The Apadana
The Apadana was the largest and most imposing building on the terrace at Persepolis. The word is used by modern scholars for a columned audience hall, and the one at Persepolis was begun by Darius I around 518 BCE and, according to inscriptions and the study of the site, completed under his son Xerxes. Its main hall was roughly square, with six rows of six columns, and it was fronted on the north, west and east by deep porticoes, each with two rows of six columns. That arrangement gives seventy-two columns in all, of which thirteen still stand.
These columns are estimated at close to twenty metres high, and their effect on a visitor would have been strong. The shafts were fluted and slender, and they were topped by capitals in the form of paired bull foreparts set back to back to carry the roof beams, with lion and griffin versions used in other buildings at the site. The roof is believed to have been timber, including cedar and other imported wood, over a mud-brick structure with walls decorated with colour, so the stone columns stood alongside a good deal of perishable material.
A glimpse of the work’s ambition is given by deposits placed in the foundations. Two stone boxes found in the foundations at corners of the Apadana held gold and silver tablets inscribed in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian, with Darius’s name and the claim that he ruled a vast empire by the grace of Ahura Mazda. They were symbolic offerings, sealing the building to the king’s legitimacy.
Foreign hands and influences
Persian monumental building was a blend, and the Apadana shows it. The stone terracing, columns and carved bulls reflect a debt to Mesopotamian and Anatolian traditions; the gathering of many lands under a ruler recalls the Assyrian palace reliefs, though the Persian style is calmer and more rhythmic. Craftsmen came from across the empire. A foundation inscription of Darius at Susa, a sister project, names Ionians, Lydians, Egyptians, Medes and Babylonians among the skilled workers. Some techniques are linked to Greek stone masons, and the glazed-brick decoration used at Susa recalls the Ishtar Gate in Babylon. Scholars debate how far each source mattered, but the blended result is clearly Persian rather than a simple copy.
The stairways
The Apadana stood on its own raised platform, reached by two stairways on the north and the east. Each is a symmetrical double flight with sculpted side panels. The eastern stairway, which was buried by debris after the destruction of the site, kept its relief unusually well. The reliefs are in low relief, with a tight, repeated rhythm, and they were originally painted. Traces of colour and of inlays and metal fittings have been found, so the impression in ancient times was bolder than the plain grey stone we see.
Who is shown on the stairs
The central scene shows the king enthroned and receiving audiences. Most of the stair panels, however, show processions. On the upper registers are Persian and Median courtiers and soldiers, including spearmen sometimes identified with the royal guard. Below them are delegations from the peoples of the empire, usually counted as twenty-three, each led by a court official and bringing a distinctive offering.
Many of the identifications rest on clothing, hairstyles, weapons and the objects carried. Some are widely accepted: people in Scythian-style tall pointed hats, men leading camels and horses, groups carrying bowls, textiles or metal vessels, and a group associated with Egypt. For the delegation usually linked to Nubia or Ethiopia, the offerings are often described as including exotic animals or tusks. For other delegations, scholars disagree, and it would be wrong to assign every figure a firm name. The range of peoples, from the steppe world described in Scythian history to the Nile valley of the Nubian civilization, conveys the intended reach of the empire.
Tribute or gifts?
The scenes are often called “tribute-bearers”, and some Greek authors describe the Persian system of gifts and taxes. Many specialists now prefer to speak of “gift-bearers” or “delegations”, noting that the reliefs show orderly, unforced and peaceful approaches, with no sign of coercion. Regular taxes were paid in silver and goods through provincial officials, and the reliefs probably do not record that process directly. They present an ideal in which each people brings its own best product to the king as an honour. Whether such processions ever took place in this form, and when, is part of the larger debate over the purpose of the site.
Note also what the reliefs leave out. They show no captives being marched, no battle and no humiliation, in sharp contrast with the military boasts of earlier Near Eastern palaces. The message is of cooperation under a king, which was the image the court wished to promote, and which should not be mistaken for a neutral description of empire.
Survival and display
Because the eastern stairway was covered after the site’s destruction, it escaped weathering, and the detail on its figures, down to curls of hair and folds of cloth, remains crisp. Other parts were damaged, and some panels were moved or removed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Modern conservation has tried to protect the remaining carvings, and visitors today can still walk beside the figures that once guided guests towards the king’s hall.