Bisitun

Bisitun

 ancient Behestun

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 East India Company The deciphering of the Old Persian was a major advance in the study of cuneiform writing.