Behistun Inscription

The Behistun Inscription is a multilingual rock relief carved c. 520 BC on a cliff face 100 m above an ancient road at Mount Behistun in Kermanshah Province, Iran, commissioned by Darius I the Great. Measuring 25 m long and 15 m high, it records the king's victory over rebel satraps in three cuneiform scripts -- Old Persian (414 lines), Elamite (593 lines), and Akkadian (112 lines) -- alongside a relief showing Darius trampling a defeated king before nine bound captives. Sir Henry Rawlinson copied the texts in 1835-1843, making it the key to deciphering cuneiform, much as the Rosetta Stone unlocked Egyptian hieroglyphs. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006.