Behistun Inscription

High up on a rocky cliff in Iran, there are carved pictures of people.

Around them are rows and rows of tiny carved marks. These marks are a kind of writing called cuneiform.

The Behistun Inscription is carved on a limestone cliff at Bisotun, in Kermanshah province in western Iran, about 60 meters above the plain. It sits beside one of the main old routes between Persia and Mesopotamia.

It has two parts: a carved picture, called a relief, of the Persian king Darius I and other people, and about 1,200 lines of writing around it. The same text is written in three languages, Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian, using cuneiform, a script made of wedge-shaped marks.

UNESCO describes a multilingual inscription carved on a limestone cliff about 60 m above the plain, along one of the main routes linking Persia with Mesopotamia, illustrated by a life-sized bas-relief of Darius I and other figures. The site, inscribed in 2006, covers 187 ha and also holds remains from prehistoric, Median, Achaemenid, Sassanian and Ilkhanid times.

UNESCO gives the inscription as about 15 m high by 25 m wide, with about 1,200 lines; Encyclopaedia Iranica measures the written area at 7.80 m high and 22 m long. UNESCO calls it the only known monumental text of the Achaemenids to document a specific historic event, Darius's re-establishment of the empire, and the first cuneiform writing to be deciphered, in the 19th century.

In the picture, the king stands on the left. He holds a bow, which shows that he is the king.

In front of him stands a long line of men. The last man wears a tall, pointed hat.

In the relief, Darius holds a bow, which UNESCO says is a sign that he rules, and stands with one foot on a figure lying on his back, whom a caption names as Gaumata, a pretender to the throne. Before him stands a line of men roped together, rebels he defeated, each named by a short caption. The last one, in a tall pointed hat, is Skunkha, added later.

To copy the writing in the 1830s and 1840s, Henry Rawlinson had himself let down from the top of the cliff on ropes.

UNESCO describes Darius holding a bow 'as a sign of sovereignty' and treading on the chest of a figure lying on his back, and says this way of showing a king and his enemy follows relief traditions from ancient Egypt and the Middle East. Iranica says the figures in the line are rebels Darius defeated, pictured in the order of their overthrow, with Skunkha added at the end; short captions identify each one.

Henry C. Rawlinson studied the inscription in 1835–1837, 1844 and 1847, letting himself down by ropes from the clifftop; he published the Old Persian and Babylonian versions and passed his paper impressions of the Elamite to Edwin Norris. Iranica credits his copies with opening the way to deciphering Elamite and Babylonian writing and founding Assyriology.

In the photo, you can see the king and the line of men carved in pale stone.

Rows of writing cover the rock. Metal poles stand in front.

The photo shows the relief close up: the king on the left, the line of figures, and panels of cuneiform writing above and below them. Metal scaffolding stands in front of the lower rock face.

UNESCO's statement on the site says water seeping in behind the relief threatened the monument, and that emergency work needed to become a permanent solution. It says Iran's cultural heritage organization managed the site under a plan adopted in 2010.

The photo frames the relief panel with Darius and the figures behind him at the left, the line of roped figures with Skunkha's pointed hat at the right end, cuneiform panels on the dressed rock around them, and scaffolding along the foot of the face; the photo's record does not say what the scaffolding is for.

UNESCO's statement found the text and relief intact and readable despite some erosion, but threatened by water infiltration behind the bas-relief, and called for turning emergency measures into a permanent solution. It describes the property as state-owned and managed by the Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organization through its office at Bisotun, under a management plan adopted in 2010.