Bisitun is famous for the inscriptions and tablets of Darius found here. It lies on the highway from Ecbatana to Babylon, and was thus chosen by various monarchs as a fitting place for the record of their exploits.
It is to British pluck, tenacity, and will-power that the world owes its definite and detailed knowledge of the Darius inscriptions. That "King of Kings," as he proudly styles himself, saw to it that the written account of his greatness should be at a height corresponding with his fame, and had it placed 300 feet above the ground on the wall of a dizzily perpendicular cliff. To climb this rock near enough to read what Persian workmen chiselled there five hundred years before the Christian era is the dangerous and difficult undertaking accomplished by Rawlinson.
The bas-relief tablets and inscriptions on Bisitun's famous cliff wall have all but one object—to glorify Darius Hystaspes ("The great King, the King of Kings, King of Persia, King of the Provinces"), and to give the lie to any of his enemies or rivals who dared to proclaim themselves monarchs also. ("This Gaumata the Magian lied: thus did he speak: 'I am Bardiya; son of Cyrus, I am King!'")
Grandiloquently the names of the countries over which Darius ruled are set forth. They number twenty-three. A Persian Alexander the Great was this "King of Kings."
DARIUS INSCRIPTIONS AT BISITUN.
The bas-relief vividly portrays his conquest of the lesser chieftains from whom he wrested their kingdoms. His foot is on the prostrate form of the most formidable of these, Gaumata, while the others are shown tied together by their necks, a sorry company of defeated royalties. Darius is depicted as physically towering above the men of his day, a giant in every way. Over him hovers the Godhead, Auramazdn, or Ormuzd, who, holding a circlet of victory in one hand, with the other points out the mighty monarch as the wearer-designate.
The whole is in a marvellous state of preservation, thanks to the conscientious work of the craftsmen who laboured at it so many thousand years ago. After first smoothing the surface of the rock, they filled in every tiny crevice or crack with lead. Then they chiselled deeply, and with astonishing accuracy, each character, finally coating the whole with a silicious varnish, a protection against climatic ravages which has stood the test imposed upon it while countless generations of mankind have come and gone.
When we reached the Gamasiab, we found the stream in flood, and a six-knot current swirling through the brick arches of the damaged bridge. There was a great gap in the central span, the latter running to a point almost like a Gothic arch. Gangs of workmen were busy repairing it, under Lieutenant Goupil, R.E.