A great god is Ahuramazda, the greatest of the gods, who created this earth, who created yonder sky, who created man, created happiness for man, who made Xerxes king, one king of many, one lord of many.
I (am) Xerxes, the great king, king of kings, king of all kinds of people, king on this earth far and wide, the son of Darius the king, the Achaemenid.
Xerxes the great king proclaims: King Darius, my father, by the favor of Ahuramazda, made much that is good, and this niche he ordered to be cut; as he did not have an inscription written, then I ordered that this inscription be written.
He may Ahuramazda protect, together with the gods, and my kingdom and what I have done."
More than that, he was saying "I'm your king, whoever reads this." Quite an important message at a time when your rule only extended as far as you could enforce it.
I know this is just a joke but written languages were so widespread and widely used that *three of them* were needed just to convey this message in a fairly small geographical area.
Your percentage here is off by Several orders of magnitude. You gotta remember the population of the world in 480 BCE was a lot smaller. So when you have a smaller total number, individuals represent a larger portion of it. it's safe to assume that most rich people would be able to read and write. that is not a super super small percentage of the population. It is a small percentage, but not to that many decimal points.
IIRC, about when this was carved, something like one fifth or one sixth of all humans alive lived in the Persian/Achaemenid Empire. Even if only one ten of them could read official Persian, that’s a pretty substantial percentage of the total population at the time.
Look here. Strange men writing on walls is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some, farcical, transcription ceremony…
your rule only extended as far as you could enforce it.
Doesn’t that still apply today? I don’t see any difference. If you can’t enforce your rule then you are not in charge. It doesn’t seem like some novel idea.
It sounds even more absurd.
"My dad ordered this tablet made but never said anything about what's supposed to be on it so now I'm having people write this sentence on here."
"Hi! I'm the king. I ordered this inscription to be here. This inscription is here to say that I the king have ordered it to be here. Thank you thank you for your attention to this matter."
"I'm the best king this land has ever known, I know a lot of people say this. I ordered this inscription to be here because everyone keeps saying this and it's beautiful. This inscription is here to say that I the king have ordered it to be here. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
"Hi! It is I, Mojo Jojo, the king, and the king is Mojo Jojo, which is I! This inscription is here to say that Mojo Jojo is king and the king, which is Mojo Jojo, ordered the text of this inscription to be here inscribed, as it is here written, to the letter. For the king has ordered it, and thus it was inscribed, since the king is great, and as he commands, so it is done, for none disobey the king in the least aspect, for Mojo Jojo is the king, and I am Mojo Jojo, and the king is great and so am I, for I am him. Thank you for the attention to this matter!"
I gotta say...it's weirdly refreshing to read "created happiness" as one of the first accolades for a god instead of the whole "God grants you mercy for being such naughty ungrateful creations".
Ahura Mazda is the god of Zoroastrianism. I did a little bit of study on it in college and from what I remember, Zoroastrians seemed pretty chill. As far as organized religion goes, at least.
King Darius, my father, by the favor of Ahuramazda, made much that is good, and this niche he ordered to be cut; as he did not have an inscription written, then I ordered that this inscription be written.
"My dad wanted to write something here, but I don't know what. So I guess I'm writing that. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
“Yo what up my names Xerxes, I’m dope as shit, I’m the king and I fuckin dominate that shit, Ahuramazda is my boiii, haters can go fuck themselves, shoutout to my pops King Darius aka KD…”
Let me tell you folks, Ahuramazda - great god, incredible god, the best god - created the earth, created the sky, created mankind, tremendous job, really fantastic work. Created happiness too, believe me, nobody does happiness like Ahuramazda. And then - very importantly - he made me, Xerxes, king. King of many kings, lord of many lords. A real winner situation.
I’m Xerxes. The great king. King of kings. King of all kinds of people - everyone, everywhere. Far and wide. Nobody’s ever ruled this much land before, just saying. Son of Darius, who was a king, a very strong king, Achaemenid blood, fantastic lineage, the best lineage.
Now my father, King Darius - great guy, really knew what he was doing - by the favor of Ahuramazda, did many good things. So many good things. He ordered this niche to be cut, beautiful niche, top-tier craftsmanship. But - can you believe it? - no inscription. No inscription at all. Sad.
