Free Republic

In continuation of their excavations in area number 34 of the historic site of Bolaghi Gorge where evidence of a palace denoted to Achaemenid Emperor Darius the Great (549-486 BC) had previously been discovered, Iranian and French archeologists succeeded in discovering the eastern porch of the palace. Announcing this news, Mohammad Taghi Atayi, Iranian head of the Iranian-French archeology team told CHN: "A black cubic plinth was discovered during the first days of excavations in the area which was later found to have been built by stones obtained from Majdabad query." According to Atayi, three meters from the place where...

Sadly, the legacy of one of the world's greatest civilizations is in peril, as vandals control the territory once ruled by giants. If there were a debate among historians of ancient civilizations with topic being the relative greatness of Greek and Persian civilizations, it would without any doubt be a very heated contest. On the one side, pro-Greek scholars could claim that Alexander was a heroic leader who conquered and invaded foreign lands to rescue them from what he thought were "barbarians". Another major assertion might be that ancient Greece was an example of enlightened democracy for those times. On...

A Rush to Excavate Ancient Iranian Sites NAZILA FATHI November 27, 2005 TEHRAN, Nov. 26 - Archaeologists from around the world have been rushing to excavate scores of newly identified ancient sites in southern Iran before the area is flooded by a new dam. Iran has been planning for a decade to build the Sivand Dam in Fars Province, between the ruins of the ancient Persian cities of Persepolis and Pasargadae. But the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization knew little about the broader region until three years ago, when archaeologists identified 129 potentially important sites in the region that will be...