Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon

Six: Bewitched by Bisitun

The imposing appearance of Bisitun greatly impressed Rawlinson, who considered it ‘a very remarkable natural object on the high road between Ecbatana and Babylon … The rock, or, as it is usually called by the Arab geographers, the mountain of Behistun, is not an isolated hill, as has sometimes been imagined. It is merely the terminal point of a long, narrow range which bounds the plain of Kermanshah to the eastward. This range is rocky and abrupt throughout, but at the extremity it rises in height, and becomes a sheer precipice.’1 It is, in fact, the end of a ridge of peaks of the Zagros mountain range, where the limestone rock rises dramatically to a height of 1,700 feet above the plain, with the inscription of Darius the Great carved at a height of over 200 feet. The monument appears small in relation to the mountain, yet it is over 25 feet tall and 70 feet wide, and the panel of relief sculptures alone is nearly 18 feet wide and 10 feet high.

The massive monument was made as an extensive inscription surrounding relief sculptures of Darius and his defeated prisoners. Although the inscription was trilingual (written in three scripts and three languages) it was not originally designed as such. The inscriptions Rawlinson had already seen at Persepolis were intended to be trilingual from the outset, as was the Rosetta Stone in Egypt with its three different scripts (although technically bilingual, with just two languages), whereas the Bisitun monument evolved gradually. The monument did not overlook the plain, but was carved on the south-facing wall of a cleft in the mountain. A natural pathway originally led to the spot chosen by Darius, and once the rock surface was cut back and dressed smooth with iron chisels, the work of carving and engraving could begin.

At first, Darius intended the relief sculpture as the centrepiece, with inscriptions placed symmetrically round the figures. For the inscriptions, the rock face was lightly engraved with guidelines about 1½ inches (possibly two fingers’ width) apart. The sculptured panel was started early in 520 BC, and four columns of Elamite cuneiform inscription, a total of 323 lines, were added to the right. Because Rawlinson did not know the origins of this type of cuneiform, he used the term ‘Median’, after the Medes who once inhabited this area, as well as ‘Scythic’, thinking it may have originated with the Scythic tribe of the Russian steppes. ‘Susian’ replaced these terms, after the city of Susa that Rawlinson had recently visited. Finally, ‘Elamite’ was introduced after the earliest known name for the region, and that term is still used today.

In 519 BC, only months after the carving of the relief sculpture and Elamite inscription, a Babylonian inscription was added to the left, on an overhanging rock face. It was carved in a single column nearly 14 feet high and consisted of 112 lines of cuneiform, some of which are themselves over 13 feet long: the engraver clearly misjudged this task, as it should have been split into two columns. Later that same year the Old Persian inscription was added, in four columns of cuneiform, totalling 378 lines, which were engraved immediately below the relief sculpture, although the fourth column extended beneath the Elamite inscription, perhaps where the engraver misjudged his calculations in laying out the text. Although this was a translation of the Elamite text, minor changes and omissions were made, and an additional paragraph was incorporated towards the end, which related how the Old Persian cuneiform was a new form of writing, that this was the first time it had ever been used, and how copies and translations of the Bisitun text were being circulated throughout the Persian Empire. No room was available to add this extra paragraph to the main body of the Elamite inscription, but instead it appeared as a detached inscription above the relief sculptures. It was never added to the Babylonian, even though there was room.

Another figure of a defeated rebel, Skunkha, was added to the relief sculptures in 518 BC, necessitating the obliteration of part of the first column of the Elamite text. Incredibly, Darius ordered a copy of the entire Elamite inscription to be meticulously carved to the left of the Old Persian inscription, below the Babylonian, this time as three columns totalling 260 lines. At the same time a short fifth column giving an account of his new military victories was added to the end of the Old Persian, and the rock surface with the first Elamite inscription was smoothed so that it was barely visible.

Once all the inscriptions were finished, the monument was made as inaccessible as possible, including quarrying away the mountain path, to reduce the risk of vandalism. From the plain below, the inscriptions were too far away to be read, and through succeeding generations the meaning of the monument was lost. In ancient Greek times it became known as Bagistanon, ‘a place of the gods’, which gave rise to its Persian name of Bisitun (or Bisotun or Behistun), meaning literally ‘without columns’.

