TEHRAN -- Two column bases of an Achaemenid palace, which have recently been exposed at the perimeter of the Elamite capital of Susa, have been destroyed.

The column bases had previously been damaged by the activity of drug traffickers and beggars, who set fires at the site, the Persian service of CHN reported on Wednesday.
“The new damage seems to be caused by junkies and beggars,” Shush Cultural Heritage Center (SCHC) Director Mohammadreza Chitsaz said.
However, he said that it is not exactly clear that people have destroyed the column bases or they have been damaged due to their own weakness!
A part of a fence surrounding the site has been removed by drug traffickers and beggars over the past few years. However, the walls were not high enough to guard the site in and of themselves, and moreover, no guard was assigned to protect the site.
The SCHC plans to rebuild the fences and restore the column bases of the palace.
The palace, known as the Shaur Palace, was built during the reign of King Artaxerxes II (circa 404–359 BC).
Ruins of the palace were discovered by a farmer plowing a field west of the river Shaour in 1970.
A cuneiform inscription was also discovered at the site, reading “By the grace of Ahura Mazda, I built this palace, which I have built in my lifetime as a pleasant retreat
[paradise]. May Ahuramazda, Anahita, and Mithra protect me and my building against evil.”
In January 2008, the column bases of Susa’s Apadana Palace were destroyed by vandals.
Located in Khuzestan Province, Susa (the Biblical city of Shushan, now the modern city of Shush) was an ancient city in the Elamite, Persian, and Parthian empires of Iran.
It is one of the oldest known settlements in the region, probably founded around 4000 BC, though the first traces of an inhabited village there date back to 7000 BC.