© UNESCO/Babak Sedighi
Bas relief, Bisotun, Iran

Professor David Stronach, archeologist and former Director of the British Institute of Persian Studies in Tehran (1961-1980), looks back fondly on his experiences at Bisotun (Islamic Republic of Iran), a monument in bas-relief and cuneiform that that is located 70 meters above the ground.

Even though decades have passed since my first trips to Bisotun, I remember each of them most vividly. Any archaeologist with a concentration on Achaemenid Iran, and especially one with an interest in the reign of Darius the Great, has assuredly paid close attention to the texts and relief sculpture that came to be carved on the cliff face at Bisotun in commemoration of Darius’ rise to power in 522 BC. In my own case, I quickly came to regard Bisotun as a unique store of knowledge to which I would need to return again and again.

"My legs are dangling, and I am all too conscious of the long drop to the nearest ground below me."

All the same, when I think of Bisotun, one particularly graphic and very personal recollection usually comes to mind before all others. My eyes are tight shut (they have just filled with swirling dust), my fingers are pressed into two small recesses in the rock face, my legs are dangling, and I am all too conscious of the long drop to the nearest ground below me. You might well ask how an individual, not necessarily known for totally reckless behavior, would manage to get himself into such a predicament.

At the time I had managed to borrow an unusually long ladder and was making my first visit to the high ledge that runs along the base of Darius’ extraordinary rock-cut monument. I tried to take in as many expected and unexpected things as I could. I found that Major (later Sir) Henry Rawlinson, the first recorded modern visitor to reach that narrow ledge, had in fact carved his name on its flat surface.

And then, out the corner of my eye, I spotted – on the opposite side of a fissure of a certain width – what looked like a hitherto undetected rock-cut fire bowl. I am interested in fire altars and fire bowls (two frequently encountered material reflections of Iran’s ancient Zoroastrian identity) and I can only think that thoughts of Rawlinson’s intrepid determination to copy each of Darius’ trilingual inscriptions somehow made me unduly adventurous. At all events luck was ultimately with me. My eyes cleared. I pulled myself up. I confirmed that the putative fire bowl was indeed such a feature (even if I have no definite answer as to why it was placed where it was). And then I managed to make my way back, this time with a better-judged jump, to the relative safety of the main ledge.

"I can bear witness to certain aspects of this 'last cuneiform adventure' at Bisotun."

A second visit to Bisotun, made in the company of Professor George G. Cameron, served to remind me still more vividly of that great site’s storied past. It is common knowledge that Rawlinson, first in 1836 and then again in 1847, made exceptional efforts to secure reliable copies of the various cuneiform texts.

However, Rawlinson himself was never able to reach the one “unapproachable” overhanging rock on which Darius’ Babylonian inscription had been placed. Finally, as Rawlinson relates, “a wild Kurdish boy… volunteered to make the attempt.” Space does not permit a full description of the way in which the boy drove in one wooden peg on one side of the inscription and then “used the slight inequalities on the bare face of the precipice” to cross the rock and drive in a second peg from which, with the aid of a rope and a short ladder, he created “a swinging seat, like a painter’s cradle.” But it was upon this fragile device that the boy, following Rawlinson’s directions, proceeded to make a paper squeeze of the Babylonian text.

Notwithstanding the essential success of this perilous endeavor, George Cameron, who had served as the epigraphist on Erich Schmidt’s expedition to Persepolis in the late 1930’s, was well aware that a new record of the hard-to-reach Babylonian text was greatly needed – and, in the early 1950’s, he decided to do whatever was necessary to obtain a state-of-the-art latex impression. By an odd chance I can bear witness to certain aspects of this “last cuneiform adventure” at Bisotun. Towards the end of his long life, and some ten years after he had succeeded in obtaining his latex copies, Professor Cameron decided to revisit the Bisotun cliff. He felt the need for a younger companion and, since he already knew me, he was kind enough to ask me to accompany him.

After we had borrowed a long ladder from the oil refinery at nearby Kermanshah (now Bakhtaran) and, as we took the road back towards Bisotun, George Cameron told me how, years ago, he, too, had been able to find a clever helper of his own in a young man from the local village who was called Hasan. He described how Hasan essentially repeated the actions of the Kurdish boy and in this way managed to erect a new swinging seat; and then he related how he carefully eased himself into the seat and duly painted on the latex solution before he waited for it to dry and then, at the last, peeled off the precious record.

Finally, as we pulled up at Bisotun, Professor Cameron asked someone who was standing at the roadside if he could find Hasan and let him know that he – Cameron -- had returned. In no time Hasan came in view: now a slim, neatly dressed man in his forties. Fervent greetings were exchanged. Then I looked beyond our little group to see an unexpected sight. It seemed that half the population of the village had gathered on the slope below us. The word had clearly gone out: “Cameron was back!”

by David Stronach, University of California at Berkeley (USA)

Photo 2: © UNESCO/Babak Sedighi
Photo 3: © David Stronach
Professor Cameron with Hasan at Bisotun in 1963