Behistun Inscription belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 520 BCE at Mount Behistun, Iran. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
Darius had his coup carved 100 metres up a cliff in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian — a Rosetta Stone before Rosetta.
How it was made
The sculptors worked from scaffolding on a polished rock face, then destroyed the access. Rawlinson later dangled on ropes to copy it.
Why it still counts as a wonder
It never needed a Greek list to be a wonder: the labour, the alignment, or the survival is enough.
The wonder is literacy as landscape: an imperial press release that could not be edited.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 520 BCE may have been founded earlier, rebuilt later, or famous only in one phase. Where ancient writers disagree — as they do for Babylon’s gardens — we say so.
This is story 38 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.