The monumental art and architecture of the Achaemenid period are best exemplified by the ruins of Persepolis, the large ceremonial capital of the empire originally built by Darius I (r. 521–486 B.C.) and expanded by his successors. Persepolis is located thirty miles northwest of Shiraz in the southwest Iranian province of Fars. There, the Hall of One Hundred Columns and the Throne Room of Darius and Xerxes exhibit features characteristic of Achaemenid architecture—large square rooms, the ceilings of which are supported by many columns. Some of the columns in the Throne Room have been reconstructed and stand more than sixty-five feet high. The column capitals were decorated with the foreparts of bulls, lions, and griffins carved in the round.

Most characteristic of Achaemenid sculpture are the slabs carved in low relief that decorate the various stairways leading to the ceremonial buildings. Representations of hundreds of alternating Persian and Median servants bringing food and drink for a royal feast are on the walls of several palace stairways at Persepolis. This relief fragment depicts a Persian mounting a stairway and holding a heavy water- or wineskin on a tray. Ahead of him on the top step is an armed Median holding a covered vessel. The form of the skin container and the size and style of the figures suggest that the relief derives from the time of Artaxerxes III (r. 358–338 B.C.) and adorned either the restored Palace of Darius or that called Palace H.

1933, bought by Joseph Brummer from E. Sassoon, Paris; acquired by the Museum in 1934, purchased from Joseph Brummer.

Dimand, Maurice S. 1935 "A Persian Relief from Persepolis." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 30 (4), pp. 75-77.

Crawford, Vaughn E. et al. 1966. Guide to the Ancient Near East Collection. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 32, fig. 49.

Nickel, Helmut. 1973. "About the Sword of the Huns and the 'Urepos' of the Steppes." Metropolitan Museum Journal 7, pp. 135-136, fig. 12.

Forsyth, William H. 1974. "Acquisitions from the Brummer Gallery." In The Grand Gallery at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 3.

Hibbard, Howard. 1980. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Harper and Row, p. 63, fig. 125.

Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1983. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide, edited by Kathleen Howard. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 49, fig. 9.

Harper, Prudence O. et al. 1983. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Selections from the Collection of the Ancient Near East Department, exh. cat. Tokyo: Chunichi Shimbun, no. 86.

Harper, Prudence O. et al. 1984. "Ancient Near Eastern Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 41 (4), Spring 1984, p. 50, fig. 68.