Takht-e Jamshid

Scope Note: Coordinates: Lat: 29 56 00 N degrees minutes Lat: 29.9333 decimal degrees Long: 052 53 00 E degrees minutes Long: 52.8833 decimal degrees

Note: Takht-e Jamshid or Persepolis was the ancient capital of the Achaemenian kings of Persia. Although archeological findings indicate prehistoric settlements, inscriptions claim the city was built during the reign of Darius I (reg 522-486 BCE), who replaced Pasargadae with Persepolis as the capital. The city and castle of Xerxes I, Darius's son, (reg 485-465 BCE), was destroyed by Alexander the Great. In 316 BCE, Persepolis became the capital of Persis, a Macedonian empire, and then began to decline during the Seleucid period (312-64 BCE). By the 3rd century CE, the neaby city of Istakhr became the center of the Sasanian empire. Investigation of Persepolis' ruins began in 1618 by García Silva Figueroa, a Spanish ambassador to Persia who found references of the ancient city in the works by Quintus Curtius, Diodorus and Plutarch. In 1626, Englishman Thomas Herbert, published the first engraving of the ruins. Archaeological excavations at the site commenced in 1931 under Ernst Herzfeld and Erich Schmidt of the University of Chicago from 1931-1939, and through 1979 by Îrānian archaeologists.

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