ancient Behestūn
Town and historic site, western Iran.
On a limestone cliff above the present village is a bas-relief and series of inscriptions purportedly commissioned by the Achaemenian king Darius the Great (r. 522–486 BC); inscriptions in Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite record how Darius killed a usurper, defeated rebel forces, and assumed the throne. The inscriptions were first copied (1837–47) by Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810–95), an officer of the cuneiform writing .