Persepolis literally meaning "city of Persians", was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire Persepolis is situated 70 km northeast of city of Shiraz in Fars Province in Iran. Archaeological evidence shows that the earliest remains of Persepolis date back to 515 BCE. André Godard, the French archaeologist who excavated Persepolis in the early 1930s, believed that it was Cyrus the Great (Kūrosh) who chose the site of Persepolis, but that it was Darius I (Daryush) who built the terrace and the great palaces.