The Behistun Rock

Discovery of the Behistun Rock

The discovery and copying of the inscription. Shortly before the middle of the nineteenth century, when archaeologists were beginning to uncover ancient Assyrian palaces and many inscriptions were made available to scholars in the old cuneiform language of Babylonia and Assyria, it was providential that an important discovery led to the deciphe...

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Deciphering the Inscription on the Behistun Rock

Deciphering the inscription. Rawlinson found that it was actually a threefold inscription, like the Rosetta Stone. The one language was old Persian, the second was Median, and the third, Babylonian. Rawlinson began a long and earnest attempt in solve the riddle of the unknown Babylonian language. His knowledge of modern Persian was a great help...

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Further Expeditions to Analyze the Behistun Rock

Perfecting the text of the inscription. The text of King Darius` mountainside writing has been perfected by several more recent efforts to climb the precipitous cliffs. In 1903 Professor A. V. Williams Jackson, of Columbia University, climbed the rock to check the passages that were in doubt by scholars, and he for the first time took pictures ...

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Some Bibliographic Resources for the Behistun Rock

Ira M. Price, The Monuments and the Old Testament, ed. 1925, pp. 15-17; J. A. Hammerton, ed., The Wonders of the Past, ed. 1937, pp. 250, 251. George G. Cameron, "Darius Carved History on Ageless Rock," The National Geographic Magazine, Dec. 1950, pp. 825-844....

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