A seasonal Persian stage set unlocked cuneiform for moderns
Persepolis—Parseh, or Takht-e Jamshid—was the Achaemenid Empire’s ceremonial capital (c. 550–330 BCE) on Iran’s Marvdasht plain. Remains begin about 515 BCE: a raised palace-citadel used seasonally rather than as Iran’s largest everyday city.
The Greek name means the city of the Persians. The Persians themselves called it Pārsa, the same name as their homeland region of Persis; trilingual gate inscriptions in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian show that Darius the Great’s palace complex shared the land’s name. Elamite administrative tablets found there record payments to workers in Pārsa and its suburbs, and modern Persian renders the ancient name Pārseh.
Building began around 515 BC on a walled platform, and the complex probably served as a seasonal ceremonial seat rather than one of the empire’s biggest everyday cities. It remained a capital of the Achaemenid Empire until about 330 BC.
Later ages supplied new names. In 311 AD a Sasanian prince, Shapur Sakanshah, son of Hormizd II, left an inscription calling it Sad-stūn, Hundred Pillars. Early Muslim geographers such as al-Masudi, Istakhri, al-Muqaddasi and Ibn Hawqal credited the ruins to the legendary world-king Jamshid, whom they equated with Solomon, so it was also called Solomon’s playground or mosque; others linked it to the legendary queen Homāy, and Hamza al-Isfahani called it Thousand Columns.
The most common modern Persian name, Takht-e Jamshid, Throne of Jamshid, comes from that tradition, though nothing ties Jamshid to the site. Medieval Persians also called it Forty Minarets. The Spanish traveller De Silva Figueroa, visiting in the early seventeenth century, seems to have been the first to identify these ruins with the Persepolis of Greek writers. European interest then led to cuneiform being rediscovered, and in the early nineteenth century its trilingual royal inscriptions helped scholars decipher the script.
Source: Persepolis
