Relief-carved Fragment from Persepolis

Persia (Iran)

486–465 BCE

Limestone

Minneapolis Institute of Art

This rare stone fragment bearing the carved profile head of a “foreign delegate” is from the north staircase of the great audience hall known as the Apadana at Persepolis; the magnificent ceremonial palace complex of the ancient Persian kings, Darius I (522-486 B.C.) and Xerxes I (486-456 B.C.). By the time of Xerxes I, the huge Persian empire included Lydia, Babylon, Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia, Egypt, parts of Central Asia and, for a time, Attica in Greece. Darius seems to have personally selected the pictorial theme of all the low-relief sculpture decorating his palace. Peoples of all the subject nations of the Persian empire pai