Bistun (Behistun) Inscription

The Behistun Inscription (also Bisitun, Bistun or Bisutun, Modern Persian: ÃˆÃÃ"ÃŠÃ"Ã¤ ; Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the god's place or land") is located in the Kermanshah Province of Iran... The inscription includes three versions of the same text, written in three different cuneiform script languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian. A British army officer, Henry Rawlinson, had the inscription transcribed in two parts, in 1835 and 1843. The text of the inscription is a statement by "Darius I" the great of Persia, written three times in three different scripts and languages: two languages side by side, Old Persian and Elamite, and Babylonian above them. Some time around 515 BC, he arranged for the inscription of a long tale of his accession in the face of the usurper Smerdis of Persia (and Darius' subsequent successful wars and suppressions of rebellion) to be inscribed into a cliff near the modern town of Bisistun, in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains of Iran.