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LONDON, (CAIS) -- For the third time in the past few months, part of the Achaemenid Persepolis palace complex is destroyed by film crews.

While shooting a feature movie at Tachara Palace belonging to the Achaemenid emperor Darius the Great (549-486 BCE), the crew poured a red liquid on the stone pavements of the palace’s southeastern courtyard to make special effects. Smoke was also added to the effects shots which further destroyed the courtyard. Since the substance was made of chemicals, it is said that removing it would be a hard task.

The movie is directed by the renowned Iranian movie director Tahmineh Milani who obtained permission for shooting her movie at Persepolis from Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) and its provincial department in Fars. She started her work at Persepolis with a team of 20 people and a dozen children. Ironically, the children who were to play in the movie cautioned Milani about spraying paint on the floor, but according to an eyewitness, they were treated “unpleasantly” in return.

Following the incident, authorities of Persepolis and a number of cultural heritage experts went to the scene and voiced their objections to the destructions caused, but they, too, were ignored by Milani.

The area has now been surrounded by security guards to prevent further destruction to the palace.

This is the third time in the past few months that the Palace of Persepolis, considered part of world’s heritage, is being destroyed by filming groups after part of King Xerxes Palace at Persepolis was destroyed by fire caused by one group, followed by a more disastrous event last December when a film crew was arrested for trying to steal two bas-reliefs on the walls of a palace denoted to Artaxerxes (465-425 BCE), grandson of Darius the Great, extensively damaging head of an Achaemenid soldier and causing much harm to another bas-relief depicting a representative from an Achaemenid subject nation bringing gift to the court of King of Kings. The same team had also left stains of fake blood on the floor and walls of King Artaxerxes Palace which were removed following a painstaking renovation operation by experts.

This is while Iranian cultural heritage experts have repeatedly asked ICHTO to stop issuing permits for filming at Persepolis to prevent repetition of such tragedies, but all warnings and requested have been ignored.

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