Ganjnameh () is located 12 km southwest of

Hamadan Hamadan ( ; , ) is a mountainous city in western Iran. It is located in the Central District of Hamadan County in Hamadan province, serving as the capital of the province, county, and district. As of the 2016 Iranian census, it had a po ...

(ancient

Ecbatana Ecbatana () was an ancient city, the capital of the Median kingdom, and the first capital in History of Iran, Iranian history. It later became the summer capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Achaemenid and Parthian Empire, Parthian empires.Nardo, Do ...

) in western

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

, at an altitude of meters across Mount Alvand. The site is home to two trilingual

Achaemenid royal inscriptions The Achaemenid royal inscriptions are the surviving inscriptions in cuneiform script from the Achaemenid Empire, dating from the 6th to 4th century BCE (reigns of Cyrus the Great, Cyrus II to Artaxerxes III). These inscriptions are primary sources ...

. The inscription on the upper left was created on the order of Achaemenid King

Darius the Great Darius I ( ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of West A ...

(522–486 BC) and the one on the right by his son King

Xerxes the Great Xerxes I ( – August 465 BC), commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC. He was the son of Darius the Great ...

(486–465 BC).

Description

The two inscription panels of Ganjnameh, carved in stone in 20 lines on a

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

rock above a creek, measure 2 × 3 m each. Written in

Old Persian Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (I ...

Neo-Babylonian The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC ...

and Neo-Elamite, except for the different royal name, the contents of the two inscriptions are identical;

Ahura Mazda Ahura Mazda (; ; or , ),The former is the New Persian rendering of the Avestan form, while the latter derives from Middle Persian. also known as Horomazes (),, is the only creator deity and Sky deity, god of the sky in the ancient Iranian ...

receives praise, and lineages and conquests are listed. According to Stuart C. Brown, in the pre-

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

period, this mountain was apparently the main "east-west pass" through Mount Alvand. During the Achaemenid period, Ecbatana functioned as summer capital due to its high elevation and pleasant weather. The site received its name from locals, who believed that the inscriptions contained the secret code to a hidden treasure.

Gallery

File:Ganjnameh by Eugène Flandin.jpg, Eugène Flandin's 1840 drawing of Ganjnameh. File:Hamadān. Vue du rocher sur lequel sont gravées les inscriptions; District d'Hamadân (NYPL b12482496-1542732) (cropped).jpg, Pascal Coste's 1851 drawing of Ganjnameh. File:سنگ نبشته گنج نامه همدان.jpg, Ganjnameh inscriptions in 2018.

Notes

References

Sources

* * {{Achaemenid Empire Achaemenid inscriptions Archaeology of the Achaemenid Empire Tourist attractions in Hamadan province Darius the Great Xerxes I Akkadian inscriptions Elamite language Cuneiform Persian words and phrases Buildings and structures on the Iran National Heritage List