What did Henry Rawlinson Discover 1847?
Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, (born April 11, 1810, Chadlington, Oxfordshire, Eng. —died March 5, 1895, London), British army officer and Orientalist who deciphered the Old Persian portion of the trilingual cuneiform inscription of Darius I the Great at Bīsitūn, Iran.
How did Henry Rawlinson discover cuneiform?
A Rosetta Stone for Cuneiform Rawlinson correctly deduced that the Old Persian was a phonetic script and he successfully deciphered it. In 1837 he finished his copy of the Behistun inscription, and sent a translation of its opening paragraphs to the Royal Asiatic Society.
Why is the behistun inscription important?
First of all, the Bisitun inscription is the longest royal inscription that we have from the Achaemenid Empire (ca. 550 – 330 BCE). It was made to commemorate Darius’s accession to the throne in 522 BCE – Darius being a man who had no direct blood relation to the preceding Persian kings.
When was the behistun inscription discovered?
Discovery & Significance Although the Behistun Inscription had been noted earlier by other Europeans, who also made copies of the Old Persian text, the first to make major efforts in understanding the piece was Rawlinson in 1835 CE when he was serving in Iran with the British East India Company’s forces.
What does the Behistun Inscription say?
The Behistun Inscription, carved into a cliffside, gives the same text in three languages (Old Persian, Babylonian, Elamite) telling the story of King Darius’ conquests, with the names of 23 provinces subject to him. It is illustrated by life-sized carved images of King Darius with other figures in attendance.
What is the Behistun Inscription today?
The inscription was illustrated by a life-sized bas-relief of Darius I, the Great, holding a bow as a sign of kingship, with his left foot on the chest of a figure lying on his back before him….Behistun Inscription.
| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
|---|---|
| Inscription | 2006 (30th Session) |
| Area | 187 ha |
| Buffer zone | 361 ha |
| Coordinates | 34°23′26″N 47°26′9″E |
Who discovered the Behistun Inscription?
Grotefend had deciphered ten of the 37 symbols of Old Persian by 1802, after realizing that unlike the Semitic cuneiform scripts, Old Persian text is alphabetic and each word is separated by a vertical slanted symbol.