Behistun Inscription and Related Topics

Darius the Great

11 links

Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE.

Lineage of Darius the Great according to the Behistun Inscription.

Darius the Great, by Eugène Flandin (1840)

Ethnicities of the Achaemenid Army, on the tomb of Darius I. The nationalities mentioned in the DNa inscription are also depicted on the upper registers of all the tombs at Naqsh-e Rustam, starting with the tomb of Darius I. The ethnicities on the tomb of Darius further have trilingual labels on the lintel directly over them for identification, collectively known as the DNe inscription. One of the best preserved friezes, identical in content, is that of Xerxes I.

Map showing key sites during the Persian invasions of Greece

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

Reconstruction drawing of the Palace of Darius in Susa

The ruins of Tachara palace in Persepolis

thumb|upright|Egyptian statue of Darius I, as Pharaoh of the Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt;<ref>{{cite book |last1=Razmjou |first1=Shahrokh |title=Ars orientalis; the arts of Islam and the East |date=1954 |publisher=Freer Gallery of Art |pages=81–101 |url=https://archive.org/details/arsorient323320022003univ/page/n95/mode/2up}}</ref> 522–486 BC; greywacke; height: 2.46 m;<ref>{{cite book |last1=Manley|first1=Bill|title=Egyptian Art|year=2017|publisher=Thames & Hudson|pages=280|isbn=978-0-500-20428-3}}</ref> National Museum of Iran (Teheran)

Darius as Pharaoh of Egypt at the Temple of Hibis

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

He had the cliff-face Behistun Inscription carved at Mount Behistun to record his conquests, which would later become an important testimony of the Old Persian language.

Achaemenid Empire

9 links

Ancient Iranian empire based in Western Asia that was founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. It reached its greatest extent under Xerxes I, who conquered most of northern and central ancient Greece.

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

Map of the expansion process of Achaemenid territories

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Achaemenid gold ornaments, Brooklyn Museum

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

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

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

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.

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).

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.

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

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).

Cyrus the Great

7 links

Cyrus II of Persia (c.

The four-winged guardian figure representing Cyrus the Great or a four-winged Cherub tutelary deity. Bas-relief found on a doorway pillar at Pasargadae on top of which was once inscribed in three languages the sentence "I am Cyrus the king, an Achaemenian." Scholars who doubt that the relief depicts Cyrus note that the same inscription is written on other palaces in the complex.

"I am Cyrus the King, an Achaemenian" in Old Persian, Elamite and Akkadian languages. It is known as the "CMa inscription", carved in a column of Palace P in Pasargadae. These inscriptions on behalf of Cyrus were probably made later by Darius I in order to affirm his lineage, using the Old Persian script he had designed.

Painting of king Astyages sending Harpagus to kill young Cyrus

Detail of Cyrus Hunting Wild Boar by Claude Audran the Younger, Palace of Versailles

Victory of Cyrus over Lydia's Croesus at the Battle of Thymbra, 546 BC

Croesus on the pyre. Attic red-figure amphora, 500–490 BC, Louvre (G 197)

Ancient Near East circa 540 BC, prior to the invasion of Babylon by Cyrus the Great

Achaemenid soldiers (left) fighting against Scythians, 5th century BC. Cylinder seal impression (drawing).

Queen Tomyris of the Massagetae receiving the head of Cyrus

Tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadae, Iran, a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2015)

Cyrus the Great is said in the Bible to have liberated the Jews from the Babylonian captivity to resettle and rebuild Jerusalem, earning him an honored place in Judaism.

Cyrus the Great (center) with his General Harpagus behind him, as he receives the submission of Astyages (18th century tapestry)

Painting of Daniel and Cyrus before the Idol Bel

Statue of Cyrus the great at Olympic Park in Sydney

17th-century bust of Cyrus the Great in Hamburg, Germany

The Cyrus cylinder, a contemporary cuneiform script proclaiming Cyrus as legitimate king of Babylon

The traditional view based on archaeological research and the genealogy given in the Behistun Inscription and by Herodotus holds that Cyrus the Great was an Achaemenid.

Old Persian

5 links

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).

Elamite language

4 links

Extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites.

