Susa III or Proto-Elamite cylinder seal 3150-2800 BC Louvre Museum Sb 6166

The Proto-Elamite period, also known as Susa III, is a

chronological Chronology (from Latin , from Ancient Greek , , ; and , ''wikt:-logia, -logia'') is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the deter ...

era An era is a span of time. Era or ERA may also refer to: * Era (geology), a subdivision of geologic time * Calendar era Education * Academy of European Law (German: '), an international law school * ERA School, in Melbourne, Australia * E ...

in the

ancient history Ancient history is a time period from the History of writing, beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian language, ...

of the area of

Elam Elam () was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of Iran, stretching from the lowlands of what is now Khuzestan and Ilam Province as well as a small part of modern-day southern Iraq. The modern name ''Elam'' stems fr ...

, dating from . In archaeological terms this corresponds to the late Banesh period. Proto-Elamite sites are recognized as the oldest civilization in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. The

Proto-Elamite script The Proto-Elamite script is an early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use before the introduction of Elamite cuneiform. There are many similarities between the Proto-Elamite tablets and the contemporaneous proto-cuneiform tablets of the ...

is an

Early Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

writing system briefly in use before the introduction of

Elamite cuneiform Elamite cuneiform was a logo-syllabic script used to write the Elamite language. The corpus of Elamite cuneiform consists of tablets and fragments. The majority were created during the Achaemenid era, and contain primarily economic records. Hi ...

History

Background

During the period 8000–3700 BC, the

Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent () is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, together with northern Kuwait, south-eastern Turkey, and western Iran. Some authors also include ...

witnessed the spread of small settlements supported by agricultural surplus. Geometric tokens emerged to be used to manage

stewardship Stewardship is a practice committed to ethical value that embodies the responsible planning and management of resources. The concepts of stewardship can be applied to the environment and nature, economics, health, places, property, information ...

of this surplus. The earliest tokens now known are those from two sites in the Zagros region of Iran: Tepe Asiab and Ganj-i-Dareh Tepe. The

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

n civilization emerged during the period 3700–2900 BC amid the development of technological innovations such as the

plough A plough or ( US) plow (both pronounced ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses but modern ploughs are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden ...

sailing boats A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails and is smaller than a sailing ship. Distinctions in what constitutes a sailing boat and ship vary by region and maritime culture. Types Although sailboat terminology ...

, and copper metal working.

Clay tablet In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian language, Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age. Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay t ...

s with

pictographic A pictogram (also pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto) is a graphical symbol that conveys meaning through its visual resemblance to a physical object. Pictograms are used in systems of writing and visual communication. A pictography is a wri ...

characters appeared in this period to record commercial transactions performed by the

temples A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

Proto-Elamite sites

The most important Proto-Elamite sites are

Susa Susa ( ) was an ancient city in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris, between the Karkheh River, Karkheh and Dez River, Dez Rivers in Iran. One of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East, Susa served as the capital o ...

and

Anshan Anshan ( zh, s=鞍山, p=Ānshān, l=saddle mountain) is an inland prefecture-level city in central-southeast Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, about south of the provincial capital Shenyang. As of the 2020 census, it was Liaoning' ...

. Another important site is

Tepe Sialk Tepe Sialk () is a large ancient archeological site (a ''tepe'', "hill, tell") 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 Rive ...

, where the only remaining Proto-Elamite

ziggurat A ziggurat (; Cuneiform: 𒅆𒂍𒉪, Akkadian: ', D-stem of ' 'to protrude, to build high', cognate with other Semitic languages like Hebrew ''zaqar'' (זָקַר) 'protrude'), ( Persian: Chogha Zanbilچغازنجبیل) is a type of massive ...

is still seen. Texts in the undeciphered Proto-Elamite script found in Susa are dated to this period as well as at

Tepe Sofalin Tepe Sofalin (also Tappeh Sofalin and Tape Sofalin) is an ancient Near Eastern archeological site on the Tehran Plain south of the Alborz Mountains on the north-central plateau of Iran about 10 kilometers east of the modern city of Varamin and 35 ...

and

Tepe Yahya Tapeh Yahya () is an archaeological site in Kermān Province, Iran, some south of Kerman city, south of Baft city and 90 km south-west of Jiroft. The easternmost occupation of the Proto-Elamite culture was found there. A regional survey f ...

. It was originally assumed that the Proto-Elamites were in fact Elamites (

Elamite Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Scythic, Median, Amardian, Anshanian and Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was recorded in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite i ...

speakers), because of 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. As Proto-Elamite writing has now been found over a wider area that is less certain. Proto-Elamite pottery dating back to the last half of the 5th millennium BC has been found in Tepe Sialk, where Proto-Elamite writing, the first form of writing in

, has been found on tablets of this date. The first

cylinder seal A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in width, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...

s come from the Proto-Elamite period, as well.

