Ganj Nameh
Gandj Nameh or Ganj Nameh, also Ganjnameh or Jangnameh (Persian گنجنامه "treasure book" or جنگنامه " war book ") is the name for two cuneiform tablets from Achaemenid time in a rock of the Alvand Mountains, near Hamadan ( Iran), are carved.
Place of inscriptions
Gandj Nameh is located 12 km southwest of the center of Hamadan, 5 km from the city outskirts, in the upper part of a popular outdoor recreation area of Hamedan, the Abbas -Abad Valley. Near the inscriptions there is also a waterfall and the valley station of the cable car. The left of the two inscriptions refers to Darius I ( 549-486 BC ), the right to Xerxes I ( 519-465 BC). At the time of the Achaemenids, the old Median Ecbatana, the modern Hamadan, summer residence of the monarch, and Gandj Nameh was therefore lay on the northern branch of the ancient Persian royal road to Mesopotamia.
Further, older name for the location of the inscriptions: Sang Nebeshteh, Nebesht -e- Khodayan, Dahmehan, Tabanar, Katibe -ha -ye Alvand.
Discovery history
When the cuneiform texts of Gandj Nameh could not be read, they were named after suspicions that the inscriptions an indication of a hidden treasure contained ( treasure book ) or should remember a war ( war book ). Their rediscovery for posterity began with Eugène Flandin, the Pascal Coste traveled to Iran in the first half of the 19th century and sketched this mountain gorge of the Elvand Mountains. He noted that there exist fields inscription in cuneiform. Henry Rawlinson, contributed decisively to the decipherment of cuneiform, knew and used these inscriptions. In his opinion, they were created on the occasion of one of the trips, which carried out each of the two monarchs annually between Ecbatana to Babylon.
Text analysis
As usual since Darius I. at the Achaemenid inscriptions, the writing tablets are written in the three languages. The leftmost of the three 20 - line text blocks is written in Old Persian, followed in the middle and right neuelamische the Neo-Babylonian text version.
The Old Persian cuneiform is the youngest of the three writing systems and comes with 34 characters; the neuelamische requires around 200 and the Neo-Babylonian 600 characters. The decipherment of the Old Persian inscriptions was therefore the easiest, especially since it is an alphabetic script ( read from left to right) and were used for readability word separators (to the left inclined wedge). A look at the scope of the three text blocks of the two inscriptions confirmed that a letter writing requires more space than a syllabary.
The ancient Persian texts are information boards of Hamadan Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization ( CHTO ) each transliterated into Persian and English and translated. In the reproduced here photographic section of the panel for the Xerxes inscription some parts are highlighted: Line 12 contains the name " Xerxes ", in lines 7/8 it occurs in the line break on again and has an accusative ending, and line 19 contains the name " Darius ".
In German is the Xerxes inscription: " The Great God is Ahura Mazda, the greatest of the gods, who created this earth, who created that heaven, who created man, who created joy for the people of Xerxes has made to the king, one of many to the king, one of many ruler. I am Xerxes, the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries of many nations, king of this great earth far off also, son of Darius, an Achaemenian. "
The Darius inscription reads: " The Great God is Ahura Mazda who created this earth, who created that heaven, who created man, who created joy for the people who made Darius king, one of many a king, a ruler of many. I am Darius the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries of many nations, king of this great earth far off also, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian. "
The text of the Xerxes inscription is virtually identical to the first half of an inscription at Persepolis in the Darius Palace - occurs three times - once in three languages. It contains, however both to the palace texts as well as to the consideration here Darius text an additional predicate of Ahura Mazda: "the greatest of the gods".