So I stepped in. I said, “We’re fixing this.” I ordered the inscription written. And let me tell you, it’s a perfect inscription. Absolutely perfect.
May Ahuramazda protect me, protect the gods, protect my kingdom, and protect everything I’ve done - which is a lot, by the way. A tremendous amount. History will remember it. Believe me.
"Unsure. It's a joke lost to time and language-interpretation, or as they apparently said: it's another dog walking into a bar, unsighted, but decisive"
"a what now"
"some sort of ritual self punishment, collectively ingesting poison to make relationship building easier"
Not entirely. In Georgia there was a weird granite monument that would help if society collapsed or some shit like that.
Some domestic terrorists blew it up a few years ago. The crazy part is the FBI didn't even try to find the culprits. So there's still a bomb making domestic terrorist still free somewhere in the US
Been there about half a year ago. If I would be guessing, it's 25m up the cliff. Between 2-3m tall. Such an amazing site to sit under stare up, knowing this was written over 2000 years ago
Fascinating. This harkens back to a time when leaders felt the need to put their names on everything and make sure everyone knew that, in their opinion, they were the greatest leader the world had ever seen.
I am so glad we are past all that in this enlightened time we now live.
I mean, it's not all bad. Like in Ancient Rome, a popular way to flex your wealth was to fund public infrastructure and then put your name on it. Things like baths, aqueducts, water fountains... i wish rich people would do that today.
I wonder, when this was inscribed, was it still 70ft off the ground? Has erosion (wind or water) lowered the original path from the height it used to be?
It seems like an awful lot of work to build scaffolding to inscribe in rock a message that most travellers wouldn't see or be able to read, so high up from the trail.
I think they believed it was for the Gods to read. This is why cathedrals in medieval times are so elaborate even in places no one would see; they believed God would see every inch of it.
"A great god is Ahuramazda, the greatest of the gods, who created this earth, who created yonder sky, who created man, created happiness for man, who made Xerxes king, one king of many, one lord of many.
I (am) Xerxes, the great king, king of kings, king of all kinds of people, king on this earth far and wide, the son of Darius the king, the Achaemenid.
Xerxes the great king proclaims: King Darius, my father, by the favor of Ahuramazda, made much that is good, and this niche he ordered to be cut; as he did not have an inscription written, then I ordered that this inscription be written.
He may Ahuramazda protect, together with the gods, and my kingdom and what I have done."
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
If I recall correctly, the statue had just been discovered so he wrote it about this particular statue, rather than picking a random to write a poem about
Van was never under their control . It is located in Türkiye .
Fun fact . The antiquities that were gathered during the excavation of nearby Van castle by American archaeologists were on a British liner that was sunk by the Germans.
I didn’t know that Xerxes had a van. What kind? Ford Transit? Was it the long wheel base model, they’re really nice. No wonder he won so easily in “300”
The logistics alone are insane. Imagine organizing a multilingual political message, carving it 70 feet up a cliff, and expecting it to last thousands of years… and it worked.
I’ve honestly thought about going to the Rocky Mountains (since I live beside them) and doing a stone carving. It’s just something I know that would outlive me and my family for millennia. Nothing big. Something small and beautiful
There'd be no confusion. Archelogists could tell that it was carved thousands of years after babylon fell. And more importantly. These carvings would be on a random rock a continent away from all babylonian finds. So there would be no doubt they were faked.
A random tiktoker would believe it, and post about it, and then some shady news website would post about it. And by that point at least 3 people would believe it, so it's good enough.
Find a state in the rockies that have State Trust Lands with a mountain on it and pay them a permit fee to create artwork and carve your message into the rock face.
I could be very wrong here, but landscapes change drastically over time. For example, Judea had pine forests... I don't know where this was inscribed or when, but it's possible that was built closer to the ground. Or, more possibly, an ancient lake? It looks like the rock it is carved into, is a different kind of rock than below, which is another reason I'm sure it was inscribed higher.
But I like to believe they just did it because it was cool:)
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
Okay, this is wild. Yesterday I spent half the day listening to Fall of Civilizations' video essay on the fall of the Persian empire. He mentioned that inscription.
My license plate frame on my Mazda 3 says "Ahura Mazda" as if it's the name of a dealership. I've never had anyone say anything about it, so I don't specifically know if anyone has noticed.