Early European travellers noticed the site, but did not understand it. Over a decade before Rawlinson arrived at Kermanshah, the artist and traveller Robert Ker Porter made the first recorded ascent, though seemingly not to the actual ledge below the inscriptions: ‘I could not resist the impulse to examine it nearer … To approach it at all, was a business of difficulty and danger; however, after much scrambling and climbing, I at last got pretty far up the rock, and finding a ledge, placed myself on it as firmly as I could.’2 He was initially interested in the relief sculptures, not the inscriptions beneath, commenting: ‘but still I was farther from the object of all this peril, than I had hoped; yet my eyes being tolerably long-sighted, and my glass [telescope] more so, I managed to copy the whole sculpture.’3 Porter’s drawing was reasonably accurate, and he also made notes about the inscriptions beneath the sculptures: ‘the excavation is continued to a considerable extent, containing eight deep closely written columns [the Elamite and Old Persian] in the same character. From so much labour having been exerted on this part of the work, it excites more regret that so little progress has yet been made towards deciphering the character; and most devoutly must we hope that the indefatigable scholars now engaged in the study of these apparently oldest letters in the world may at last succeed in bringing them to an intelligible language. In that case what a treasure-house of historical knowledge would be unfolded here.’4

To copy the inscriptions at Bisitun would be, Porter believed, an enormous undertaking: ‘to transcribe the whole of the tablets, could I have drawn myself up sufficiently high on the rock to be within sight of them, would have occupied me more than a month. At no time can it ever be attempted without great personal risk; yet I do not doubt that some bracket on the surface might be found, to admit a tolerably secure seat for some future traveller, who has ardour and time, to accomplish so desirable a purpose.’5

In the early summer of 1836, Rawlinson used every spare minute to make repeated climbs up to the narrow ledge below the inscriptions and copy the initial lines of the first column of the Old Persian. He had deduced that there were three different types of cuneiform, as on the Elwand inscriptions, and he chose to start with the Old Persian script that appeared the most simple. Nobody had ever before managed to climb right up to these inscriptions, let alone record them, and even four years later the artist Eugène Flandin found the task virtually impossible. He and an architect, Pascal Coste, had been instructed by the French government to copy all the ancient monuments and inscriptions of Persia, and in July 1840 Flandin went on his own to Bisitun. He managed to climb to the ledge, but once there he found it impossible to move. His description of the ascent and descent is in stark contrast to Rawlinson’s understated record of the climb, and highlights Rawlinson’s nerve and mountaineering skills: ‘Mount Bi-Sutoun rises up in a pyramidal shape, black and savage,’ began Flandin. ‘It is one of the highest summits of the chain. The bas-relief, set in a reflex angle of the mountain … is only seen with great difficulty from below. In order to draw it, it is necessary to get close up by climbing some of the blocks that litter the foot of the mountain, which can be done up to a certain height. There then remains quite a great height still, so that it is necessary to use a telescope. The steep rock slope below this sculpture makes access almost impossible, so aiding its preservation … I wanted to try to get to the inscriptions that I had only been able to see from the foot of the mountain … I folded up my tent in the evening and I left for Bi-Sutoun [from Taq-i Bustan] … and crossed the lonely plain, and, keeping straight ahead, I went alongside the foot of the mountains. The day had been very stormy. The summits of Mount Bi-Sutoun were covered with great reddish clouds … The thunder rumbled across their thick layers … the flashes of lightning were recurring like prolonged echoes.’6

The moon then rose, dispersing the clouds and, Flandin wrote, ‘its silver light, spread over the mountain, changed the savage and sad colours that the leaden clouds had given to the rocks of Bi-Sutoun into fantastic and strange effects. I had returned to Bi-Sutoun with the intention of copying the inscriptions. I was hoping to succeed by using two ladders that I had brought from Kermanshah and was counting on putting the two together. By placing them as high as possible on the rocks, I was hoping to reach a little ledge that was at the level of the engraved tablets. But a vain hope … What to do? It was absolutely impossible without a specially constructed scaffolding, and positioning it would have encountered great obstacles. Besides … I had no wood, no ropes, and the region had no workman who could put it together.’7

Nevertheless, Flandin was determined to reach the inscriptions. ‘I wanted to make an attempt’, he explained, ‘to try to climb the polished and perpendicular rocks by the aid of some fissures that afforded a means of support. I left my shoes, so as not to slip, I hung on by my hands and feet to all the rough patches that I was able to seize hold of. In this way I climbed the rock with difficulty, stopping after each burst in order to prepare for a new exertion, and fearing, with every movement, that I would be hurtled to the bottom. I don’t know how long it took to get to my goal, but it seemed to me to be a long time, and I was fearing I would not succeed when I felt under my hand the edge of the ledge. Not before time, because my tired, grazed fingers had no more strength to haul me up … I had bloody feet and hands. At last I was on the projecting rock, below the inscriptions that I could clearly see. I took a quick breath, after which I examined the engraved tablets. What sorrow I had, after going to so much trouble, on realizing that it was impossible to take a copy. This impossibility resulted from the height that they were still at, as well as the narrowness of the ledge on which I found myself forced against the rock, without being able to move back a single inch. I had therefore climbed the mountain for nothing, and the reward for my troubles was that I could only state simply that the inscriptions are all cuneiform, engraved in seven columns, each containing 99 lines, and that above the figures, there are several more little groups of similar characters.’8

