Behistun Inscription Explained

Whs:Bistun
Location:Mount Behistun, Kermanshah Province, Iran
Criteria:Cultural: ii, iii
Id:1222
Year:2006
Area:187 ha
Buffer Zone:361 ha
Coordinates:34.3906°N 47.4358°W

The Behistun Inscription (also Bisotun, Bisitun or Bisutun; Persian: بیستون, Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the place of god") is a multilingual Achaemenid royal inscription and large rock relief on a cliff at Mount Behistun in the Kermanshah Province of Iran, near the city of Kermanshah in western Iran, established by Darius the Great .[1] It was important to the decipherment of cuneiform, as it is the longest known trilingual cuneiform inscription, written in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian (a variety of Akkadian).[2]

Authored by Darius the Great sometime between his coronation as king of the Persian Empire in the summer of 522 BC and his death in autumn of 486 BC, the inscription begins with a brief autobiography of Darius, including his ancestry and lineage. Later in the inscription, Darius provides a lengthy sequence of events following the death of Cambyses II in which he fought nineteen battles in a period of one year (ending in December 521 BC) to put down multiple rebellions throughout the Persian Empire. The inscription states in detail that the rebellions were orchestrated by several impostors and their co-conspirators in various cities throughout the empire, each of whom falsely proclaimed himself king during the upheaval following Cambyses II's death. Darius the Great proclaimed himself victorious in all battles during the period of upheaval, attributing his success to the "grace of Ahura Mazda".

The inscription is approximately high by wide and up a limestone cliff from an ancient road connecting the capitals of Babylonia and Media (Babylon and Ecbatana, respectively). The Old Persian text contains 414 lines in five columns; the Elamite text includes 260 lines in eight columns, and the Babylonian text is in 112 lines.[3] [4] A copy of the text in Aramaic, written during the reign of Darius II, was found in Egypt.[5] The inscription was illustrated by a life-sized bas-relief of Darius I, the Great, holding a bow as a sign of kingship, with his left foot on the chest of a figure lying supine before him. The supine figure is reputed to be the pretender Gaumata. Darius is attended to the left by two servants, and nine one-meter figures stand to the right, with hands tied and rope around their necks, representing conquered peoples. A Faravahar floats above, giving its blessing to the king. One figure appears to have been added after the others were completed, as was Darius's beard, which is a separate block of stone attached with iron pins and lead.

Name

The name Behistun is derived from usage in Ancient Greek and Arabic sources, particularly Diodorus Siculus and Ya'qubi, transliterated into English in the 19th century by Henry Rawlinson. The modern Persian version name is Bisotun.[6]

History

After the fall of the Persian Empire's Achaemenid Dynasty and its successors, and the lapse of Old Persian cuneiform writing into disuse, the nature of the inscription was forgotten, and fanciful explanations became the norm.

In 1598, Englishman Robert Sherley saw the inscription during a diplomatic mission to Safavid Persia on behalf of Austria, and brought it to the attention of Western European scholars. His party incorrectly came to the conclusion that it was Christian in origin.[7] French General Gardanne thought it showed "Christ and his twelve apostles", and Sir Robert Ker Porter thought it represented the Lost Tribes of Israel and Shalmaneser of Assyria.[8] In 1604, Italian explorer Pietro della Valle visited the inscription and made preliminary drawings of the monument.[9]

Translation efforts

See also: Decipherment of cuneiform.

German surveyor Carsten Niebuhr visited in around 1764 for Frederick V of Denmark, publishing a copy of the inscription in the account of his journeys in 1778.[10] Niebuhr's transcriptions were used by Georg Friedrich Grotefend and others in their efforts to decipher the Old Persian cuneiform script. Grotefend had deciphered ten of the 37 symbols of Old Persian by 1802, after realizing that unlike the Semitic cuneiform scripts, Old Persian text is alphabetic and each word is separated by a vertical slanted symbol.[11]

