and from the excavation of palaces and tombs at Persepolis and Pasargadae. Cyrus the Great, who founded the Achaemenid dynasty around 550 BCE, and his successors Darius I and Xerxes invaded the lands ...

The palace building itself, considered the most well-preserved of the Achaemenid period, was excavated approximately 90 years ago by German archaeologist and Iranologist Ernst Herzfeld. Herzfeld, ...