A report on Behistun Inscription, Achaemenid Empire and Elamite language

Punishment of captured impostors and conspirators: Gaumāta lies under the boot of Darius the Great; the last person in line, wearing a traditional Scythian hat and costume, is identified as Skunxa. His image was added after the inscription was completed, requiring some of the text to be removed.

The Achaemenid Empire at its greatest territorial extent under the rule of Darius I (522 BC–486 BC)

Linear Elamite inscription of king Puzur-Inshushinak Puzur-Shushinak.jpg, in the "Table du Lion", Louvre Museum Sb 17.

Column 1 (DB I 1–15), sketch by Friedrich von Spiegel (1881).

Inscription of Shutruk-Nahhunte in Elamite cuneiform, circa 1150 BC, on the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin.

Papyrus with an Aramaic translation of the Behistun inscription's text.

Inscription in Elamite, in the Xerxes I inscription at Van, 5th century BCE

Close-up of the inscription showing damage

Map of the expansion process of Achaemenid territories

Seal of Darius the Great hunting in a chariot, reading "I am Darius, the Great King" in Old Persian (𐎠𐎭𐎶𐏐𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁𐎴 𐏋, "adam Dārayavaʰuš xšāyaθiya"), as well as in Elamite and Babylonian. The word 'great' only appears in Babylonian. British Museum.

Lineage of Darius the Great according to the Behistun inscription.

Cyrus the Great is said, in the Bible, to have liberated the Hebrew captives in Babylon to resettle and rebuild Jerusalem, earning him an honored place in Judaism.

Achaemenid empire at its greatest extent

The tomb of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Empire. At Pasargadae, Iran.

The Anubanini rock relief, dated to 2300 BC, and made by the pre-Iranian Lullubi ruler Anubanini, is very similar in content to the Behistun reliefs (woodprint).

The Achaemenid Empire at its greatest extent, c. 500 BC

<center>Relief of Âššina {{circa|519 BC}}: "This is Âššina. He lied, saying "I am king of Elam.""<ref name=DB>{{cite book|title=Behistun, minor inscriptions DBb inscription- Livius|url=https://www.livius.org/sources/content/behistun-persian-text/behistun-minor-inscriptions/|access-date=2020-03-26|archive-date=2020-03-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200310112440/https://www.livius.org/sources/content/behistun-persian-text/behistun-minor-inscriptions/|url-status=live}}</ref></center>

The Persian queen Atossa, daughter of Cyrus the Great, sister-wife of Cambyses II, Darius the Great's wife, and mother of Xerxes the Great

<center>Relief of Nidintu-Bêl: "This is Nidintu-Bêl. He lied, saying "I am Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabonidus. I am king of Babylon."" </center>

Map showing events of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars

Relief of Tritantaechmes: "This is Tritantaechmes. He lied, saying "I am king of Sagartia, from the family of Cyaxares.""

Greek hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient kylix, 5th century BC

Relief of Arakha: "This is Arakha. He lied, saying: "I am Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabonidus. I am king in Babylon.""

Achaemenid king fighting hoplites, seal and seal holder, Cimmerian Bosporus.

Relief of Frâda: "This is Frâda. He lied, saying "I am king of Margiana.""

Achaemenid gold ornaments, Brooklyn Museum

Behistun relief of Skunkha. Label: "This is Skunkha the Sacan."

Persian Empire timeline including important events and territorial evolution – 550–323 BC

Relief showing Darius I offering lettuces to the Egyptian deity Amun-Ra Kamutef, Temple of Hibis

Herakles at Behistun, sculpted for a Seleucis Governor in 148 BC.

The 24 countries subject to the Achaemenid Empire at the time of Darius, on the Egyptian statue of Darius I.

Bas relief of Mithridates II of Parthia and bas relief of Gotarzes II of Parthia and Sheikh Ali khan Zangeneh text endowment

The Battle of Issus, between Alexander the Great on horseback to the left, and Darius III in the chariot to the right, represented in a Pompeii mosaic dated 1st century BC – Naples National Archaeological Museum

Damaged equestrian relief of Gotarzes II at Behistun

Alexander's first victory over Darius, the Persian king depicted in medieval European style in the 15th century romance The History of Alexander's Battles

Frataraka dynasty ruler Vadfradad I (Autophradates I). 3rd century BC. Istakhr (Persepolis) mint.