I actually did my doctoral thesis on this very artifact. The first line reads, "2 for 1 special on papyrus papers and fresh dates from Southern Egypt." The next line reads. "Is your roof leaking and you want it fixed? Send a scarab to the man on the hill. He will bring fresh mud and reeds to patch it for you." I surmised the person didn't have the funds because the story ended there. As you see, it goes on for a while. This was the very first time anyone had tried to make what we call a newspaper today. As you can see, the portion of the news coming to the person instead of the person coming to the news. This made it incredibly poor for announcing things like the price of dates and spices because it took 1 month to create these inscriptions. The fact I didn't get my doctorate should not cloud your judgement. Seriously, thanks to the people who explained some of the inscriptions! fascinating. Knowledge is power.
I understand that languages can share writing systems, and that this must have been true in the past as well. But I look at this, a script so utterly foreign to me, and then you come to tell me that this is not one language but three?!? It’s just mind boggling.
Finding a way to reach that carving, read it and decipher its riddles is clearly the way to open the door in the side of that cliff allowing us to move on to second section of the map. Now...I need the grappling hook, I'll do some side missions until I have enough money to visit a merchant.
Persian text :
baga vazraka Auramazdâ
hya mathišta bagânâm
hya imâm bûmim
adâ hya avam asmânam
adâ hya martiyam adâ hya
šiyâtim adâ martiyahyâ
hya Xšayâršâm xšâyathiyam
akunauš aivam parûnâm
xšâyathiyam aivam parûnâm
framâtâram adam Xšayâršâ
xšâyathiya vazraka xšâyathiya
xšâyathiyânâm xšâyathiya dahyûnâm
paruv zanânâm xšâyathiya ahyâyâ bûmiyâ
vazrakâyâ dûraiy apiy Dârayavahauš xšâyathiyahya
puça Ha xâmanišiya thâtiy Xšayâršâ xšâyathiya
Dârayavauš xšâyathiya hya manâ pitâ hauv vašnâ
Auramazdâha vasiy tya
naibam akunauš utâ ima stânam
hauv niyaštâya katanaiy yaniy dipim naiy nipišt
âm akunauš pasâva adam niyaštâyam
imâm dipim nipaištanaiy mâm Auramazdâ pâtuv
hadâ bagaibiš utâmaiy
xšaçam utâ tyamaiy kartam
English translation:
A great god is Ahuramazda, the greatest of the gods, who created this earth, who created yonder sky, who created man, created happiness for man, who made Xerxes king, one king of many, one lord of many. I (am) Xerxes, the great king, king of kings, king of all kinds of people, king on this earth far and wide, the son of Darius the king, the Achaemenid. Xerxes the great king proclaims: King Darius, my father, by the favor of Ahuramazda, made much that is good, and this niche he ordered to be cut; as he did not have an inscription written, then I ordered that this inscription be written. He may Ahuramazda protect, together with the gods, and my kingdom and what I have done."
"Hi! I'm the king. I ordered this inscription to be here. This inscription is here to say that I the king have ordered it to be here. Thank you."
More than that, he was saying "I'm your king, whoever reads this." Quite an important message at a time when your rule only extended as far as you could enforce it.
Also, Xerxes was actually Darius's second son, so publishing just who's whom on the throne is important.
K - 0.0000000000000000000000000000001% of the world population back in the days that could read it, probably.
Edit: I love how a lame attempt of a joke just sparks a serious conversation. Thank you guys!
I know this is just a joke but written languages were so widespread and widely used that *three of them* were needed just to convey this message in a fairly small geographical area.
Your percentage here is off by Several orders of magnitude. You gotta remember the population of the world in 480 BCE was a lot smaller. So when you have a smaller total number, individuals represent a larger portion of it. it's safe to assume that most rich people would be able to read and write. that is not a super super small percentage of the population. It is a small percentage, but not to that many decimal points.
Ah, but how many of those rich people have good enough eyesight to read this print from ~64-65 ft below?
The ones who couldn't read made up the bottom of the human ladder.
More like the bottom of the human pyramid.
More like the back end of the human centipede.
How dare you speak facts to me.
Maybe there was a wooden structure there at one point to walk up to it?