In 1835, Sir Henry Rawlinson, an officer of the British East India Company army assigned to the forces of the Shah of Iran, began studying the inscription in earnest. As the town of Bisotun's name was anglicized as "Behistun" at this time, the monument became known as the "Behistun Inscription". Despite its relative inaccessibility, Rawlinson was able to scale the cliff with the help of a local boy and copy the Old Persian inscription. The Elamite was across a chasm, and the Babylonian four meters above; both were beyond easy reach and were left for later. In 1847, he was able to send a full and accurate copy to Europe.[12]

Later research and activity

The site was visited by the American linguist A. V. Williams Jackson in 1903.[13] Later expeditions, in 1904 sponsored by the British Museum and led by Leonard William King and Reginald Campbell Thompson and in 1948 by George G. Cameron of the University of Michigan, obtained photographs, casts and more accurate transcriptions of the texts, including passages that were not copied by Rawlinson.[14] [15] [16] [17] It also became apparent that rainwater had dissolved some areas of the limestone in which the text was inscribed, while leaving new deposits of limestone over other areas, covering the text.

In 1938, the inscription became of interest to the Nazi German think tank Ahnenerbe, although research plans were cancelled due to the onset of World War II.

The monument later suffered some damage from Allied soldiers using it for target practice in World War II, and during the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.[18]

In 1999, Iranian archeologists began the documentation and assessment of damages to the site incurred during the 20th century. Malieh Mehdiabadi, who was project manager for the effort, described a photogrammetric process by which two-dimensional photos were taken of the inscriptions using two cameras and later transmuted into 3-D images.[19]

In recent years, Iranian archaeologists have been undertaking conservation works. The site became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006.[20]

In 2012, the Bisotun Cultural Heritage Center organized an international effort to re-examine the inscription.[21]

Content

Lineage

See also: Achaemenid family tree. In the first section of the inscription, Darius the Great declares his ancestry and lineage:

Territories

Darius also lists the territories under his rule:

Conflicts and revolts

Later in the inscription, Darius provides an eye-witness account of battles he successfully fought over a one-year period to put down rebellions which had resulted from the deaths of Cyrus the Great, and his son Cambyses II:

Other historical monuments in the Behistun complex

The site covers an area of 116 hectares. Archeological evidence indicates that this region became a human shelter 40,000 years ago. There are 18 historical monuments other than the inscription of Darius the Great in the Behistun complex that have been registered in the Iranian national list of historical sites. Some of them are:

Similar reliefs and inspiration

See main article: Anubanini rock relief. The Anubanini rock relief, also called Sarpol-i Zohab, of the Lullubi king Anubanini, dated to, and which is located not far from the Behistun reliefs at Sarpol-e Zahab, is very similar to the reliefs at Behistun. The attitude of the ruler, the trampling of an enemy, the lines of prisoners are all very similar, to such extent that it was said that the sculptors of the Behistun Inscription had probably seen the Anubanini relief beforehand and were inspired by it.[22] The Lullubian reliefs were the model for the Behistun reliefs of Darius the Great.[23]

The inscriptional tradition of the Achaemenids, starting especially with Darius I, is thought to have derived from the traditions of Elam, Lullubi, the Babylonians and the Assyrians.[24]

