Persepolis is one of the great names from antiquity. Built about 1500 years ago from stone and mud and wood it was the seat of the great Persian empire. Predictably on the stone part has survived and this creates an unusual look at times as the window frames and doors where made from stone but the rest of the walls were made from mud. This is why some of the pictures look like someone started building by erecting the doors and walls and then gave up. The ruins are not in particularly good shape but there is enough detail for you to really get a sense of the size and majesty of the place and imagine what it must have been like at it's peak. We based ourselves in Shiraz, the city famous for it's grape, to see Persepolis but I don't really have any pictures to share with you. I can say that stayed in an excellent hostel in mixed dorms. I didn't expect to find mixed dorms in Iran but there you have it. There haven't been all that many dorms on our journey so far and it was really nice to enjoy the social aspect that always comes with them.

The ruins at Persepolis are in a pretty dilapidated state. The use of wooden columns combined with a fire lit by Alexander the Great meant that the main structure was destroyed over a millennia ago. One of the things that I always try to do when I visit an ancient site is to image what it would have been like when it was in use and what sort of lives the people would have lived. In the case of Persepolis an archaeological team created a 3D mock up off what it might have looked like. There website persepolis3d.com contains there results of their work. Compare the two portrait images in this set. This is the gate of all nations. The other two landscape oriented images are of a staircase.