Darius I ordered the Behistun Inscription to be carved on a cliff in western Iran.
The monumental text records Darius’s rise to power and his suppression of rebellions early in his reign. It was carved high above the route near modern Kermanshah, where its location made the royal message visible but extremely difficult to reach. Reliefs show Darius standing above defeated opponents, with the god Ahura Mazda represented above him.
The inscription is especially important because it repeats the same account in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian. Its trilingual format helped scholars decipher cuneiform, much as the Rosetta Stone assisted the study of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Darius claimed that the rebel Gaumata had impersonated Bardiya, a son of Cyrus. Historians continue to debate details of that succession crisis, but the inscription remains the major primary source for Darius’s official version.