Flandin might have been even more despondent if he had known that Rawlinson had already recorded all this information – and much more besides. ‘But that wasn’t all,’ Flandin complained, ‘the most difficult thing was to return back down. I was at a height of 25 metres, and I could not think of any way of climbing down other than backwards, taking hold of and gripping the rock with my fingernails, as I had done in climbing up: this was really like the gymnastics of a lizard. I was therefore very happy to reach the bottom, but wounded, cut by the sharp angles of stones, completely torn and bloody.’9

Several years later, in 1850, Rawlinson recorded that the task of climbing this precipice was not especially challenging: ‘Notwithstanding that a French antiquarian commission in Persia described it a few years back to be impossible to copy the Behistun inscriptions, I certainly do not consider it any great feat in climbing to ascend to the spot where the inscriptions occur. When I was living in Kermanshah fifteen years ago, and was somewhat more active than I am at present, I used frequently to scale the rock three or four times a day without the aid of a rope or ladder: without any assistance, in fact, whatever.’10 With the age-old rivalry between the French and English, Rawlinson was doubtless playing down the daunting task, but the very fact that he had the skill and stamina to repeat such a climb, day after day, speaks for itself.

By mid-summer 1836, Rawlinson had sufficient cuneiform copied to be able to compare the Elwand and Bisitun inscriptions. Although he had not yet seen Grotefend’s publication, he later realized that he followed the same method of analysis of working out values of cuneiform signs, because he deduced that the Persian equivalents of the names Hystaspes, Darius and Xerxes would be present in the inscription: ‘It would be fatiguing to detail the gradual progress which I made … The collation of the two first paragraphs of the great Behistun Inscription with the tablets of Elwend supplied me, in addition to the names of Hystaspes, Darius, and Xerxes, with the native forms of Arsames, Ariaramnes, Teispes, Achaemenes, and Persia, and thus enabled me to construct an alphabet which assigned the same determinate values to eighteen characters that I still retain after three years of further investigation.’11

He wrote to his sister Maria in early July of his ambitions and progress: ‘My antiquarian studies go on quietly and smoothly, and despite the taunt which you may remember once expressing of the presumption of an ignoramus like myself attempting to decypher inscriptions which had baffled for centuries the most learned men in Europe, I have made very considerable progress in ascertaining the relative value of the characters.’12 Since his stay in Baghdad a few months earlier, he no longer felt so isolated: ‘Now that I am assisted by the erudition of my neighbour Colonel Taylor of Baghdad, the best scholar living probably in the ancient languages of the East, I aspire to do for the cuneiform alphabet what Champollion has done for the hieroglyphics – when you hear the archaeologists of Europe enquire who this Rawlinson is who has shed so extraordinary a light over ancient history both sacred and profane, you will probably feel a thrill of greater pleasure than in acknowledging yourself the sister of the madcap … My character is one of restless, insatiable ambition – in whatever sphere I am thrown my whole spirit is absorbed in an eager struggle for the first place – hitherto the instability of youth has defeated all my ends, but now that advancing years are shedding their quietizing influence over my mind, I trust to be able to concentrate my energies as to proceed steadily and surely to the goal … I am now therefore compelled to rest upon my oars until the arrival of the works I have commissioned from England opens a new field to my enquiry or I can steal a fortnight’s leave to gallop to Baghdad and cull fresh honey from the treasures of Col. Taylor’s library.’13

His studies were brought to an abrupt halt in the late summer when he was ordered to march his regiment of Guran Kurds to Tehran to join Muhammed Shah’s forces, who were ready to subjugate unruly tribes in the north-east. He left Kermanshah in August, and at the Shah’s camp near Tehran he was allowed to retain command of the Gurans: ‘I paraded the new Regiment before the Shah to his extreme delight as it was composed of good fighting Kurds – who had never before been at the Royal head Quarters.’14 The army moved on to the frontier with Afghanistan, but it was discovered that the Shah’s real intention was to besiege the Afghan city of Herat once again – his earlier siege having broken up after the death of Fath Ali Shah. An outbreak of cholera provided the excuse for the British detachment to withdraw immediately.

