is the most grandiose expression of the Achaemenid architecture: a square building of 110 m a side on a 2.60 m high podium. The columned hall, 53 m a side, counts six rows of six fluted columns resting on a square base and supporting a composite capital topped by two adorsed bull protomae. None of them is complete, raising the question of the direction of the protomae. The traditional reconstruction showing the lateral side of the bull in the porticoes (Krefter 1971: Beilage 3–4), as they are on the facade of the royal tombs, may be an artistic convention; a front position is quite plausible (Seidl 2003). The latter supported cedar beams from Lebanon. On three sides, the main hall is surrounded by columned porticoes with two rows of six columns resting on bell‐shaped bases. The south side consists of a series of small rooms with a main corridor in the middle leading to Darius' palace. The porticoes are flanked by corner towers which contain several rooms at ground level and probably an upper story and a staircase to reach the roof. In the northeast and southwest corners of the audience hall, foundation deposits were discovered beneath the walls: two sheets of gold and silver bearing a trilingual text (DPh), together with gold, silver, and copper coins. The north and east porticoes are approached by stairways composed of four symmetrically arranged flights of steps. Their facades are covered with reliefs at eye level. Both stairways bear the same kind of figures. The central panel originally represented the king sitting on his throne giving audience to an official. Probably under Xerxes, both reliefs were removed to the Treasury and replaced by a series of guards. One side of the staircase is decorated with files of guards, followed by court members. The other side shows 23 tribute bearing delegations (cf. Chapter 94 Statuary and Relief).
The plan of Darius' palace is the archetype for the later buildings of his successors: a single portico flanked by guardrooms, a square hypostyle hall, with symmetrical series of rooms on the lateral sides and other rooms at the rear side. Xerxes and Artaxerxes would extend this layout for their own palaces.
The fortifications on the north and east sides of the terrace were built during Darius' reign and probably completed later. In two small rooms of the north fortifications, thousands of inscribed clay tablets, administrative documents, were discovered in 1933 (see Chapter 7 Elamite Sources). The remote location of these archives (Persepolis Fortification Tablets covering Darius' reign between 509 and 494 BCE) is still puzzling (Hallock 1969; Henkelman 2008).
The only visible architecture today at Persepolis is made of stone, but the buildings were made of clay, mudbricks, and baked bricks for the walls (5 m thick in the Apadana). Actually stone is limited to the column bases, door frames, actual and blind windows, staircases, and wall reliefs. Stone column shafts and capitals are restricted to the Apadana, the Hall of 100 Columns and All Nations Gate. The other columned buildings are equipped with wood poles coated with plaster and painted. Stone was extracted from quarries nearby, one being immediately north of the terrace, others located on a slope near Naqsh‐i Rustam or at 5–10 km from the terrace. The most distant quarry, more than 30 km northwest of the terrace, provided a better quality used for sculpture.
Almost nothing was completed at the death of Darius in 486 BCE. That situation raises two questions. One concerns the location of official audiences and meetings during most of his reign; the other one is the type of buildings where the king and the court lived. Even in later periods, only some buildings on the terrace are really adapted to accommodate the king and his family and the court, namely a large part of the so‐called Harem, which was not built until Xerxes, and, according to some hypotheses, the southern side of the Apadana where apartments could have been located on an upper story (Huff 2010 and other articles by Huff quoted there).
Xerxes completed his father's major buildings, erected the “All Countries” Gate to the north, and added his hadiš, today poorly preserved, in the south. He, or maybe his son, Artaxerxes I, began the Hall of 100 Columns and the smaller Hall of 32 Columns. Artaxerxes also built his own palace, to the southwest. The following kings were less active, but they may have enlarged or altered buildings, or removed pieces of them without signing their work with an inscription. Artaxerxes III (359–338 BCE) is the latest known builder for a staircase at the palace H and another one to the west of the palace of Darius (on function of the terrace, cf. Chapter 70 The Residences).
The terrace and the royal necropolis of Naqsh‐i Rustam belong to the same project. As shown by the remains of stone architecture scattered west and north of the terrace, and the results of archeological surveys since 2000, the whole area between the two sites must be considered as Parsa that extended over some 20 km2 (Tilia 1978: pp. 73–91). The spatial organization of this vast area consists of discrete concentrations of artifacts or structures, likely corresponding to different social classes. An elite – or royal? – residential area about 3 km west of the terrace covers dozens of acres. It consists of low and small tepes separated from each other by several hundred meters. Blocks of hewn stone, and in one case a mural of glazed bricks, are still visible on many of them. These mounds probably correspond to large mudbrick buildings, surrounded by gardens. Such elite areas probably also existed north and northwest and perhaps in the south. Clearly separated from these areas are other large patches marked by pottery sherds on the surface, without visible traces of architecture. They should be the living quarters and workshops of more mundane people, and barracks of numerous workers employed for the construction of the royal buildings. One of these patches is particularly noticeable about 1 km west of the terrace. The location of the encampment of the guard is not localized but should rather consist of tents. The geomagnetic survey shows some anomalies corresponding to ditches and maybe some walls which are the flimsy remains of these settlements. Altogether, in the vast area between the terrace and the necropolis, the non‐built spaces were the majority. However, they may correspond to managed landscape with orchards, large gardens, or parks.
The plain of Persepolis extends over some 100 km from north to south and 30 km at its greatest extension in the central part. In the southern half, the soil is today very salty, as it was in the past, according to analyses. It contrasts with the central part near the terrace and the northern one most intensively occupied from the Neolithic to the late second millennium BCE. After a gap of several centuries, the plain is again developed during the Achaemenid period and later.
Soil quality and irrigation possibilities make the plain a fertile region, which has negative consequences. Modern mechanized agricultural development provoked the disappearance of many witnesses of the ancient occupation. A multiperiod survey of this plain in 1968–1969 showed a rather low ratio of Achaemenid settlements, generally small in size (Sumner 1986). According to a survey conducted 40 years later, nearly half of these few settlements have been destroyed (Boucharlat et al. 2012). The best evidence of the Achaemenid and post‐Achaemenid occupation consists of irrigation canals, the largest of which measured several kilometers, dams of earth and rough stone, and sometimes structures made of cut stone. Here and there isolated stone architectural elements have been reported, drums or column bases, but they have not been found in place. Some are unfinished, witnessing activity traces of transport between the quarries and Persepolis.
The image of Persepolis city offered by archeology does not contradict the description by Diod. Sic. (XVII.70, 3–5), which mentions the mansions that the army of Alexander plundered before reaching the terrace. However, the image of the occupation of the plain is quite poor in comparison with the agriculture and craft activities evidenced by the Persepolis Fortification Tablets (see Chapter 62 Persia). The latter mention these places as estates and a few cities, which could explain the apparent lack of important archeological remains in the plain.
In southern Fars, occupation of the Achaemenid period was observed in a few places corresponding to elite buildings. Farmeshgān, 60 km south of Shiraz (Figure 70.1), a group of four stone platforms almost juxtaposed, measuring between 6.50 m and 10 m a side, is one example. Very little is known of this unexcavated site, but fragments of bas‐reliefs were found on the surface, a spear‐holder guard, rosettes, and a high relief of a lion. The use of the toothed chisel for working the stone indicates Darius I's time or later.
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