With an extravagant hall measuring almost 70m square and supported by 100 stone columns, the Palace of 100 Columns was the second-largest building at Persepolis, built during the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes I. Some scholars believe it was used to receive the military elite upon whom the empire’s security rested. An impressive array of broken columns remains, and reliefs on the doorjambs at the back (south) of the building show a king, soldiers and representatives of 28 subject nations. Little remains of the Hall of 32 Columns in front of it, built at the end of the Achaemenid period. The arrival of Alexander and his armies stopped work on a larger version of the Gate of All Nations, in the wide courtyard in front of the Palace of 100 Columns, where the Unfinished Gate now is.