Rawlinson made his way to Tehran where he spent a few days, until ordered to rejoin Bahram Mirza who was camped near Isfahan. Shortly afterwards they returned to Kermanshah, reaching the town in late November, and the following month his sergeant, George Page, was married with Rawlinson’s consent to an Armenian woman by the name of Anna. Because his troops were sent back to their homes for the winter, Rawlinson was now able to concentrate on his cuneiform studies. With access to a library at Tehran he had managed to become acquainted for the first time with the research of Grotefend and Saint-Martin and was fairly dismissive of their work. ‘I found the Cuneiform alphabets and translations which had been adopted in Germany and France,’ he noted, ‘but far from deriving any assistance from either of these sources, I could not doubt that my own knowledge of the character, verified by its application to many names which had not come under the observation of Grotefend and Saint Martin, was much in advance of their respective, and in some measure conflicting, systems of interpretation.’15

Unfortunately, rather than announce his own results on Old Persian, Rawlinson admitted he did not feel sufficiently confident to do so: ‘As there were many letters, however, regarding which I was still in doubt, and as I had made very little progress in the language of the inscriptions, I deferred the announcement of my discoveries, until I was in a better condition to turn them to account.’16 So far, he had worked out the values of eighteen signs, using proper names such as Darius, but had not managed to translate anything. The decipherment of cuneiform was a twofold process: transliteration and translation. First of all, it was necessary to work out what the signs meant – did they represent a single alphabetical letter, a syllable or a whole word? Once this was established, they were converted or transliterated to a Roman alphabet, and the resulting foreign words could be translated, but for this a knowledge of related languages, dead and living, was essential. The process is the same as, for example, the ancient Greek

By now, Rawlinson knew enough about the problems of cuneiform decipherment to realize that what was hindering progress was the lack of a long inscription; the obvious solution was to copy as much as possible of the nearby Bisitun monument. Early in 1837 he began to make daily visits there from Kermanshah to gather more lines of the Old Persian inscription. He was unable to copy every line, because parts were severely eroded or inaccessible, but while perched on the narrow ledge on the cliff face he did succeed in copying the entire first column, the opening paragraph of the second, ten paragraphs of the third column, and four separate inscriptions accompanying the relief sculptures – in all, over two hundred lines of Old Persian cuneiform. At this stage, Rawlinson may have used a telescope to help copy the upper parts of this 12-foot-high inscription, as he does not mention ladders.

This work was brought to a halt again because Bahram Mirza, under whom Rawlinson had been serving for nearly two years, fell out of favour with his brother the Shah and was recalled to Tehran, to be replaced in February by a Georgian eunuch called Manuchar Khan. Problems immediately arose from the appointment of this new governor, who was hated and feared for his cruelty. In March, Rawlinson was ordered by the Persian government at Tehran to prepare five regiments, each with over a thousand men, in readiness for service, and so he wrote to Manuchar Khan for assistance and support in recruiting, drilling, clothing and equipping troops. Receiving only evasive replies and being pressed by the Prime Minister, he complained directly to Tehran, sending copies of his correspondence. Manuchar Khan was reprimanded, and Rawlinson was ordered by the Shah himself to despatch two regiments to the capital when ready.

Although Rawlinson appeared to be hard-working and professional, he held a harsher view of himself, as seen in his private journal entry written at Kermanshah on 11 April, his twenty-seventh birthday. ‘Let me probe my soul to the quick,’ he began. ‘What am I and what am I likely to become? In character, unsteady, indolent but ambitious – in faith – a direct infidel – in feelings callous as a stone – in principle like my neighbours, neither too good nor too bad – with some talent and more reputation for it – culpably wasteful and extravagant and incapable of forming and adhering to any fixed purpose on a single subject.’17 It is noticeable, though, that in assessing his prospects, his army career was not mentioned, being evidently of far lesser importance to him than his studies. ‘I am now engaged in a circle of study so vested with Oriental literature and archaeology, but I suspect I am too volatile to enable me to distinguish myself in a faith which of all others requires clever and diligent attention … I have no fixed aim for myself, but I write and read with a sort of instinctive longing to do something to attract the attention of the world.’18 Far removed from the eyes of his superiors, Rawlinson noted in this journal entry that a female companion (certainly a local woman) ‘enlivens my solitude, and I have never yet even put it to myself whether such a connection is criminal or not’.19

In mid-May Rawlinson left Kermanshah for the hills to assemble troops from the Guran inhabitants, but only a few days later was ordered by Manuchar Khan to engage in military action on the Turkish border near Zohab, as Persian merchants had been attacked by marauding tribes. With 1,500 cavalry and foot soldiers, he headed into a difficult situation, and after some exchange of fire and loss of life, Rawlinson was forced to remain there for three weeks to attempt to resolve the problem diplomatically. Impressing on Manuchar Khan that the British government did not allow him to fight Turkish subjects, he was instructed to return to Kermanshah, and for the last two weeks of June he prepared one new regiment for departure to Tehran. He repeatedly warned Manuchar Khan that the troops should be paid, but to no avail, and it was no surprise when they deserted and returned to their homes in the hills and mountains. The tribal chiefs were induced by Manuchar Khan to send back the recruits, and Sergeant Page was ordered to accompany them to Tehran two weeks later, with the expectation of appealing to the Shah for settlement of their arrears of pay. On arriving at the capital, the Shah had already left for his campaign, so once again the troops mutinied and returned to their homes.