Tol-e Ājori, a new monumental building in Pārsa, a multidiscipline approach to Persepolis and Pārsa

The Bāgh-e Fīrūzi area spreads over 130 ha and includes 10 known Achaemenid sites: seven with stone architectural elements, one with baked bricks on the surface, and two corresponding to 3 m-high rounded tepes. Tol-e Ājori is located on the eastern fringe of Bāgh-e Fīrūzi, on a border defined by Bāgh-e Fīrūzi located 300 m to the SE and Tol-e Jangī B located 400 m to the NW. This area was studied and excavated over 8 years.  Comprehensive study of Tol-e Ājori, located 3 km west of the Persepolis Terrace, must be approached by taking into account former research on Pārsa. Like various scholars before us, we think that the Bāgh-e Fīrūzi area should be seen as a part of the city linked to the royal residence of Persepolis. Remains of Achaemenid occupation near the village of Fīrūzi have gradually been brought to light by archaeologists surveying the vicinity of the Terrace in the attempt to place it within the perspective of wider town planning.   The archaeological excavation results in this part of the city of Pārsa showed that in both historical and functionality sense, the discovered building in Tol-e Ājori in the area known as Bāgh-e Fīrūzi, can go back to the early phases or even before the construction of the Persepolis terrace. The Tol-e Ājori is one of the valuable archaeological finds that fills the gap in the formation of the city of Pārsa before Darius I. Paying attention to the glazed bricks and the figurative imagery of fantastical animals used in this building, the building in Tol-e Ājori goes back to before the construction of Āpādānā in Susa and Persepolis, and it resembles the Ishtar gate in Babylon at the beginning of the sixth century BC. In this regard, the comparison of the construction method; architectural trend; and analytical archaeological information with regards to the construction methods; and identification of the the materials used for glazed bricks from the three areas of Tol-e Ājori, Susa and Babylon will have a critical role in understanding the history and the cultural connections of this era in South-Western Iran. The Tol-e Ājori building and the surrounding structures are located 3.5 kilometres from Persepolis, and they highlight the importance of the cityscape in this part as the oldest urban area within Pārsa. This research is conducted for the first time after new archaeological discoveries by using multidisciplinary research studies of the joint Iranian-Italian archaeological teams in the Pārsa city of Persepolis , and within the framework of the cooperation agreement between University of Bologna, Archaeology Research Centre, cooperation of Cultural Heritage Organisation, Shiraz University, and Persepolis World Heritage site.