Naqsh-e Rostam

About six kilometres north-west of Persepolis, a limestone cliff holds four cruciform rock-cut tombs of the Achaemenid Great Kings. One is securely identified as Darius I's by its inscriptions, DNa and DNb, carved beside it; the other three are attributed to Xerxes, Artaxerxes I and Darius II. The cliff also holds the Kaʿba-ye Zartošt, a square stone tower whose original function is debated, and, carved lower down centuries later, the great Sasanian rock-reliefs from which the site takes its modern name, 'the picture of Rostam'.

The tomb relief

Each Achaemenid tomb façade carries the same programme, and it is a religious one. On an upper register the king stands on a raised three-step platform or throne, which is borne up by the personified peoples of the empire; he faces a burning fire-holder, one hand raised in worship, beneath the figure in the winged ring and a disc in the sky. It is the clearest visual statement of Achaemenid kingship as a sacred office: the king lifted up by all the lands, worshipping before the fire, under the sign of divine favour. Darius's accompanying inscription DNb turns the image into words, a first-person ethic of the just king.

The Kaʿba-ye Zartošt

The stone tower opposite the tombs — a tall, windowless chamber reached by a high stair — has been explained as a fire-repository, a royal tomb, a coronation building, or a store for sacred objects or records; none is proven. Its later importance is certain: the Sasanian king Shapur I had his great trilingual res gestae carved on its walls. For the Achaemenid period it remains one of the site's genuine puzzles.