TEHRAN (IRNA) - The newly discovered gateway to the city of Parse at Persepolis, located in Iran’s Fars Province near Shiraz, will be turned into a museum, the Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism (RICHT) said.
The site will soon be turned into a museum allowing all tourists to visit the historical site, the RICHT Public Relations Office quoted head of the archeological exploration team Alireza Askari as saying on Saturday,
According to Askari, Iran Cultural Heritage Organization intends, by launching such a museum site, to promote tourism in the area.
"The city of Parse at Persepolis is an expanded area of the ruins around Persepolis which was a city in the Achaemenid era,” he said.
The city is composed of several sections, the main part of which was the imperial citadel with the same modern royal seat of Persepolis, Askari added.
According to the archeologist, the gateway is a unique venue with the same size of the gateway of Babylon during the rule of Cyrus the Great.
The unique and common style of the two gateways of Parse and Babylon in the Achaemenid era is indicative of the cultural link between Parse and Babylon, the head of the archeological exploration team said.
Babylon, the most important city of ancient Mesopotamia, is located south of modern Iraq.
During three millennia, especially during the Acheamenid era, it was the most important religious city in Mesopotamia, Askari added.
The chronology of the new gateway and the initial texture of the city of Parse at Persepolis indicate that the gateway was built as a reminder of the conquest of Babylon, he said.