BISITUN

also spelled Bisotun, historically Behistun village and precipitous rock situated at the foot of the Zagros Mountains in the Kermanshah region of Iran. In ancient times Bisitun was on the old road from Ecbatana, capital of ancient Media, to Babylon, and it was on that scarp that the Achaemenid king Darius I the Great (reigned 522486 BC) placed his famous trilingual inscription, the decipherment of which provided an important key for the study of the cuneiform script. The inscription and the accompanying bas-relief were carved in a difficult, though not inaccessible, rock face. Written in Babylonian, Old Persian, and Elamite, the inscription records the way in which Darius, after the death of Cambyses II (reigned 529522 BC), killed the usurper Gaumata, defeated the rebels, and assumed the throne. The organization of the Persian territories into satrapies or provinces is also recorded. The inscriptions were first reached and copied (183547) by Henry Rawlinson, an officer in the East India Company working in Persia. Rawlinson published his findings in 1849 and virtually accomplished the task of deciphering the Old Persian cuneiform texts. Largely because of Rawlinson's success with the Old Persian text, the Babylonian and Elamite versions were also soon translated. Later efforts at Bisitun by various archaeological groups have clarified some of Rawlinson's readings, more accurately measured gaps in the text, and helped to determine when the events took place (c. autumn 522spring 520 BC).