Proto-Elamite
Encyclopedia
The Proto-Elamite period is the time of ca. 3200 BC to 2700 BC when Susa
, the later capital of the Elamites, began to receive influence from the cultures of the Iranian plateau
. In archaeological terms this corresponds to the late Banesh period. This civilization is recognized as the oldest in Iran and was largely contemporary with its neighbour, Sumer
ian civilization, the oldest in the world, which began around 3400 BC.
The Proto-Elamite script is an Early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use for the ancient Elamite language
before the introduction of Elamite Cuneiform
.
–3700
BCE, the Fertile Crescent
witnessed the spread of small settlements supported by agricultural surplus. Geometric tokens, emerged to be used to manage stewardship
of this surplus.
The Mesopotamian civilization emerged during the period 3700
–2900
BCE amid the development of technological innovations such as the plough
, sailing boats and copper metal working
. Clay tablet
s with pictographic characters appeared in this period to record commercial transactions performed by the temples
.
Besides Susa, one important Proto-Elamite site is Teppe Sialk
, where the only remaining Proto-Elamite ziggurat
is still seen. Texts in the undeciphered Proto-Elamite script found in Susa
are dated to this period. It is thought that the Proto-Elamites were in fact Elamites (Elamite
speakers), because of the many cultural similarities (for example, the building of ziggurats), and because no large-scale migration to this area seems to have occurred between the Proto-Elamite period and the later Elamites. But because their script is yet to be deciphered, this theory remains uncertain.
Some anthropologists, such as John Alden, maintain that Proto-Elamite influence grew rapidly at the end of the 4th millennium BC and declined equally rapidly with the establishment of maritime trade in the Persian Gulf
several centuries later.
Proto-Elamite pottery dating back to the last half of the 5th millennium BC has been found in Sialk, where Proto-Elamite writing, the first form of writing in Iran
, has been found on tablets of this date. The first cylinder seal
s come from the Proto-Elamite period, as well. http://www.anaviangallery.com/ancient_iranian_preface.html
. Both scripts remain largely undeciphered, and it is mere speculation to postulate a relationship between the two.
A few Proto-Elamite signs seem either to be loans from the slightly older proto-cuneiform (Late Uruk
) tablets of Mesopotamia, or perhaps more likely, to share a common origin. Whereas proto-cuneiform is written in visual hierarchies, Proto-Elamite is written in an in-line style: numerical signs follow the objects they count; some non-numerical signs are 'images' of the objects they represent, although the majority are entirely abstract.
Proto-Elamite was used for a brief period around 3000 BC (presumably contemporaneous with Uruk III, or Jemdet Nasr
in Mesopotamia), whereas Linear Elamite is attested for a similarly brief period in the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC.
Proponents of an Elamo-Dravidian relationship have looked for similarities between the Proto-Elamite and the Indus script
.
in the west, to Tepe Yahya
in the east, and perhaps beyond. The known corpus of inscriptions consists of some 1600 tablets, the vast majority unearthed at Susa
.
Proto-Elamite tablets have been found at the following sites (in order of number of tablets recovered):
None of the inscribed objects from Ghazir, Chogha Mish
or Hissar
can be verified as Proto-Elamite; the tablets from Ghazir and Choga Mish are Uruk IV style or numerical tablets, whereas the Hissar object cannot be classified at present. The majority of the Sialk tablets are also not proto-Elamite, strictly speaking, but belong to the period of close contact between Mesopotamia and Iran, presumably corresponding to Uruk V - IV.
While the Elamite language
has been suggested as a likely candidate underlying the Proto-Elamite inscriptions, there is no positive evidence of this. The earliest Proto-Elamite inscriptions, being purely ideograph
ical, do not in fact contain any linguistic information, and following Friberg's 1978/79 study of Ancient Near Eastern metrology
, decipherment attempts have moved away from linguistic methods.
Susa
Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers....
, the later capital of the Elamites, began to receive influence from the cultures of the Iranian plateau
Iranian plateau
The Iranian plateau, or Iranic plateau, is a geological formation in Southwest Asia. It is the part of the Eurasian Plate wedged between the Arabian and Indian plates, situated between the Zagros mountains to the west, the Caspian Sea and the Kopet Dag to the north, the Hormuz Strait and Persian...