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

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

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

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.

Magi

4 links

Magi (singular magus ; from Latin magus, cf.

Byzantine depiction of the Three Magi in a 6th-century mosaic at Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo.

Conventional post-12th century depiction of the Biblical magi (Adoração dos Magos by Vicente Gil). Balthasar, the youngest magus, bears frankincense and represents Africa. To the left stands Caspar, middle-aged, bearing gold and representing Asia. On his knees is Melchior, oldest, bearing myrrh and representing Europe.

Brihat Samhita of Varahamihira, 1279 CE palm leaf manuscript, Pratima lakshana, Sanskrit

Chinese Bronzeware script for wu 巫 "shaman".

The earliest known use of the word magi is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great, known as the Behistun Inscription.

Cuneiform

5 links

Logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East.

Tablet with proto-cuneiform pictographic characters (end of 4th millennium BC), Uruk III. This is thought to be a list of slaves' names, the hand in the upper left corner representing the owner.

The Kish tablet, a limestone tablet from Kish with pictographic, early cuneiform, writing, 3500 BC. Possibly the earliest known example of writing. Ashmolean Museum.

Early pictographic signs in archaic cuneiform (used vertically before c.2300 BC).

Sumerian inscription in monumental archaic style, c. 26th century BC

Contract for the sale of a field and a house in the wedge-shaped cuneiform adapted for clay tablets, Shuruppak, circa 2600 BC.

Cuneiform inscriptions recorded by Jean Chardin in Persepolis in 1674 (1711 edition)

Hypothesis for the sentence structure of Persepolitan inscriptions, by Grotefend (1815).

Relying on deductions only, and without knowing the actual script or language, Grotefend obtained a near-perfect translation of the Xerxes inscription (Niebuhr inscription 2): "Xerxes the strong King, King of Kings, son of Darius the King, ruler of the world" ("Xerxes Rex fortis, Rex regum, Darii Regis Filius, orbis rector", right column). The modern translation is: "Xerxes the Great King, King of Kings, son of Darius the King, an Achaemenian".

The quadrilingual hieroglyph-cuneiform "Caylus vase" in the name of Xerxes I confirmed the decipherment of Grotefend once Champollion was able to read Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Once Old Persian had been fully deciphered, the trilingual Behistun Inscription permitted the decipherment of two other cuneiform scripts: Elamite and Babylonian.

The first known Sumerian-Akkadian bilingual tablet dates from the reign of Rimush. Louvre Museum AO 5477. The top column is in Sumerian, the bottom column is its translation in Akkadian.

Extract from the Cyrus Cylinder (lines 15–21), giving the genealogy of Cyrus the Great and an account of his capture of Babylon in 539 BC

Cuneiform sign "EN", for "Lord" or "Master": evolution from the pictograph of a throne circa 3000 BC, followed by simplification and rotation down to circa 600 BC.

Sumerian was the last and most ancient language to be deciphered. Sale of a number of fields, probably from Isin, c. 2600 BC.

Pre-cuneiform tablet, end of the 4th millennium BC.

Proto-cuneiform tablet, Jemdet Nasr period, c. 3100–2900 BC.

Proto-cuneiform tablet, Jemdet Nasr period, c. 3100–2900 BC. A dog on a leash is visible in the background of the lower panel.<ref>{{cite web|title=Proto-cuneiform tablet|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/329081|website=www.metmuseum.org}}</ref>

The Blau Monuments combine proto-cuneiform characters and illustrations, 3100–2700 BC. British Museum.

The Rassam cylinder with translation of a segment about the Assyrian conquest of Egypt by Ashurbanipal against "Black Pharaoh" Taharqa, 643 BC

thumb|Niebuhr inscription 1, with the suggested words for "King" ({{Script|Xpeo|𐎧𐏁𐎠𐎹𐎰𐎡𐎹}}) highlighted. Inscription now known to mean "Darius the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, who built this Palace".<ref name="BAS129">{{cite book |last1=André-Salvini |first1=Béatrice |title=Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia |date=2005 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-24731-4 |page=129 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kJnaKu9DdNEC&pg=PA129 |language=en}}</ref>

thumb|Niebuhr inscription 2, with the suggested words for "King" ({{Script|Xpeo|𐎧𐏁𐎠𐎹𐎰𐎡𐎹}}) highlighted. Inscription now known to mean "Xerxes the Great King, King of Kings, son of Darius the King, an Achaemenian".