Any chance it wasn’t that high off the ground in the time it was written / carved? Combo of erosion + rise of the bluff?
In 480 BCE, most rich people were avid spelunkers and rock climbers. If you're going to comment on historical threads, please keep it real.
IIRC, about when this was carved, something like one fifth or one sixth of all humans alive lived in the Persian/Achaemenid Empire. Even if only one ten of them could read official Persian, that’s a pretty substantial percentage of the total population at the time.
Yes, it was a message specifically for them.
I wonder if there was some kind of scaffolding there and he made someone he really really * cough* loved to go up there and read it.
Right, like, squints it clearly says "Romanes eunt domus", yeah? Means "Romans go home".
No it doesn't
Romani ite domum*
Get it right
Look here. Strange men writing on walls is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some, farcical, transcription ceremony…
Look, if I went around, claiming I was an emperor, because I ordered some words carved into a cliff they’d put me away!
Come and see the violence inherent in the cliff face!
Help! Help, I'm being inscribed!
Consult the Book of Armaments
BRING FORTH THE HOLY HAND GRENADE!
Oh there you go, bringing class into it again.
And also the fact that most couldn't read.
I mean, they would have to have pretty good eyesight to be able to read that inscription.
-Hey, Jim, look. It’s an inscription.
-Oh? What’s it say?
-Hell if I know. Who puts an inscription that high?
-Maybe it’s for the birds.
Well how big'a inscription are ya?
Let me get a ladder and my reading glasses.
Not if they were really tall.🙃
“Didn’t know we had a king.. I thought we were an autonomous collective.”
I was waiting to see this show up
That's what I'm on about, you see him repressing me?!
Can just see him now at the bottom of that ladder looking up at the reader and cracking his knuckles.
“Gottem!”
Basically said “if ur reading this I am the king”
Doesn’t that still apply today? I don’t see any difference. If you can’t enforce your rule then you are not in charge. It doesn’t seem like some novel idea.
I mean, that’s how far rule extends now, too
"also my dad wanted to put something here but he didn't have anything planned, so this is it."
THANKYOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION ON THIS MATTER!
“CROOKED Belshazzar slain the SAME night. Not even KING. Co-regent. SAD.”
Same energy for sure
A lot more elaborate than the old Viking runestones. They usually had a text similar to this:
Could’ve jus written “Knut was here”
They carved plenty of that as well. The most famous one was carved in Hagia Sofia.
Knutted here
It sounds even more absurd.
"My dad ordered this tablet made but never said anything about what's supposed to be on it so now I'm having people write this sentence on here."
Dictated, not read,
Xerxes
"Hi! I'm the king. I ordered this inscription to be here. This inscription is here to say that I the king have ordered it to be here.
Thank youthank you for your attention to this matter."“THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!”
"I'm the best king this land has ever known, I know a lot of people say this. I ordered this inscription to be here because everyone keeps saying this and it's beautiful. This inscription is here to say that I the king have ordered it to be here. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
lol this translation has me rolling
Thank you for the attention to this matter. Covefe
Orange Xerxes Theory confirmed.
No, no I think it was cofvefe
This inscription could have been an email.
Perd Hapley vibes.
Someone posted this relevant comment, and I am also writing something here.
Than you for your attention to this matter
Another inscription that could have been a scroll, SMH
“If you notice this notice, then you are noticing that this notice is worth noticing.”
"Hi! It is I, Mojo Jojo, the king, and the king is Mojo Jojo, which is I! This inscription is here to say that Mojo Jojo is king and the king, which is Mojo Jojo, ordered the text of this inscription to be here inscribed, as it is here written, to the letter. For the king has ordered it, and thus it was inscribed, since the king is great, and as he commands, so it is done, for none disobey the king in the least aspect, for Mojo Jojo is the king, and I am Mojo Jojo, and the king is great and so am I, for I am him. Thank you for the attention to this matter!"
Thank you for your attention to this inscription
Oh right, The inscription. The inscription for Xerxes. The inscription specially made for Xerxes. Xerxes' inscription.
That inscription?
“Thank you for your attention on this matter” or something…
So basically, a resume. Or, just him saying, "Yo. I'm your king...."
‘my name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ etc, etc.
Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!
Awh he loved his dad 😍
I mean, I heard he was pretty Great.
