The city was built on a raised stone platform – almost like a giant stage – so that it could be seen for miles across the flat plain. Workers carved enormous staircases up to the platform, wide enough for horses to walk up alongside people. At the top, grand halls with tall cedar-wood columns were used for celebrations and meetings with leaders from all over the world.
The walls and staircases are covered in thousands of carefully carved pictures showing people from many different lands bringing gifts and walking in processions. You can spot their different clothes, hairstyles and animals just by looking carefully at the stone. It is like a comic strip carved in rock, telling stories without a single word.
Persepolis was so large that it took many generations to build. Archaeologists – people who study ancient places – have found clay tablets with writing that lists the workers' wages and food rations, which means we know they were paid and fed properly. At the time it was one of the most magnificent cities on Earth.