 |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Select > Who • What • When • Where • Which |
| |
|
|
|
|
| Timeline |
|
 |
|
Item |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Behistun Inscription, Darius I > 
The Behistun Inscription is to cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone is to Egyptian hieroglyphs: the document most crucial in the decipherment of a previously lost script. It is located in the Kermanshah Province of Iran. The inscription includes three versions of the same text, written in three different cuneiform script languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian.
A British army officer, Sir Henry Rawlinson, had the inscription transcribed in two parts, in 1835 and 1843. Rawlinson was able to translate the Old Persian cuneiform text in 1838, and the Elamite and Babylonian texts were translated by Rawlinson and others after 1843. Babylonian was a later form of Akkadian: both are Semitic languages.
The inscription
The text of the inscription is a statement by Darius I of Persia, written three times in three different scripts and languages: two languages side by side, Old Persian and Elamite, and Babylonian above them. Darius ruled the Persian Empire from 521 to 486 BC. Some time around 515 BC, he arranged for the inscription of a long tale of his accession in the face of the usurper Smerdis of Persia (and Darius' subsequent successful wars and suppressions of rebellion) to be inscribed into a cliff near the modern town of Bisistun, in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains of Iran, just as one reaches them from the Kermanshah Plain.
|
| |
|
|
|
More on this Website >
• http://www.crystalinks.com/cyrustablets.html
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Darius The Great, King of Persia
Darius I: king of ancient Persia, whose reign lasted from 522 to 486. He seized power after killing king Gaumâta, fought a civil war (described in the Behistun inscriptio... |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Rosetta Stone, Found in 1799
The Rosetta Stone, a black basalt slab bearing an inscription that was the key to the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics and thus to the foundation of modern Egyptolog... |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Henry Rawlinson, Deciphered Cuneiform
Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet GCB was an English soldier, diplomat and orientalist. He is sometimes referred to as the "Father of Assyriology." Knowledge of... |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
 |
|
|
|