Cuneiform carving in Kermanshah in 520 BC

Dārēv I (Darios I) used for the first time the title of mlk (King). 2nd century BC.

Winged sphinx from the Palace of Darius in Susa, Louvre

Volume of annual tribute per district, in the Achaemenid Empire, according to Herodotus.

Achaemenid tax collector, calculating on an Abax or Abacus, according to the Darius Vase (340–320 BC).

Letter from the Satrap of Bactria to the governor of Khulmi, concerning camel keepers, 353 BC

Relief of throne-bearing soldiers in their native clothing at the tomb of Xerxes I, demonstrating the satrapies under his rule.

Achaemenid king killing a Greek hoplite. c. 500 BC–475 BC, at the time of Xerxes I. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Persian soldiers (left) fighting against Scythians. Cylinder seal impression.

Color reconstruction of Achaemenid infantry on the Alexander Sarcophagus (end of 4th century BC).

Achaemenid calvalryman in the satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia, Altıkulaç Sarcophagus, early 4th century BC.

Armoured cavalry: Achaemenid Dynast of Hellespontine Phrygia attacking a Greek psiloi, Altıkulaç Sarcophagus, early 4th century BC.

Reconstitution of Persian landing ships at the Battle of Marathon.

Greek ships against Achaemenid ships at the Battle of Salamis.

Iconic relief of lion and bull fighting, Apadana of Persepolis

Achaemenid golden bowl with lioness imagery of Mazandaran

A section of the Old Persian part of the trilingual Behistun inscription. Other versions are in Babylonian and Elamite.

A copy of the Behistun inscription in Aramaic on a papyrus. Aramaic was the lingua franca of the empire.

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven wonders of the ancient world, was built by Greek architects for the local Persian satrap of Caria, Mausolus (Scale model)

Reconstruction of the Palace of Darius at Susa. The palace served as a model for Persepolis.

Lion on a decorative panel from Darius I the Great's palace, Louvre

Apadana Hall, Persian and Median soldiers at Persepolis

Lateral view of tomb of Cambyses II, Pasargadae, Iran

Plaque with horned lion-griffins. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

522 – 486)), the third ruler of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.

- Behistun Inscription

The inscription was crucial to the decipherment of cuneiform as it includes three versions of the same text written in different cuneiform-based languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and the Babylonian variety of Akkadian.

- Behistun Inscription

A sizeable number of Elamite lexemes are known from the trilingual Behistun inscription and numerous other bilingual or trilingual inscriptions of the Achaemenid Empire, in which Elamite was written using Elamite cuneiform (circa 400 BCE), which is fully deciphered.

- Elamite language

According to the Cyrus Cylinder (the oldest extant genealogy of the Achaemenids) the kings of Anshan were Teispes, Cyrus I, Cambyses I and Cyrus II, also known as Cyrus the Great, who created the empire (the later Behistun Inscription, written by Darius the Great, claims that Teispes was the son of Achaemenes and that Darius is also descended from Teispes through a different line, but no earlier texts mention Achaemenes).

- Achaemenid Empire

It was during his reign that Elamite ceased to be the language of government, and Aramaic gained in importance.

- Achaemenid Empire

1 related topic with Alpha

Old Persian

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One of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire).

An Old Persian inscription in Persepolis

Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran, Romania (Gherla), Armenia, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt, with the most important attestation by far being the contents of the Behistun Inscription (dated to 525 BCE).

As a written language, Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions.

The phoneme /r/ can also form a syllable peak; both the way Persian names with syllabic /r/ (such as Brdiya) are rendered in Elamite and its further development in Middle Persian suggest that before the syllabic /r/, an epenthetic vowel [i] had developed already in the Old Persian period, which later became [u] after labials.