LOOK UPON MY WORKS YE MIGHTIES AND DESPAIR
Ozymandius ftw
I gotta say...it's weirdly refreshing to read "created happiness" as one of the first accolades for a god instead of the whole "God grants you mercy for being such naughty ungrateful creations".
Ahura Mazda is the god of Zoroastrianism. I did a little bit of study on it in college and from what I remember, Zoroastrians seemed pretty chill. As far as organized religion goes, at least.
"My dad wanted to write something here, but I don't know what. So I guess I'm writing that. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
“Yo what up my names Xerxes, I’m dope as shit, I’m the king and I fuckin dominate that shit, Ahuramazda is my boiii, haters can go fuck themselves, shoutout to my pops King Darius aka KD…”
this could have been an email 😮💨
“Thank you for your attention to this matter”
Let me tell you folks, Ahuramazda - great god, incredible god, the best god - created the earth, created the sky, created mankind, tremendous job, really fantastic work. Created happiness too, believe me, nobody does happiness like Ahuramazda. And then - very importantly - he made me, Xerxes, king. King of many kings, lord of many lords. A real winner situation.
I’m Xerxes. The great king. King of kings. King of all kinds of people - everyone, everywhere. Far and wide. Nobody’s ever ruled this much land before, just saying. Son of Darius, who was a king, a very strong king, Achaemenid blood, fantastic lineage, the best lineage.
Now my father, King Darius - great guy, really knew what he was doing - by the favor of Ahuramazda, did many good things. So many good things. He ordered this niche to be cut, beautiful niche, top-tier craftsmanship. But - can you believe it? - no inscription. No inscription at all. Sad.
So I stepped in. I said, “We’re fixing this.” I ordered the inscription written. And let me tell you, it’s a perfect inscription. Absolutely perfect.
May Ahuramazda protect me, protect the gods, protect my kingdom, and protect everything I’ve done - which is a lot, by the way. A tremendous amount. History will remember it. Believe me.
Mfs back then really were like: "Behold the supreme emperor of existence" after taking over 5 villages along the euphrates river.
The Persians had the largest empire known to mankind at that point
And even Larger than the roman empire at it's prime
I know. Was more referring to the way this was written aligning with how the same people during the bronze age wrote about themselves
Propaganda is as old as time
Almost seems like a meditative chant.
Dang, couldn’t he just have added his name to the Kennedy Center ?
Miata really is the answer...
Very Trumpesque
I was gonna say Mojo Jojo.
This is the key to immortality - an inscription on rock. Xerxes could have been a used camel salesman but he had foresight.
Yes, like Ea-nāṣir
How bad was this man’s copper!?
Not bad, it was just slander by his servant to make Ea Nasir look bad. Look deeper
Sub-standard quality
3,000 years into the future
'Not made in China or by Ea-Nasir'
"Hey what does this statue inscription mean?"
"Unsure. It's a joke lost to time and language-interpretation, or as they apparently said: it's another dog walking into a bar, unsighted, but decisive"
"a what now"
"some sort of ritual self punishment, collectively ingesting poison to make relationship building easier"
"barbaric"
“What was a China?”
“I don’t know, some kind of plate to eat food.”
“Why would people make stuff out of plates?!? They were crazy..”
Idk but I'm still pissed about it
Considering copper is an element, his substandard copper is probably STILL in use today in someone's phone, slowing apps and draining the battery...
That prick… I can’t even say his name
So I guess ANYONE could carve some information about current political events in rocks… anywhere… all around the world…
Can’t delete that as easily
Not entirely. In Georgia there was a weird granite monument that would help if society collapsed or some shit like that.
Some domestic terrorists blew it up a few years ago. The crazy part is the FBI didn't even try to find the culprits. So there's still a bomb making domestic terrorist still free somewhere in the US
Just one?
Mt rushmore
We should delete it though
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look upon my works ye mighty and despair.
I suppose there’s a reason “set in stone,” or some variation, is a common idiom throughout the world.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Same energy. For real.
How old is this?
486 to 465 BC
Incredible. Any idea how large the inscription is? I'm guessing at least 10ft tall based on the more zoomed out image.