Proto-Elamite cylinder seals

Proto-Elamite seals follow the seals of the

Uruk period The Uruk period (; also known as Protoliterate period) existed from the protohistory, protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, after the Ubaid period and before the Jemdet Nasr period. Named after the S ...

, with which they share many stylistic elements, but display more individuality and a more lively rendering.

References

*Alden, J.R., Minc, L., "Itinerant potters and the transmission of ceramic technologies and styles during the Proto-Elamite period in Iran", J. Archaeol. Sci. Rep. 7, pp. 863–876, 2016 *Amiet, P., "Il y a 5000 ans les elamites inventaient l’ecriture", Archeologia 12, pp. 16–23, 1966 *Aruz, Joan, "Power and Protection: A Little Proto-Elamite Silver Bull Pendant", Leaving No Stones Unturned: Essays on the Ancient Near East and Egypt in Honor of Donald P. Hansen, edited by Erica Ehrenberg, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 1–14, 2002 *L. Le Breton, "The Early Periods at Susa: Mesopotamian Relations", Iraq 19, 79–124, 1957 *Brice W.C., "The Writing System of the Proto-Elamite Account Tablets of Susa," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 45, pp. 15–39, 1962

Jacob L. Dahl, "The proto-Elamite seal MDP 16, pl. XII fig. 198", in ''Cuneiform Digital Library Notes'', CDLN 2014:1, 2014

Jacob L. Dahl, "New and old joins in the Louvre proto-Elamite tablet collection", in ''Cuneiform Digital Library Notes'', CDLN 2012:6, 2012 * Dahl, Jacob L, "Animal Husbandry in Susa during the Proto-Elamite Period" SMEA, vol.47, pp. 81–134, 2005

eter Damerow, "The Origins of Writing as a Problem of Historical Epistemology", Invited lecture at the Symposium on the Multiple Origins of Writing: Image, Symbol, and Script, University of Pennsylvania, Center for Ancient Studies March 26–27, 1999 *Dittmann, R., "Seals, Sealings and Tablets: Thoughts on the Changing Patterns of Administrative Control from the Late-Uruk to Proto-Elamite Period at Susa", Pp. 332–366 in Ğamdat Nasr. Period or Regional Style? Papers given at a Symposium held in Tübingen November 1983. Beihefte zum Tubinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients. Reihe B 62, eds.U. Finkbeiner and W. Rollig. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 1986

Englund, R.K, "The Proto-Elamite Script," in: Peter Daniels and William Bright, eds. The World's Writing Systems (1996). New York/Oxford, pp. 160–164, 1996 * Robert H. Dyson, "Early Work on the Acropolis at Susa. The Beginning of Prehistory in Iraq and Iran", Expedition 10/4, pp. 21–34, 1968

ansen, Donald, et al., "A Proto-Elamite Silver Figurine in the Metropolitan Museum of Art", Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 3, pp. 5–26, 1970

Laura F. Hawkins, "A New Edition of the Proto-Elamite Text MDP 17", ''Cuneiform Digital Library Journal'', CDLJ 2015:001, 2015 *Khosravi, Shokouh, et al, "Tapeh Tyalineh: a proto-Elamite administrative institution on the Great Khorasan Road, Kermanshah, Western Iran", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, pp. 1–28, 2023 * 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, pp. 163 – 216, 1971 * Daniel T. Potts, "The Archaeology of Elam", Cambridge, UK, 1999

Saeedi, Sepideh, "Proto-Elamite Communities under the Magnifying Glass", in: Abar, Aydin et al. (Hrsg.): Pearls, Politics and Pistachios: Essays in Anthropology and Memories on the Occasion of Susan Pollock's 65th Birthday, Heidelberg: Propylaeum, pp. 61–87, 2021 * Sax, M., and A. P. Middleton, "The Use of Volcanic Tuff as a Raw Material for Proto-Elamite Cylinder Seals", Iran, vol. 27, pp. 121–23, 1989 *Scheil, V., "Documents archaïques en écriture proto-élamite", Revue Biblique (1892–1940), vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 372–76, 1905 *V. Scheil, "Textes de Comptabilité Proto-Élamites", MDP 17, Paris, 1923 *V. Scheil, "Textes de Comptabilité Proto-Élamites", MDP 26, Paris, 1935

Francois Vallat, "The Most Ancient Scripts of Iran: The Current Situation", World Archaeology, vol. 17, no. 3, Early Writing Systems, pp. 335–347, Feb. 1986

External links

Proto-Elamite tablets online at CDLIArt of the Bronze Age: Southeastern Iran, Western Central Asia, and the Indus Valley
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Proto-Elamite culture {{Rulers of the Ancient Near East Elamite language Jiroft culture 4th-millennium BC establishments 3rd-millennium BC disestablishments States and territories established in the 4th millennium BC States and territories disestablished in the 3rd millennium BC