Bible Synapse
Behistun inscription
Inscription · c. 520 BC · Persian period · also called Bisotun inscription, Bisitun inscription
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- c. 520 BC (the relief and inscription, early in Darius I’s reign)
- Found
- Mount Behistun (Bisotun), Kermanshah Province, Iran. Carved high on a limestone cliff beside the ancient road from Babylon to Ecbatana. Henry Rawlinson copied its texts between 1835 and 1847, and their decipherment opened the way to reading cuneiform.
- Now
- At the site, Bisotun, Iran
- Passages
- Ezra 4:24, Ezra 6:1–15, Haggai 1:1, Zechariah 1:1
What it is
A huge relief and inscription, about 15 metres high and 25 metres wide, cut into a cliff face. Darius I stands with his foot on a fallen rival, Gaumata, before a line of bound rebel leaders. The text, in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian, tells how Darius won the throne and put down a series of revolts in about a year. An Aramaic version, copied out in the reign of Darius II, has turned up on papyrus in Egypt.
How it connects to the Bible
Darius I is the Persian king under whom, according to Ezra, Haggai and Zechariah, work on the Second Temple in Jerusalem began again and was finished “in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king” (Ezra 6:15). The inscription is his own account of how he came to power a few years before. Its decipherment also made it possible to read the Babylonian and Assyrian records that mention biblical kings.