle East, it was on the Euphrates River and was north of the cities that flourished in S Mesopotamia in the 3d millennium B.C.
..... Click the link for more information. . The ruins of Persepolis lie 30 mi (48 km) NE of Shiraz in a fertile plain of the Pulvar River, with strong natural mountain defenses. There are ruins of the palaces of Darius I, Xerxes, and later kings as well as the citadel that contained the treasury looted by Alexander; the ruins lie on a huge platform constructed of limestone from the adjacent mountain. A few miles distant are the rock-hewn tombs of Achaemenid kings and monuments of the Sassanids on a mountainside called by the natives Naqsh-e-Rostam or Naksh-i Rustam [pictures of Rustam] for the legendary Persian hero Rustam. In the same place there is a 3,000-year-old inscription of Shutruk-Nakhkhunte, a famous Elamite king (c.1207–1171 B.C.). Scattered over the plain, a short distance from the platform of Persepolis, are the ruins of Stakhr or Estakhr, the official capital of the SassanidsSassanid,
Sasanid
, or Sassanian
, last dynasty of native rulers to reign in Persia before the Arab conquest. The period of their dominion extended from c.A.D. 224, when the Parthians were overthrown and the capital, Ctesiphon, was taken, until c.
..... Click the link for more information. , whose administrative capital was CtesiphonCtesiphon
, ruined ancient city, 20 mi (32 km) SE of Baghdad, Iraq, on the left bank of the Tigris opposite Seleucia and at the mouth of the Diyala River. After 129 B.C. it was the winter residence of the Parthian kings. Ctesiphon grew rapidly and was of renowned splendor.
..... Click the link for more information. . Excavations have disclosed, 2 mi (3 km) away, a village of the Neolithic period, with mural decorations in red ocher that date back to about 4000 B.C.
Bibliography
See E. F. Schmidt, Persepolis (3 vol., 1953–70); M. Wheeler, Flames over Persepolis (1968); D. N. Wilbur, Persepolis, the Archaeology of Parsa (1969).
Persepolis
(in ancient Persian, Parsa; in Persian, Takhti-Jamshid), a city in ancient Iran, located 50 km northeast of Shiraz; one of the capitals of the Achaemenids. Persepolis was founded in the late sixth century B.C. at the beginning of the reign of Darius I the Great. The city’s chief buildings were erected during the reigns of Darius I and Xerxes. Captured by Alexander the Great in 330 B.C., the city was razed and abandoned. Extensive excavations of Persepolis and its environs were conducted by the German scholar E. Herzfeld from 1931 to 1934 and the American archaeologist E. Schmidt from 1935 to 1939. Since 1939 the Iranian archaeological service has carried on the work, initially under the supervision of the French scholar A. Godard, and later, the Iranian archaeologists M. T. Mus-tafavi and A. Sami. Finds include inscriptions of the Achaeme-nid kings and thousands of clay tablets with text in Elamite containing information about the building of the city and the economy of the region.
Numerous buildings of various eras have been preserved in Persepolis and its environs. The remains of a walled palace (late sixth to fourth centuries B.C.) stand on a stone platform abutting a slope of the Kuh-i-Rahmat. West of the palace are the remains of the city proper. Tombs were built into the cliffs above the platform between 405 and 338 B.C.; near the platform stand the foundations of a temple of fire (third century B.C.). In the environs, at the foot of the Kuh-i-Rahmat, there is a complex of three Sassanid cliff reliefs called the Naksh-i-Radzhab; traces of a round Sassanid city, Darabgerd; and the remains of the city of Istakhr, which was founded by the Achaemenids and abandoned in the tenth century. At the base of the Khosein-Kuh are the necropolis Naksh-i-Rustam, which includes four Achaemenid cliff tombs built between 521 and 405 B.C. and the fire temple of Kabai-Zardusht; Sassanid reliefs; and cliff altars. Nearby is Tali-Bakun, the remains of a settlement that dates back to the fifth millennium B.C.
REFERENCES
D’iakonov, M. M. Ocherk istorii Drevnego Irana. Moscow, 1961.Schmidt, E. F. Persepolis, vols. 1-2. Chicago [1953-57].
Cameron, G. G. Persepolis Treasury Tablets. Chicago, 1948.
Hallock, R. T. Persepolis Fortification Tablets. Chicago, 1969.