Findspot of the Persepolis Fortification Archive

[Updated July 24, 2007]
Click on each image for higher sesolution photographs

Google Earth images continue to improve. The first is of Persepolis in its immediate environmental context:



The second is the most detailed image currently available on Google Earth:



It is interesting to compare it with the Schmidt photograph taken while the project was underway:



The Fortification Archive was discovered in a room in the Northern Fortifications, the structure visible in the upper left corner of the Terrace as seen in this photograph from Erich Schmidt's Aerial Survey. The area was being prepared for the construction of a road to allow vehicles to enter the Terrace when the archive was discovered at the beginning of March, 1933. Garrison and Root publish Herzfeld's sketch plan of the building in the context of their discussion of the findspot, on page 25 of the Introduction to their Seals on the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, Volume 1.