Persian column

[1] Achaemenid palaces had enormous hypostyle halls called apadana, which were supported inside by several rows of columns.

These often included a throne for the king and were used for grand ceremonial assemblies; the largest at Persepolis and Susa could fit ten thousand people at a time.

[2] The Achaemenids had little experience of stone architecture, but were able to import artists and craftsmen from around their empire to develop a hybrid imperial style drawing on influences from Mesopotamia, Egypt and Lydia in Anatolia, as well as Elam in Persia itself.

The style was probably developed in the Palace of Darius in Susa, but the most numerous and complete survivals are at Persepolis, where several columns remain standing.

[3] Imperial building in the style stopped abruptly with the invasion by Alexander the Great in 330 BCE, when Persepolis was burned down.

At the top of the round fluted shaft are two sections with a loosely plant-based design, the upper a form of "palm capital", spreading as it rises, and the lower suggesting leaves drooping downwards.

The full form of Persian column seems only to have been used at a few sites outside Persia around the empire in the Achaemenid period, in Armenia and even Levantine colonies in Iberia.

[10] From the 19th-century the full Persepolitan form of the column was revived, initially by Parsees in India[16] and eclectic architects in Europe, and only later used in public buildings in Iran under the Pahlavi dynasty (from 1925),[17] though the former royal palace in the Afif-Abad Garden, of 1863, tentatively uses some elements of the capitals.

[18] Significant buildings in Tehran were supervised as to the authenticity of their style by European archaeologists, especially André Godard, Maxime Siroux (both also architects), and Ernst Herzfeld, who had been brought to Iran to dig, curate, and train students.