. In archaeological terms this corresponds to the late Banesh period. This civilization is recognized as the oldest in Iran and was largely contemporary with its neighbour, Sumer
Sumer
Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....
ian civilization, the oldest in the world, which began around 3400 BC.
The Proto-Elamite script is an Early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use for the ancient Elamite language
Elamite language
Elamite is an extinct language spoken by the ancient Elamites. Elamite was the primary language in present day Iran from 2800–550 BCE. The last written records in Elamite appear about the time of the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great....
before the introduction of Elamite Cuneiform
Elamite Cuneiform
Elamite cuneiform was a logo-syllabic script used to write the Elamite Language.- History and Decipherment:The Elamite Language is the now extinct language spoken by Elamites, who inhabited the regions of Khuzistān and Fārs in Southern Iran...
.
Overview
During the period 80008th millennium BC
In the 8th millennium BC, agriculture became widely practised in the Fertile Crescent and Anatolia.Pottery became widespread and animal husbandry spread to Africa and Eurasia. World population was approximately 5 million.-Events:*c. 8000 BC—The last glacial period ends.*c...
–3700
37th century BC
-Events:*Beginning of the Early Minoan period on Crete*In the south of England, a rapid expansion of monument building occurred around 3700 BC....
BCE, the Fertile Crescent
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent, nicknamed "The Cradle of Civilization" for the fact the first civilizations started there, is a crescent-shaped region containing the comparatively moist and fertile land of otherwise arid and semi-arid Western Asia. The term was first used by University of Chicago...
witnessed the spread of small settlements supported by agricultural surplus. Geometric tokens, emerged to be used to manage stewardship
Stewardship
Stewardship is an ethic that embodies responsible planning and management of resources. The concept of stewardship has been applied in diverse realms, including with respect to environment, economics, health, property, information, and religion, and is linked to the concept of sustainability...
of this surplus.
The Mesopotamian civilization emerged during the period 3700
37th century BC
-Events:*Beginning of the Early Minoan period on Crete*In the south of England, a rapid expansion of monument building occurred around 3700 BC....
–2900
29th century BC
The 29th century BC is a century which lasted from the year 2900 BC to 2801 BC.-Events:*c. 2900 BC – 2400 BC: Sumerian pictographs evolve into phonograms.*2900 BC – 2334 BC: Mesopotamian wars of the Early Dynastic period....
BCE amid the development of technological innovations such as the plough
Plough
The plough or plow is a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances in agriculture...
, sailing boats and copper metal working
Copper Age
The Chalcolithic |stone]]") period or Copper Age, also known as the Eneolithic/Æneolithic , is a phase of the Bronze Age in which the addition of tin to copper to form bronze during smelting remained yet unknown by the metallurgists of the times...
. Clay tablet
Clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age....
s with pictographic characters appeared in this period to record commercial transactions performed by the temples
É (temple)
É is the Sumerian word or symbol for house or temple, written ideographically with the cuneiform sign .The Sumerian term É.GAL denoted a city's main building....
.
Besides Susa, one important Proto-Elamite site is Teppe Sialk
Teppe Sialk
Tepe Sialk is a large ancient archeological site in a suburb of the city of Kashan, Isfahan Province, in central Iran, close to Fin Garden. The culture that inhabited this area has been linked to the Zayandeh Rud Civilization.-History:The Sialk mound was built around the 8th century BC...
, where the only remaining Proto-Elamite ziggurat
Ziggurat
Ziggurats were massive structures built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels.Notable ziggurats include the Great Ziggurat of Ur near Nasiriyah, Iraq; the Ziggurat of Aqar Quf near...
is still seen. Texts in the undeciphered Proto-Elamite script found in Susa
Susa
Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers....
are dated to this period. It is thought that the Proto-Elamites were in fact Elamites (Elamite
Elamite language
Elamite is an extinct language spoken by the ancient Elamites. Elamite was the primary language in present day Iran from 2800–550 BCE. The last written records in Elamite appear about the time of the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great....
speakers), because of the many cultural similarities (for example, the building of ziggurats), and because no large-scale migration to this area seems to have occurred between the Proto-Elamite period and the later Elamites. But because their script is yet to be deciphered, this theory remains uncertain.