Been there about half a year ago. If I would be guessing, it's 25m up the cliff. Between 2-3m tall. Such an amazing site to sit under stare up, knowing this was written over 2000 years ago
Fascinating. This harkens back to a time when leaders felt the need to put their names on everything and make sure everyone knew that, in their opinion, they were the greatest leader the world had ever seen.
I am so glad we are past all that in this enlightened time we now live.
/s
I mean, it's not all bad. Like in Ancient Rome, a popular way to flex your wealth was to fund public infrastructure and then put your name on it. Things like baths, aqueducts, water fountains... i wish rich people would do that today.
What about arts centers, ballrooms, memorials to past presidents?
Carnegie built shit. We stopped taxing the piss out of them and guess what? We get less public institutions.
My Aunt's plastic surgeon "donated" so much money that they renamed the hospital's department to his name.
I wonder, when this was inscribed, was it still 70ft off the ground? Has erosion (wind or water) lowered the original path from the height it used to be?
It seems like an awful lot of work to build scaffolding to inscribe in rock a message that most travellers wouldn't see or be able to read, so high up from the trail.
I think they believed it was for the Gods to read. This is why cathedrals in medieval times are so elaborate even in places no one would see; they believed God would see every inch of it.
"A great god is Ahuramazda, the greatest of the gods, who created this earth, who created yonder sky, who created man, created happiness for man, who made Xerxes king, one king of many, one lord of many. I (am) Xerxes, the great king, king of kings, king of all kinds of people, king on this earth far and wide, the son of Darius the king, the Achaemenid. Xerxes the great king proclaims: King Darius, my father, by the favor of Ahuramazda, made much that is good, and this niche he ordered to be cut; as he did not have an inscription written, then I ordered that this inscription be written. He may Ahuramazda protect, together with the gods, and my kingdom and what I have done."
AND BE A SIIIIMPLE
KIIIIINDA MAAAAN
Party on and be excellent to each other.
“Xerxes was here.
P.S. if you do not forward this message to ten other mountains within one week you will have bad luck.”
Reminded me of this:
I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
You forgot to say who wrote the poem.
Shelley 1818
Percy Bysshe Shelley, to be precise. Not to be confused with his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein.
Not to confuse with her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, the famous writer, philosopher and advocate for women's rights.
Nor to be confused with their friend Lord Byron's daughter Ada Lovelace, the Victorian computing pioneer
Which is funny, concidering Ramsesses II aka Ozymandias is one of the most well-known pharaohs. Percy Shelly could have chosen someone more obscure.
My thought is that was on purpose, since picking someone real and famous would highlight the point that time erases everything and everyone.
If I recall correctly, the statue had just been discovered so he wrote it about this particular statue, rather than picking a random to write a poem about
Came here for this.
"You have now learned Unrelenting Force"
Was a bitch of a climb though.
"Scissor me Xerxes!"
Look upon my works you mighty and despair.
"...and furthermore I shall no long buy my copper from Ea-nāṣir for he is shameful"
I'm glad ISIS didnt destroy it like they destroyed many other antiquities.
Van was never under their control . It is located in Türkiye .
Fun fact . The antiquities that were gathered during the excavation of nearby Van castle by American archaeologists were on a British liner that was sunk by the Germans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Athenia_(1922)
WORD OF POWER LEARNED - FLIP, TABLE
I didn’t know that Xerxes had a van. What kind? Ford Transit? Was it the long wheel base model, they’re really nice. No wonder he won so easily in “300”
…. /s if you needed it
The translation of the text clearly says it was a (Ahura)Mazda.
The logistics alone are insane. Imagine organizing a multilingual political message, carving it 70 feet up a cliff, and expecting it to last thousands of years… and it worked.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER
"Don't forget to drink your Ovaltine."
I’ve honestly thought about going to the Rocky Mountains (since I live beside them) and doing a stone carving. It’s just something I know that would outlive me and my family for millennia. Nothing big. Something small and beautiful
Write it in Babylonian to confuse archaeologists
There'd be no confusion. Archelogists could tell that it was carved thousands of years after babylon fell. And more importantly. These carvings would be on a random rock a continent away from all babylonian finds. So there would be no doubt they were faked.
Then write "written 2000 bc" at the end to throw off their wily archaeologist schemes
* sent from my chisel
Sounds like a Futurama episode
A random tiktoker would believe it, and post about it, and then some shady news website would post about it. And by that point at least 3 people would believe it, so it's good enough.
