The Secrets of Engineering and the Splendor of the Achaemenid Empire | How Persepolis Survived 2,500 Years

Beyond the gate spread the jewel of Persepolis—the Apadana, the grand audience hall. Elevated on its own platform and forested with 72 soaring columns, each nearly 20 meters high, the hall could host 10,000 guests. Here kings received tribute and reaffirmed their dominion. The Apadana embodied both the scale of Achaemenid ambition and the technical genius to roof such a colossal space with timber beams hauled from distant Lebanon and the Zagros.