---
node: persepolis_construction
type: event
slug: construction_of_persepolis
title: "Construction of Persepolis"
lead: "Persepolis was begun c. 518 BC by Darius I as the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire and expanded by Xerxes I and his successors over some 150 years. Alexander the Great burned it in 330 BC, and its ruins became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979."
published: 2026-07-10
updated: 2026-07-10
image_file: construction_of_persepolis.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Persepolis_stairs_of_the_Apadana_relief.jpg"
image_author: "Phillip Maiwald (Nikopol)"
image_license: "CC BY-SA 3.0"
---

## What happened

Around 518 BC Darius I began building on a great stone terrace in the mountains of Persis, near modern Shiraz; Xerxes I and his successors expanded the site over roughly 150 years. It was the ceremonial heart of the empire — audience halls such as the Apadana, which seated thousands, a treasury, and reliefs showing delegations of the empire's peoples bringing gifts: royal ideology in stone. The everyday capitals were Susa, Babylon, and Ecbatana.

## Background

The builders were paid workers. The Persepolis Fortification Tablets record rations and wages for men and women laborers from across the empire — direct evidence against the image of a slave-built monument. The architecture blends the empire's traditions, joining Persian columned halls with Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Lydian, and Ionian craftsmanship.

## Consequences

Alexander the Great burned Persepolis in 330 BC; whether that was deliberate policy or, as some ancient accounts tell it, a drunken act is still debated. The ruins, known in Persian as Takht-e Jamshid, the Throne of Jamshid, became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979 and rank among Iran's most famous ancient monuments.