Qualla: Palace of Darius in Susa https://qualla.com/palace-of-darius-in-susa en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:31 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/d/r/palace-of-darius-in-susa-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Palace of Darius in Susa https://qualla.com/palace-of-darius-in-susa Palace of Darius in Susa: Introduction https://qualla.com/palace-of-darius-in-susa/ Photo credit Mpour66, CC BY-SA 4.0. Darius the Great wanted the world to know who had built his palace. So he wrote it down -- in three languages, on stone and clay and glazed tile, in fragments that would survive him by two and a half millennia. The DSf inscription, his "charter of foundation," reads less like a royal decree and more like a supply chain manifest: cedar timber from Lebanon, hauled by Assyrians to Babylon, then carried onward to Susa by Carians and Greeks. Gold from Lydia and Bactria. Lapis lazuli from Sogdia. Every corner of the Achaemenid Empire contributed something to the palace complex at Susa, and Darius wanted that fact carved in stone.

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Image: Mpour66 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/d/r/palace-of-darius-in-susa-wp/tjdr-palace-of-darius-in-susa-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Palace of Darius in Susa: A King's Favorite Capital https://qualla.com/palace-of-darius-in-susa/ Photo credit Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0. Susa was ancient long before Darius arrived. The city had been a center of Elamite civilization for millennia, strategically positioned in the lowlands of what is now Khuzestan province in southwestern Iran. Darius chose it as his favorite capital, the winter residence where the ...

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Image: Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/d/r/palace-of-darius-in-susa-wp/tjdr-palace-of-darius-in-susa-a-kings-favorite-capital.mp3 0:06 2 full Palace of Darius in Susa: An Empire in Brick and Stone https://qualla.com/palace-of-darius-in-susa/ Photo credit Pentocelo, Public domain. The DSf inscription itemizes the construction with a specificity that borders on obsessive. Babylonians dug the foundations down to bedrock, then packed rubble to depths of 40 cubits. They molded the sun-dried brick. Medes and Egyptians adorned the walls with the glazed siliceous...

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Image: Pentocelo | Public domain

]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/d/r/palace-of-darius-in-susa-wp/tjdr-palace-of-darius-in-susa-an-empire-in-brick-and-stone.mp3 0:06 3 full Palace of Darius in Susa: Fire, Restoration, and Plunder https://qualla.com/palace-of-darius-in-susa/ Photo credit Pentocelo, Public domain. The palace did not survive its own dynasty intact. A fire during the reign of Artaxerxes I, sometime in the mid-fifth century BC, destroyed much of the complex. Fifty years later, Artaxerxes II undertook a partial restoration. But the palace's fate was sealed in December 331 BC, ...

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Image: Pentocelo | Public domain

]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/d/r/palace-of-darius-in-susa-wp/tjdr-palace-of-darius-in-susa-fire-restoration-and-plunder.mp3 0:06 4 full Palace of Darius in Susa: What Remains https://qualla.com/palace-of-darius-in-susa/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Today the palace site in modern Shush is an archaeological landscape more notable for what it has lost than what it retains. Urban development since the 1930s has encroached on the ruins. Erosion has eaten at the remaining walls. Illegal excavations have scattered artifacts. Iraq...

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]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/j/d/r/palace-of-darius-in-susa-wp/tjdr-palace-of-darius-in-susa-what-remains.mp3 0:06 5 full