The Behistun inscription
Other monuments
Alexander the Great is known to have visited Behistun but we do not know more than that he heard that Bagastâna meant 'place where the gods dwell'. (The incident is recorded by Diodorus of Sicily.) After his death in 323 BCE, his empire disintegrated and the eastern satrapies fell to one of his officers, Seleucus I Nicator, who founded the Seleucid Empire. Behistun, situated along a main road that was just as crowded with travelers as it had always been, remained a monumental site.Discovery
Other monuments
Medieval legend
Translation 1
Translation 2
The statue of Heracles at
Behistun
A few years after this statue had been made, Seleucid rule in this part of the empire collapsed. For almost four centuries, the Parthians were in control. They also left monuments at Behistun, like the reliefs on this photo. They are both very damaged, not in the least because a seventeenth-century inscription was added in something resembling a mihrab. (On this photo, to the left, one can see the relief that was made by Darius the Great.)
The second relief is to the right of it. It shows an equestrian fight between the victorious Parthian king Gotarzes II (40-51) and his enemy Meherdates. Above flies a Greek Nikê, the winged personification of victory, with a diadem.
Reliefs rupestres de l' Iran
ancien, 1983; ©!!!)
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The Parthians, weakened by the military campaigns of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, were overthrown by the Persian dynasty of the Sasanians. They built a bridge at Behistun, but it has been rebuilt several times, and only the foundations can still be called Sasanian. However, it shows that Behistun was still an important place, where new rulers wanted to show themselves. It is no coincidence that the scene of the sad story about the star-cross'd lovers Shirin and Fahrad and Shirin's husband, the Sasanian king Khusrau II (590-628), is laid at Behistun.
and the caravanserai,
which is now a prison
Khusrau is also connected to the last known monument at Behistun: the unfinished relief. His armies had ravaged the cities of Syria, sacked Jerusalem in 614 (seizing the relic of the True Cross), invaded Egypt and even reached Constantinople. It seemed as if the Achaemenid empire was restored, and Khusrau ordered the making of brilliant rock reliefs at Taq-e Bostan and Behistun. The monument at Taq-e Bostan was finished, but the Behistun relief was not: all that is visible is a piece of rock that was cleared. In 627, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius attacked the Sasanian empire and had been very successful; the Persian army mutinied and Khusrau was murdered (628). His successor Ardašir III made peace and the relic of the True Cross was restored to Jerusalem.
After this, the two empires were an easy target for the rise of Islam. In 641, the Arabs invaded Iran and defeated the Sasanians at Nehavand. On their march to the east, they had taken the main road along Behistun.