Some anthropologists, such as John Alden, maintain that Proto-Elamite influence grew rapidly at the end of the 4th millennium BC and declined equally rapidly with the establishment of maritime trade in the Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
several centuries later.
Proto-Elamite pottery dating back to the last half of the 5th millennium BC has been found in Sialk, where Proto-Elamite writing, the first form of writing in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, has been found on tablets of this date. The first cylinder seal
Cylinder seal
A cylinder seal is a cylinder engraved with a 'picture story', used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. Cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in the Near East, at the contemporary site of Susa in south-western Iran and at the early site...
s come from the Proto-Elamite period, as well. http://www.anaviangallery.com/ancient_iranian_preface.html
Proto-Elamite script
It is uncertain whether the Proto-Elamite script may be considered the direct predecessor of Linear ElamiteLinear Elamite
Linear Elamite is a Bronze Age writing system used in Elam, known from a few monumental inscriptions only. It was used contemporarily with Elamite Cuneiform and likely records the Elamite language....
. Both scripts remain largely undeciphered, and it is mere speculation to postulate a relationship between the two.
A few Proto-Elamite signs seem either to be loans from the slightly older proto-cuneiform (Late Uruk
Uruk period
The Uruk period existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, following the Ubaid period and succeeded by the Jemdet Nasr period. Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia. It was...
) tablets of Mesopotamia, or perhaps more likely, to share a common origin. Whereas proto-cuneiform is written in visual hierarchies, Proto-Elamite is written in an in-line style: numerical signs follow the objects they count; some non-numerical signs are 'images' of the objects they represent, although the majority are entirely abstract.
Proto-Elamite was used for a brief period around 3000 BC (presumably contemporaneous with Uruk III, or Jemdet Nasr
Jemdet Nasr period
The Jemdet Nasr period is an archaeological culture in southern Mesopotamia that is generally dated to 3100–2900 BCE. It is named after the type-site Jemdet Nasr, where the assemblage typical for this period was first recognized. Its geographical distribution is limited to south–central Iraq...
in Mesopotamia), whereas Linear Elamite is attested for a similarly brief period in the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC.
Proponents of an Elamo-Dravidian relationship have looked for similarities between the Proto-Elamite and the Indus script
Indus script
The term Indus script refers to short strings of symbols associated with the Indus Valley Civilization, in use during the Early Harappan and Mature Harappan period, between the 35th and 20th centuries BC. In spite of many attempts at decipherments and claims, it is as yet undeciphered...
.
Inscription corpus
The Proto-Elamite writing system was used over a very large geographical area, stretching from SusaSusa
Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers....
in the west, to Tepe Yahya
Tepe Yahya
Tepe Yahya is an archaeological site in Kermān Province, Iran, some 220 km south of Kerman city, 90 km south of Baft city and 90 km south-west of Jiroft.-History:Habitation spans the 6th to 2nd millennia BCE and the 10th to 4th centuries BCE....
in the east, and perhaps beyond. The known corpus of inscriptions consists of some 1600 tablets, the vast majority unearthed at Susa
Susa
Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers....
.
Proto-Elamite tablets have been found at the following sites (in order of number of tablets recovered):
- Susa (more than 1500 tablets)
- MalyanAnshan (Persia)Anshan - History :Before 1973, when it was identified as Tall-i Malyan, Anshan had been assumed by scholars to be somewhere in the central Zagros mountain range....
(more than 30 tablets) - Tepe Yahya (27 tablets)
- Sialk (22 tablets)
- JiroftJiroft civilizationA "Jiroft culture" has been postulated as an early Bronze Age archaeological culture, located in what is now Iran's Sistan and Kermān Provinces....
