page_title: Kermanshah Province
section_title: Historical attractions
hierarchical_section_title: Kermanshah Province / Historical attractions
caption_attribution_description: English: Darius I the Great's inscription. Possibly an influence in the en:stele series for the Ptolemies, III, IV, and V-(V for the Rosetta Stone); Ptolemy II also had a Victory Stele, though not bilingual. Italiano: Iscrizione di Dario I il grande.
context_page_description: Kermanshah Province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. The province was known from 1969 to 1986 as Kermanshahan and from 1986 to 1995 as Bakhtaran. According to a 2014 segmentation by the Ministry of Interior it is center of Region 4, with the region's central secretariat located at the province's capital city, Kermanshah. A majority of people in Kermanshah Province are Shia, and there are Sunni and Yarsani minority groups.
context_section_description: Various attractions exist that date from the pre-Islamic era, such as the Kohneh Bridge, to contemporary parks and museums. Some of the more popular sites are:
  Bisotun: 
  Darius the Great's inscription at Bisotun, which dates to 522 BCE, lies some 1300 meters high in the mountains, and counts as one of the most famous sites in Near Eastern archeology. The site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has been attracting visitors for centuries. The Behistun inscription is to Old Persian cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone is to Egyptian hieroglyphs: the trilingual inscription (in Old Persian, Elamite and Akkadian) was crucial in the decipherment of the script. The relief above the inscription depicts Darius facing nine rebels who objected to his crowning. At the king's feet lies Gaumata. The location of this important historical document is not coincidental: Gaumata, a usurper who is depicted as lying at Darius' feet, was a Medean and in Achaemenid times Behistun lay on the Medea-Parsa highway.
  Behistun is also notable for three reliefs at the foot of the hill that date from the Parthian era. Among them is a Hellenistic-era depiction of the divinity Bahram as the Greek hero Hercules, who reclines with a goblet in his hand, a club at his feet and a lion-skin beneath him. Because it lies on the route of an ancient highway, this life-size rock sculpture may reflect Bahram's status as patron divinity of travelers.
  Taq-e Bostan:
  The rock reliefs at Taq-e Bostan lie 6 kilometres (4 mi) northeast of Kermanshah, where a spring gushes from a mountain cliff and empties into a large reflecting pool. One of the more impressive reliefs, inside the largest grotto (ivan), is the oversized depiction of Sassanid king Khosrau II (591–628 CE), who appears mounted on his favorite charger, Shabdiz. Both the horse and the rider are arrayed in full battle armor.
  There are two hunting scenes on complementary sides of the ivan: one depicts an imperial boar hunt and the other depicting the king stalking deer. Elephants flush out the boar from a marshy lake for the king who stands poised with bow and arrow in hand while he is serenaded by female musicians following in other boats. These royal hunting scenes are narrative murals in stone are count among the most vivid of all Iranian rock reliefs.
  The Taq-e Bostan reliefs are not limited to the Sassanid era. An upper relief depicts the 19th century Qajar king Fath-Ali shah holding court.
  The Kangavar archaeological complex:
  Kangavar is the site of the archaeological remains of a vast Hellenic-style edifice on a raised platform. The visible remains at the site date to early Sassanid times, but the platform of the complex may be several centuries older. By the time excavation began in 1968, the complex had been preemptorily associated with a comment by Isidore of Charax who referred to a temple of Anahita at Concobar (the Greek name of Kangavar, which was then in Lower Medea). Despite archaeological findings to the contrary, the association with the divinity of fertility, healing, and wisdom has made the site a popular tourist attraction. The vast edifice was built of enormous blocks of dressed stone with an imposing entrance of opposed staircases that may have been inspired by the Apadana in Persepolis.
caption: Darius the Great's Behistun inscription
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S1 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ACD Systems Digital Imaging", "Image DateTime": "2005:10:16 12:30:41", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "226", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2150", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "11899", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/800", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:03:25 11:19:34", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:03:25 11:19:34", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "309/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "139/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "13/4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "58", "EXIF SubSecTime": "546", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "640", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "480", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2054", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "64000/13", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "64000/13", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}