Proto-Elamite
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Sialk is one of the remaining proto-elamite ruins in Iran. |
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.
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.
Besides Susa 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 the ziggurats) and because no large scale migration to this area seems to have occured between the Proto-Elamite period and the later Elamite. 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 seals come from the Proto-Elamite period, as well. [
1]
The first indigenous writing system from Iran is called Proto-Elamite, it was long thought of as a precursor to a (hypothetical) indigenous Elamite writing system. Proto-Elamite, as well as
Linear Elamite, remains largely un-deciphered. At present it is idle speculation to postulate a relationship between the two writing systems.
A few Proto-Elamite signs are obvious loans from the slightly older proto-cuneiform (Late
Uruk) tablets of Mesopotamia, or perhaps more correctly 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 during a brief period around 3000 BCE (presumably contemporary with Uruk III or Jemdat Nasr in Mesopotamia), whereas
Linear Elamite is attested for a similarly brief period sometime during the later half of the 3rd millennium BCE.
Inscription corpus
Proto-Elamite writing system was used over a very large geographical area, stretching from
Susa in the west, to
Tepe Yahya in the east, and perhaps beyond. The kown 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):
*Susa (more than 1500 tablets)
*
Malyan (more than 30 tablets)
*Tepe Yahya (27 tablets)
*
Sialk (22 tablets)
*Ozbaki (one tablet)
*Shahr-i-Shokhta (one tablet)
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.
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 meaning can only be deciphered through careful
graphotactical analysis.
While the
Elamite language has been suggested as a likely candidate underlying the Proto-Elamite inscriptions, there is no positive evidence towards this. The earliest Proto-Elamite inscriptions, being purely
ideographical, 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 form linguistic methods.
*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 â€" 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).
*
Proto-Elamite (
CDLI project, by J. L. Dahl)
*
Roman Ghirshman
