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Persepolis - Unfinished gate
Unless otherwise indicated, pictures on this page © Marco Prins and Jona Lendering. Photos can be downloaded and used for non-commercial purposes, but you have to acknowledge Livius.
The Unfinished gate, seen from the southeast. Photo Marco Prins. The Unfinished gate, seen from the southeast (map 11). Construction was probably started by king Artaxerxes III Ochus (358-338), and continued by his successors Artaxerxes IV Arses (338-336) and Darius III Codomannus (336-330).
If it had been finished, visitors would have entered Persepolis through the Gate of all nations, would have proceeded through the Army road, crossed this gate, and had reached the Hall of hundred columns. However, the monument was still unfinished when the Macedonian king Alexander the Great captured Persepolis in the first weeks of 330 BCE.
Today, hardly anything survives, except for one pair of unfinished lamassu's in the south (a lamassu is a bull with the head of a bearded man). This picture shows the Unfinished Gate and, to the left, the Gate of all nations.

Here is a satellite photo of the area.
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