A cliff 13 km from Persepolis with four Achaemenid kings cut into it high above the ground: Darius the Great, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I and Darius II, each tomb front carved as a cross with the king standing at a fire altar. Below them, seven Sasanian reliefs cut a thousand years later, including the one everybody photographs, Shapur I on horseback with the Roman emperor Valerian kneeling in front of him after the Battle of Edessa in AD 260. That is a Persian monument to capturing a Roman emperor alive, carved under the tombs of the kings who fought the Greeks. In front of it stands the Ka’ba-ye Zartosht, a square fifth-century BC tower whose purpose nobody agrees on. Fars province, Iran. Check your government’s travel advice before planning.
Fars province, Iran
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