Trilingual inscriptions carved on the palaces of Susa and Persepolis. Darius’s foundation charter from Susa lists where every material and every craftsman came from; his inscription on the terrace wall at Persepolis says that he built a fortress where none had stood before.
The Achaemenid kings wrote in three languages at once (Old Persian in a cuneiform devised for the purpose, Elamite and Babylonian Akkadian) and set their words on terrace walls, doorways, column bases and foundation tablets. Scholars cite them by king, site and letter: DSf is Darius at Susa, text f; DPf Darius at Persepolis, text f; XPa Xerxes at Persepolis, text a.
The Susa foundation charter (DSf) describes the building of the palace: the earth dug down to bedrock and the pit filled with rubble, forty cubits deep in one part and twenty in another; bricks moulded by Babylonians; cedar brought from Lebanon, the Assyrians carrying it to Babylon and Carians and Ionians on to Susa; other timber from Gandhara and Carmania; gold from Sardis and Bactria; lapis lazuli and carnelian from Sogdiana, turquoise from Chorasmia, silver and ebony from Egypt, ivory from Ethiopia, Sind and Arachosia; stone columns from a village in Elam; stonecutters from Ionia and Sardis; goldsmiths from Media and Egypt. The palace is the empire in miniature.
On the south face of the Persepolis terrace Darius declares (DPf) that on this place, where no fortress had been built before, he built one, by the favour of Ahuramazda, secure, beautiful and fitting, as he intended. Xerxes’ inscription on the Gate of All Nations (XPa) names the gate and records that he completed much that his father had begun.
The book, part by part
I DSf: the Susa foundation charter
The foundation dug to rock and filled with rubble; the materials and the craftsmen of every land.
II DPf: the Persepolis terrace
A fortress built where none had been, secure, beautiful and fitting.
III XPa: the Gate of All Nations
Xerxes names the gateway and claims the completion of his father’s works.