Rehabilitating a Historical Epigraph from the Constitutional Era in the Big Arch of Taq-e Bostan

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

the Cultural Heritage, Handicras and Tourism Research Center

Abstract

Inscriptions are one of the most important written historical records. They provide much information about past history. Reviewing and decrypting them can be very helpful in learning about the history and civilization of a country. The subject of this paper is one such inscription which had been engraved in the big arch of "Taq-e Bostan" and has since been destroyed. The aim of this research is to provide the text of a historical record that once existed in the big arch of Taq-e-Bostan, but of which only a trace remains. Seeing the empty frame of this historical epigraph raises questions in the mind of each visitor; was there a text in this frame? If there was a text, in what handwriting and in what language was it written? In what historical era was it written and by whose order? In this paper, the text of the epigraph is read and presented and the abovementioned questions are answered for the first time. In order to reach this goal, complementary library and field research methods were used.

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