The most famous Elamite scriptures and the ones that ultimately led to its decipherment are the ones found in the trilingual Behistun inscriptions, commissioned by the Achaemenid kings.

Ahura Mazda

3 links

Creator deity in Zoroastrianism.

The Behistun Inscription contains many references to Ahura Mazda.

Stater of Tiribazos, Satrap of Lydia, c. 380 BC showing Ahura Mazda

Ahura Mazda (on the right, with high crown) presents Ardashir I (left) with the ring of kingship. (Naqsh-e Rustam, 3rd century CE)

Investiture scene: Anahita on the left as the patron yazata of the Sassanian dynasty behind Emperor Khosrau Parviz with Ahura Mazda presenting the diadem of sovereignty on the right. Taq-e Bostan, Iran.

Kushan coinage of Huvishka with Ahuramazda on the reverse (Greek legend ωΡΟΜ, Orom[zdo]). 150–180 CE.

Coin of Hormizd I Kushanshah (277-286 CE). Pahlavi inscription: "The Mazda worshipper, the divine Hormizd the great Kushan king of kings"/ Pahlavi inscription: "Exalted god, Hormizd the great Kushan king of kings", Hormizd standing right, holding investiture wreath over altar and raising left hand in benedictional gesture to Anahita holding investiture wreath and sceptre. Merv mint.

550–330 BC) with the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great.

Bardiya

4 links

Son of Cyrus the Great and the younger brother of Cambyses II, both Persian kings.

Gaumata under Darius I's boot engraved at Behistun Inscription in Kermanshah.

Phaedyme is sent by her father Otanes, to check if King Smerdis has ears under his turban, as the suspected imposter was known to have had them cut off in punishment for a crime. She found that indeed the king did not have ears anymore, which proved that he was an imposter, and justified the coup in favour of Darius I.

"The struggle between Gobryas and the false Smerdis", 19th century print.

Bardiya / Smerdis in relation to his successor Darius the Great in the Achaemenid lineage.

In Darius the Great's Behistun inscription, his Persian name is Bardiya or Bardia.

An 8th century Tang dynasty Chinese clay figurine of a Sogdian man wearing a distinctive cap and face veil, possibly a camel rider or even a Zoroastrian priest engaging in a ritual at a fire temple, since face veils were used to avoid contaminating the holy fire with breath or saliva; Museum of Oriental Art (Turin), Italy.

Zoroastrianism

5 links

Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster .

Painted clay and alabaster head of a Zoroastrian priest wearing a distinctive Bactrian-style headdress, Takhti-Sangin, Tajikistan, Greco-Bactrian kingdom, 3rd–2nd century BCE

The Tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae, Iran.

A scene from the Hamzanama where Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib Burns Zarthust's Chest and Shatters the Urn with his Ashes

A Special Container Carrying The Holy Fire from Aden to the Lonavala Agiary, India

A modern Zoroastrian fire temple in Western India

Map of the Achaemenid Empire in the 5th century BCE

Reconstruction of the Sassanid model of Fire Temple of Kashmar is located near the historical complex of Atashgah Castle

Faravahar (or Ferohar), one of the primary symbols of Zoroastrianism, believed to be the depiction of a Fravashi or the Khvarenah.

The sacred Zoroastrian pilgrimage shrine of Chak Chak in Yazd, Iran.

Parsi Navjote ceremony (rites of admission into the Zoroastrian faith)

Darius I and later Achaemenid emperors acknowledged their devotion to Ahura Mazda in inscriptions, as attested to several times in the Behistun inscription, and appear to have continued the model of coexistence with other religions.

A report on Behistun Inscription

29 related topics with Alpha

Darius the Great

Achaemenid Empire

Cyrus the Great

Old Persian

Elamite language

Magi

Cuneiform

Ahura Mazda

Bardiya

Zoroastrianism