Registration Of Bisotun
47 26 '12 "East / 34.388333, 47.436667
Iran Identification
** UNESCO Geographical Classification
The inscription of Bisotun (or or is a monumental inscription describing the conquests of Darius I in three languages: Old Persian , the Elamite and Akkadian. The text is carved in a cliff of Mount Bisotun in the Kermanshah province of Iran today. It was deciphered by Henry Rawlinson from 1835. She is writing cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone is to Egyptian hieroglyphs : the document most crucial in the decipherment of this script.
Summary |
Registration
The text itself is a statement by Darius I of Persia, written three times in three different scripts and languages: two languages side by side, Old Persian and Elamite , and Akkadian above them. Darius ruled the Persian Empire from -521 to -486.
To -515 , he tells a long story, its accession to the throne against the usurper Smerdis of Persia and his victorious wars and following the suppression of the rebellion. The texts are carved on a cliff near the modern city of Bisutun in the mountains of Zagros in Iran , at the entrance to the plain of Kermanshah.
The inscription is approximately 15 meters high and 25 meters wide, is located 100 meters above the ancient road connecting the capitals of Babylon in Babylon and Ecbatana the Median Empire. It is extremely inaccessible, the mountains have been leveled to make the inscription more visible after etching. The Old Persian text contains 414 lines in five columns, the Elamite text includes 593 lines in eight columns and the Akkadian text consists of 112. The inscription was illustrated by a bas-relief of Darius, two servants, and ten life-size figures of a meter high representing conquered peoples. The god Ahura Mazda floats above, giving his blessing to the king. A character appears to have been added after the other, well, oddly enough, beards of Darius, is a separate block of stone attached by pins and wire.
Distribution
Aramaic translation of the inscription is part of the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine .
First posterity historical and legendary
The first historical mention of the inscription is made by the Greek historian Ctesias , who noted its existence to -400. Tacitus also mentions and describes some of the auxiliary buildings, long forgotten, at the base of the cliff, where a source. What remains is consistent with its description. Diodorus also writes about "Bagistanon" and stated that the text has been written by Queen Semiramis of Babylon.
After the fall of the Persian Empire and its successors, and after cuneiform writing had fallen into disuse, the meaning of the inscription was forgotten and fanciful interpretations have become the norm. For centuries, it was well thought it was due to Khosro II.
A legend arose, that it was due to Farhad, the lover of Shirin , wife of Khosrow II. Exiled for his fault, Farhad would have the task of carving the mountain to find water, if successful, would have permission to marry Shirin. After many years and have moved half of the mountain, he found water, but to learn of the death of Khosro II Shirin. Mad with grief, he would be thrown off the cliff. Shirin, who naturally was not dead, hanged himself at the news.
Discovery by Europeans
In 1598 , the inscription is revealed to Western Europe when Robert Shirley , an Englishman in the service of Austria , discovered during a diplomatic mission to Persia. He concludes that it is a representation of the Ascension of Jesus Christ. European Biblical misinterpretations will spread over the two centuries that followed: they speak of Christ and his apostles , or the tribes of Israel and Shalmaneser.
In 1835 Henry Creswick Rawlinson , a British army officer leading the army of the Shah of Iran, began to seriously consider registering. While the city name is anglicized from Bisistun in the current "Bisotun, the monument became known as" registration of Bisotun. Despite its inaccessibility, Rawlinson can climb the cliff and copy the Old Persian inscription. Version Elamite , which lies across an abyss, and the version in Akkadian , located four feet above, are less accessible and are delivered to a subsequent access.
Armed with the Old Persian text and approximately one third of the syllabary provided by the German Georg Friedrich Grotefend , an expert in cuneiform, Rawlinson deciphers the text. Luckily, the first part of the text gives a list of Persian kings identical to that mentioned by Herodotus. By matching the names and characters, Rawlinson may, to 1838 , deciphered the cuneiform characters used for Old Persian.
Later comes the study of the two remaining texts. After a tour in Afghanistan , Rawlinson returned in 1843. Using planks he crossed the space between the text of Old Persian and Elamite, copy it. He recruited an enterprising boy around, climbing up a crack in the cliff and installs ropes at the height of the text in Akkadian. In this way, it can take the imprint of the text in paper-mache. Rawlinson set to work and reflects both the Akkadian writing and language, regardless of the work of Edward Hincks , of Julius Oppert and William Henry Fox Talbot , who also contribute to the deciphering. Edwin Norris and others are first to do the same for the Elamite. Applied to three primary languages of Mesopotamia and three variations of the cuneiform deciphering these were one of the keys to enter the Assyriology in the modern era.
It is believed that Darius had placed specifically for inclusion in this place make it impossible to forge - the readability from the background of its requirements: the text is completely unreadable at ground level. Unfortunately, the Persian king had not counted on the pond that forms at the foot of the cliff and the fact that a road would be opened in the area. The slot through which the boy climbed the cliff is today the release of a small underground stream, nonexistent at the time of registration and dry today, but perhaps at the origin of Tale of the search for water by Farhad. It caused considerable destruction to certain characters. Darius had not planned the gunpowder : the monument has suffered damage from gunfire with soldiers during the Second World War.
References
- (en) Rdiger Schmitt, Heinz Luschey, Ruediger Schmitt, " Registration of Bisotun ", in Encyclopdia Iranica Online
- Chul-Hyun Bae, literary stemma of King Darius's (522-486 BCE) bisitun Joined: Evidence of the persian empire's Multilingualism Journal of the Linguistic Society of Korea, volume 36, 2003, p. 6
Notes
Related articles
External Links
- (In) The Bisotun inscription on Livius - an article on the inclusion of Bisotun, with pictures, drawings of the cuneiform text, transcription and translation in English.
- Bisotun - the transcribed text of the inscription in cuneiform and Persian, available in PDF.
- Decipherment of cuneiform writing on BNF
- David Stronach, University of California, Berkeley (United States), " Iran's Bisotun footprint "of Le Courrier de l ' UNESCO
Bibliography
- HC Rawlinson, Archaeologia, 1853, vol. XXXIV, p. 74
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