TEHRAN – A host of experts will be discussing archaeological findings and the latest attempts for the conservation of the UNESCO-registered Persepolis for future generations.

“In this webinar, experts and researchers in the fields of archaeology, conservation and restoration, archeology, linguistics, documentation, architecture and civil engineering, geology, biology, law, statistics, etc. will discuss and exchange views on the ancient Persepolis during a four-day international webinar, which starts on Sunday,” CHTN quoted the organizers as saying on Saturday.

Archaeological achievements in the World Heritage site will be discussed on the first day of the conference while decades of conservation, restoration, documentation projects would be topics for the second day.

On the third day, applied research on conservation and restoration, documentation will be scrutinized. Moreover, comprehensive conservation plans for the architecture and conservation of the site are set to be conferred on the last day of the event.

Persepolis, also known as Takht-e Jamshid, whose magnificent ruins rest at the foot of Kuh-e Rahmat (Mountain of Mercy) is situated 60 kilometers northeast of the city of Shiraz in Fars province.

The ruined royal city ranks among the archaeological sites which have no equivalent, considering its unique architecture, urban planning, construction technology, and art.

Persepolis was burnt by Alexander the Great in 330 BC apparently as revenge to the Persians because it seems the Persian King Xerxes had burnt the Greek City of Athens around 150 years earlier.

The city’s immense terrace was begun about 518 BC by Darius the Great, the Achaemenid Empire’s king. On this terrace, successive kings erected a series of architecturally stunning palatial buildings, among them the massive Apadana palace and the Throne Hall (“Hundred-Column Hall”).

This 13-ha ensemble of majestic approaches, monumental stairways, throne rooms (Apadana), reception rooms, and dependencies is classified among the world’s greatest archaeological sites.

The site is marked by a large terrace with its east side abutting the Kuh-e Rahmat (“Mount of Mercy”). The other three sides are formed by a retaining wall, varying in height with the slope of the ground from 13 to 41 feet (4 to 12 meters); on the west side, a magnificent double stair in two flights of 111 short stone steps leads to the top. On the terrace are the ruins of several colossal buildings, all constructed of a dark gray stone (often polished to a marble-like surface) from the adjacent mountain.

According to Britannica, the stone was cut with the utmost precision into blocks of great size, which were laid without mortar; many of them are still in place. Especially striking are the huge columns, 13 of which still stand in the audience hall of Darius I (the Great; reigned 522–486 BC), known as the Apadana, the name given to a similar hall built by Darius at Susa. There are two more columns still standing in the entrance hall of the Gate of Xerxes, and a third has been assembled there from its broken pieces.

In 1933 two sets of gold and silver plates recording in the three forms of cuneiform—ancient Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian—the boundaries of the Persian empire were discovered in the foundations of Darius’s hall of audience. Several inscriptions, cut in stone, of Darius I, Xerxes I, and Artaxerxes III indicate to which monarch the various buildings were attributed.

AFM