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MATT WATERS

University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire

The trilingual Bisitun Inscription is the victory MONUMENT of DARIUS I, inscribed c. 520 BCE around a central relief showing the king triumphant over ten rivals. It is the longest, narrative Old Persian inscription extant. It also served as a template for ACHAEMENID royal ideology. In addition, the Bisitun Inscription is the foundation text for the modern discipline of Assyriology; it provided the key to the decipherment of the Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian cuneiform scripts (see esp. Wiesehöfer 2001, 223–42).

Mt. Bisitun (Behistun, Bisotun, etc.—spelling varies) is on the main east‐west road through Media across northwestern Iran, roughly halfway between modern Kermanshah and Hamadan (ancient ECBATANA). Darius commissioned a relief approximately 200 feet above the road that pictured himself triumphant over nine rebels, with a tenth added subsequently. Behind the king are two unidentified retainers, and Ahuramazda as the winged disk hovers above the scene (Trümpelmann 1967; Luschey 1968; Root 1979 and 2013; Feldman 2007). The inscription is recorded in three languages around the relief: Elamite (Grillot‐Susini, Herrenschmidt, and Malbran‐Labat 1993; Vallat 2013), Babylonian Akkadian (Voightlander 1978), and Old Persian (Kent 1953, 116–34; Schmitt 1991; Kuhrt 2007, 140–58; note also Lecoq 1997, 187–217 and Bae 2001), each in a distinct cuneiform script. The organization of INSCRIPTIONS around the relief figures suggests that the Elamite version was inscribed first, then the Akkadian, and the Old Persian added subsequently. A fifth column of additional text chronicling campaigns of Darius’ second and third years (DB §§75–76) was added later in Old Persian only, along with an additional figure, the Scythian Skunkha. This resulted in defacement of part of the first Elamite version, so a second copy of the entire Elamite version was inscribed to the lower left of the relief. The Akkadian version is to the direct left of the relief, and the Old Persian version underneath the relief. Captions in all three languages identify the rebel kings, but not the retainers behind Darius.

Figure 9 The multi‐lingual inscription carved into Mount Bisitun, comprising the same text repeated in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian, records the military victories of Darius I (c. 550–486 BCE) and proclaims the legitimacy of his kingship. BLP1220398. http://www.artres.com/C.aspx?VP3=ViewBox_VPage&VBID=2UN365CWOND6P&IT=ZoomImageTemplate01_VForm&IID=2UNTWAG9I6VK&PN=1&CT=Search&SF=0.

Photo © Zev Radovan / Bridgeman Images.

Figure 10 Detailed drawing of the relief at Bisitun, labeling the captions which identify the figures, in Old Persian (Per.), Akkadian (Bab.), and Elamite (Sus.). From L. W. King and R. Campbell Thompson, Sculptures and Inscriptions of Darius the Great, on the Rock of Behistûn in Persia (London, 1907), Plate XIII. Public Domain.

Darius claimed that copies of the inscription were disseminated throughout the empire (DB §70). This claim is substantiated by a fragmentary copy, with abbreviated relief sequence, found at BABYLON (Seidl 1999) and by a later copy in Aramaic found at ELEPHANTINE in southern EGYPT (Greenfield and Porten 1982). Further, despite significant departures, it is clear that Herodotus, CTESIAS, and other classical writers followed, at least in outline, Darius’ official version of his succession.

The bulk of the Bisitun Inscription relates the victories of Darius and his lieutenants over the numerous rebel kings who challenged him in PERSIA (Parsa) itself, Elam, Babylonia, Media, and other points in northern and eastern Iran. Rebels were cast as impelled by the Lie (Old Persian drauga), and most of them claimed descent from prominent figures among their predecessors; for example, two Babylonian rebels claimed to be descended from the famous Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylonia in the early sixth century (Zawadzki 1994; Lorenz 2008). Each of the rebel ARMIES was defeated, and the rebel kings hunted down and impaled. The Akkadian and Aramaic versions of the Bisitun Inscription give casualty figures for many of these battles, but there is no check on the veracity of these NUMBERS, which run from the hundreds to the (potentially) tens of thousands (see Briant 2002, 118–19; Hyland 2014).

SEE ALSO: Cambyses (II); Magi; Medes; Near Eastern History; Rawlinson, Henry and George; Rebellion; Smerdis; Sources for Herodotus