See also

References

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: The Arya in Iran.
  2. "Behistun Inscription is a cuneiform text in three ancient languages."Book: Bramwell, Neil D.. Ancient Persia. 1932. NJ Berkeley Heights. 6. 978-0-7660-5251-2 .
  3. Tavernier . Jan . A list of the Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions by language . Phoenix . 67 . 2 . 1–4 . 2021 . 0031-8329 . fr . 2023-03-25 . none. The rock inscription itself contains no less than 414 lines of Old Persian, 112 lines of Babylonian and 260 lines of Elamite (in an older and a younger version)..
  4. Web site: The Bīsitūn Inscription [CDLI Wiki] ]. cdli.ox.ac.uk . 2015-09-06 . 2023-03-25 . none . This tri-lingual inscription has 414 lines in Old Persian cuneiform, 260 in Elamite cuneiform, and 112 in Akkadian cuneiform (Bae: 2008) . 2023-03-25 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230325102656/https://cdli.ox.ac.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=bisitun_inscription . dead .
  5. Tavernier, Jan, "An Achaemenid Royal Inscription: The Text of Paragraph 13 of the Aramaic Version of the Bisitun Inscription", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 60, no. 3, pp. 161–76, 2001
  6. Book: King . L.W. . Thompson . R.C. . Budge . E.A.W. . The Sculptures and Inscription of Darius the Great: On the Rock of Behistûn in Persia . British museum . 1907 . xi. The name of the Rock is derived from that of the small village of Bîsitûn or Bîsutûn, which lies near its foot. The form of the name "Behistûn" is not used by the modern inhabitants of the country, although it is that by which the Rock is best known among European scholars. The name "Behistûn," more correctly "Bahistûn," was borrowed by the late Major-General Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, Bart., G.C. B., from the Arabic geographer Yakût, who mentions the village and its spring, and describes the Rock as being of great height, and refers to the sculptures upon it. The earliest known name of the Rock is that given by Diodorus Siculus, who calls it τό Βαγίστανον ορος, whence, no doubt, are derived the modern forms of the name..
  7. E. Denison Ross, The Broadway Travellers: Sir Anthony Sherley and his Persian Adventure, Routledge, 2004,
  8. https://archive.org/download/travelsingeorgia02port/travelsingeorgia02port.pdf
  9. Book: Kipfer, Barbara Ann. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology. Springer US. 2013. 9781475751338.
  10. Carsten Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung von Arabien und anderen umliegenden Ländern, 2 volumes, 1774 and 1778
  11. Web site: Old Persian . Ancient Scripts . 2010-04-23. https://web.archive.org/web/20100418053701/http://www.ancientscripts.com/oldpersian.html. 18 April 2010 . live.
  12. Book: Harari, Y.N. . Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind . HarperCollins . 2015 . 978-0-06-231610-3 . 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire.
  13. A. V. Williams Jackson, "The Great Behistun Rock and Some Results of a Re-Examination of the Old Persian Inscriptions on It", Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 24, pp. 77–95, 1903
  14. https://archive.org/download/sculpturesinscri00brituoft/sculpturesinscri00brituoft.pdf
  15. George G. Cameron, The Old Persian Text of the Bisitun Inscription, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 47–54, 1951
  16. George G. Cameron, The Elamite Version of the Bisitun Inscriptions, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 59–68, 1960
  17. W. C. Benedict and Elizabeth von Voigtlander, Darius' Bisitun Inscription, Babylonian Version, Lines 1–29, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1–10, 1956
  18. Web site: BEHISTUN Inscription - Persia . 2011-07-20 . 2012-02-03 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120203155912/http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php?topic=2799.5;wap2 . live .
  19. Web site: Documentation of Behistun Inscription Nearly Complete . Chnpress.com . 2010-04-23 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110918093441/http://www.chnpress.com/news/?section=2&id=2589 . 2011-09-18 .
  20. Web site: Iran's Bisotoon Historical Site Registered in World Heritage List . Payvand.com . 2006-07-13 . 2010-04-23 . 2018-12-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20181215122846/http://www.payvand.com/news/06/jul/1130.html . live .
  21. Web site: Intl. Experts to reread Bisotun inscriptions - Tehran Times . 2012-04-14 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120529044243/http://www.tehrantimes.com/arts-and-culture/98233-intl-experts-to-reread-bisotun-inscriptions . 2012-05-29 . Intl. experts to reread Bisotun inscriptions, Tehran Times, May 27, 2012
  22. Book: Potts . D. T. . The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State . 1999 . Cambridge University Press . 9780521564960 . 318 . en . 2019-03-15 . 2017-10-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20171012050532/https://books.google.com/books?id=mc4cfzkRVj4C . live .
  23. Book: Wiesehofer . Josef . Ancient Persia . 2001 . I.B.Tauris . 9781860646751 . 13 . en . 2019-03-17 . 2012-05-02 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120502163656/http://books.google.com/books?id=yFocMaM49SgC . live .
  24. Book: Eastmond . Antony . Viewing Inscriptions in the Late Antique and Medieval World . 2015 . Cambridge University Press . 9781107092419 . 14 . en . 2019-03-16 . 2020-05-18 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200518234133/https://books.google.com/books?id=5uJwBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA14 . live .

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