Persepolis (eBook)

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Ali Mousavi, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA.

Acknowledgements 8
List of figures and plates 12
Bibliographic abbreviations 20
Foreword by David Stronach 22
Introduction 28
I. Persepolis: A survey of the site, its chronology and function 34
The name 34
The city 35
The constructions on the Terrace 41
The constructions outside the Terrace 51
Problems of chronology 66
The architectural history 74
Function and other related problems 76
II. Persepolis in Flames 82
Textual evidence 82
Archaeological evidence 85
The burning of Persepolis: Facts, interpretations, and speculations 88
Subsequent destructions of Persepolis 95
III. From Parsa to Sad-Sotun: The Afterlife of Persepolis Begins 98
Persepolis in the “dark age” of Fars 98
IV. Takht-e Jamshid: The Transformation of a Historical Site into a Mythical Symbol 108
V. In search of Persepolis: Western travellers’ explorations in Persia 120
Early journeys to the ruins of Chelmenar 120
The travellers of the Enlightenment 126
VI Persepolis and the puzzle of the cuneiform inscriptions 138
The query about the inscriptions at Chelmenar: Chardin and the Royal Society of England 138
Niebuhr’s copies in Europe 142
Grotefend and the decipherment of the Persepolitan scripts 145
VII. The Nineteenth century and the emergence of archaeology 148
The hunt for knowledge and antiquities: British diplomats in quest of sculptures 148
Ker Porter, the romantic traveller 152
Other travellers’ explorations of Persepolis in early Qajar Iran 156
Illustrating Persepolis 158
Photographing Persepolis 162
Curzon and the first modern description of the ruins 171
Weld-Blundell’s exploration 174
VIII. Persepolis at the Dawn of Scientific Archaeology in Iran 180
Early steps in the archaeology of Iran: An overview 180
Persepolis in the early twentieth century 181
Erich Schmidt and the excavations at Persepolis (1935-1939) 209
IX. Forty Years of Research and Restoration at Takht-e Jamshid: 1939-1979 218
Krefter and the model of Persepolis 224
Italian Restoration work and other surface studies at Persepolis 1964-1978 227
Tadjvidi and the excavation of the City of Parsa 231
Afterword 240
Bibliography 246
Index 258
Plates 264