For most visitors, its hard not to conclude that the World Heritage Site of Behistun is at first glance a big disappointment!
Obscured behind decades of scaffolding, it's impossible to discern anything from afar.
With permission, it is possible as I did to climb the maze of scaffolding to see the bas relief up close.
Even then, the scaffolding continues to obscure a great deal and casts dreadful shadows over the reliefs and inscriptions.

When I visited, I am afraid to say that I found that the photographic challenges obscured for me the historical importance of what I was looking at.
That was a mistake. I should have remembered that the inscription includes three equal texts written in different cuneiform script languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian (a later form of Akkadian).
In 1835 and 1843, Henry Rawlinson a British army officer, hung himself precipitously over the inscriptions to record them and later used them to translate the Elamite and Babylonian texts from the Old Persian.
Therefore the Behistun inscription has been of vital historical importance because, like the more famousn Rosetta Stone, it was used to unlock the secrets of otherwise indecipherable scripts!

The bas relief itself shows Darius the Great, holding a bow as a sign of kingship, with his left foot on the chest of the traitor Gaumata.
The bow carrier on the left is Intaphernes and his lance carrier is Gobryas.
Darius has to deal with numerous insurrections across the empire soon after assuming the throne. The conquered are shown on his right (purportedly from left to right) are:
Assina of Elam, Nidintu-Bel of Babylon, Martiya (persian) in Elam, Phraortes of Media, Tritantaechmes of Sagartia, Frada, of Margiana, Vahyazdata of Persia, Arakha, an Armenian from Babylon, Skunkha of (pointed hat) Sycthia. More information on the Behistun panel can be found here.


I have digitally enhanced some of these images by tracing the outlines in order to soften the backgrounds as described here.

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