The palace area contains the remains of several structures: a gate building, an audience hall (Palace S), and a residential palace (Palace P). The buildings were set far apart in what was likely a lush royal garden — one of the earliest known examples of a formal Persian garden.
Little stands above foundation level, but the column bases and carved stone fragments give a sense of the scale. The most famous surviving relief — a four-winged guardian figure with an Egyptian-style crown — was carved on a doorjamb of the gate building. An inscription above it read "I, Cyrus the king, the Achaemenid" in three languages. The columns show Ionic Greek influence, evidence of the wide-ranging cultural contacts of the early Achaemenid court.