Carve a calendar that ends in 4012 AD
Find a state in the rockies that have State Trust Lands with a mountain on it and pay them a permit fee to create artwork and carve your message into the rock face.
Why would they go out of their way to put it so high up? And what does it say?
I posted a comment with the Persian text and it's translation
It's basically Xerxes boasting his accomplishments and greatness of his god for the world to see
Also how that inscription is protected by him
ICE CUBES A PIMP
It says "We need to speak to you about your car's extended warranty."
No, no, no. It says "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."
I could be very wrong here, but landscapes change drastically over time. For example, Judea had pine forests... I don't know where this was inscribed or when, but it's possible that was built closer to the ground. Or, more possibly, an ancient lake? It looks like the rock it is carved into, is a different kind of rock than below, which is another reason I'm sure it was inscribed higher.
But I like to believe they just did it because it was cool:)
Back then they didn’t have a city ordinance that limits how high a billboard can go.
What is it doing so high up?
Not being vandalised for several thousand years.
"There are no Easter Eggs up here, go away." /s
The type of patience that not having technological advancements can give you is insane.
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
DON’T PANIC
I didn't know Xerxes could even drive. I bet the van was white with bubble windows.
Also telling is the advert inscribed on the side panel:
"Attention: we've been trying to reach you regarding your chariot's extended warranty."
Must be aliens /s
Is this the first ever billboard?
“We have been trying to reach you about your cars extended warranty.”
It's absolutely astonishing to think of a literate ruler.
Daniel Jackson to the front desk please, Daniel Jackson to the front desk please.
Okay, this is wild. Yesterday I spent half the day listening to Fall of Civilizations' video essay on the fall of the Persian empire. He mentioned that inscription.
What's it say about the quality of his copper though?
Xerxes was The King of Kings before others ahem made the claim.
My license plate frame on my Mazda 3 says "Ahura Mazda" as if it's the name of a dealership. I've never had anyone say anything about it, so I don't specifically know if anyone has noticed.
I didn't know they had vans back then, DERP
I actually did my doctoral thesis on this very artifact. The first line reads, "2 for 1 special on papyrus papers and fresh dates from Southern Egypt." The next line reads. "Is your roof leaking and you want it fixed? Send a scarab to the man on the hill. He will bring fresh mud and reeds to patch it for you." I surmised the person didn't have the funds because the story ended there. As you see, it goes on for a while. This was the very first time anyone had tried to make what we call a newspaper today. As you can see, the portion of the news coming to the person instead of the person coming to the news. This made it incredibly poor for announcing things like the price of dates and spices because it took 1 month to create these inscriptions. The fact I didn't get my doctorate should not cloud your judgement. Seriously, thanks to the people who explained some of the inscriptions! fascinating. Knowledge is power.
What Mazda ?
What kind of van did he have?
Awesome van, dude!
It was put up there for all the nephelines to read. 🤔
Possible entry for “First billboard ever!”
I understand that languages can share writing systems, and that this must have been true in the past as well. But I look at this, a script so utterly foreign to me, and then you come to tell me that this is not one language but three?!? It’s just mind boggling.
Can't help wondering, what if the inscriber makes a typo, say three quarters of the way through?
Not to subvert the awesome historical magnitude of the site, but those are wicked cool written characters in each alphabet!
How many miles are on the van?
Graffiti was a lot more laborious back then.
Wonder how much erosion has taken place here. Why carve it 70 ft in the air?
Anyone know what it says?
"Any man who must say - "I am the king",
is no true king."
~ Tywin Lannister
Don’t tell the British museum
Bro unlocked creative mode.
The inscription on Cyrus's tomb is my favorite of what the Persians (allegedly) left behind:
“Mortal! I am Cyrus son of Cambyses, who founded the Persian empire, and was King of Asia. Grudge me not then my monument.”
If you get close enough, you learn a new shout
King Xerxes was here! 455 BCE
Finding a way to reach that carving, read it and decipher its riddles is clearly the way to open the door in the side of that cliff allowing us to move on to second section of the map. Now...I need the grappling hook, I'll do some side missions until I have enough money to visit a merchant.