(two tablets) - Ozbaki (one tablet)
- Shahr-i-Shokhta (one tablet)
None of the inscribed objects from Ghazir, Chogha Mish
Chogha Mish
Tappeh-ye Choghā Mīsh dating back to 6800 BC, is the site of a Chalcolithic settlement in Western Iran, located in the Khuzistan Province on the Susiana Plain...
or Hissar
Hisar, India
Hisar city, previously spelled Hissar, is the administrative headquarters of Hisar district, in the state of Haryana, in northwestern India. Hisar was founded in 1354 CE, as Hissar-e-Firoza by Firoz Shah Tughlaq, who reigned over the Sultanate of Delhi from 1351 to 1388. on the demolished ruins...
can be verified as Proto-Elamite; the tablets from Ghazir and Choga Mish are Uruk IV style or numerical tablets, whereas the Hissar object cannot be classified at present. The majority of the Sialk tablets are also not proto-Elamite, strictly speaking, but belong to the period of close contact between Mesopotamia and Iran, presumably corresponding to Uruk V - IV.
Decipherment attempts
Although Proto-Elamite remains undeciphered, the content of many texts is known. This is possible because certain signs, and in particular a majority of the numerical signs, are direct loans from the neighboring Mesopotamian writing system, proto-cuneiform. In addition, a number of the proto-Elamite signs are actual images of the objects they represent. However, the majority of the proto-Elamite signs are entirely abstract, and their meanings can only be deciphered through careful graphotactical analysis.While the Elamite language
Elamite language
Elamite is an extinct language spoken by the ancient Elamites. Elamite was the primary language in present day Iran from 2800–550 BCE. The last written records in Elamite appear about the time of the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great....
has been suggested as a likely candidate underlying the Proto-Elamite inscriptions, there is no positive evidence of this. The earliest Proto-Elamite inscriptions, being purely ideograph
Ideograph
Ideograph is a term coined by rhetorical scholar and critic Michael Calvin McGee describing the use of particular words and phrases as political language in a way that captures particular ideological positions...
ical, do not in fact contain any linguistic information, and following Friberg's 1978/79 study of Ancient Near Eastern metrology
Metrology
Metrology is the science of measurement. Metrology includes all theoretical and practical aspects of measurement. The word comes from Greek μέτρον , "measure" + "λόγος" , amongst others meaning "speech, oration, discourse, quote, study, calculation, reason"...
, decipherment attempts have moved away from linguistic methods.
Literature
- Jacob L. Dahl, "Complex Graphemes in Proto-Elamite," in Cuneiform Digital Library Journal (CDLJ) 2005:3. Download a PDF copy
- Peter Damerow, “The Origins of Writing as a Problem of Historical Epistemology,” in Cuneiform Digital Library Journal (CDLJ) 2006:1. Download a PDF copy
- Peter Damerow and Robert K. Englund, The Proto-Elamite Texts from Tepe Yahya (= The American School of Prehistoric Research Bulletin 39; Cambridge, MA, 1989).
- Robert H. Dyson, “Early Work on the Acropolis at Susa. The Beginning of Prehistory in Iraq and Iran,” Expedition 10/4 (1968) 21-34.
- Robert K. Englund, “The State of Decipherment of Proto-Elamite,” in: Stephen Houston, ed. The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process (2004). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 100–149. Download a PDF copy
- Jöran Friberg, The Third Millennium Roots of Babylonian Mathematics I-II (Göteborg, 1978/79).
- A. Le Brun, “Recherches stratigraphiques a l’acropole de Suse, 1969-1971,” in Cahiers de la Délégation archaéologique Française en Iran 1 (= CahDAFI 1; Paris, 1971) 163 – 216.
- Piero Meriggi, La scritura proto-elamica. Parte Ia: La scritura e il contenuto dei testi (Rome, 1971).
- Piero Meriggi, La scritura proto-elamica. Parte IIa: Catalogo dei segni (Rome, 1974).
- Piero Meriggi, La scritura proto-elamica. Parte IIIa: Testi (Rome, 1974).
- Daniel T. Potts, The Archaeology of Elam (Cambridge, UK, 1999).
External links
- Proto-Elamite (CDLI project, by J. L. Dahl)
- Graphic, with article, of a Proto-Elamite tablet