Elamite Cuneiform
| Elamite Cuneiform |
|
|---|---|
| Type | |
| Languages | Elamite language |
|
Time period
|
2200 BCE to 400 BCE |
|
Parent systems
|
Sumerian Cuneiform
|
|
Sister systems
|
Old Persian Cuneiform |
Elamite cuneiform was a logo-syllabic script used to write the Elamite language. The complete corpus of Elamite cuneiform consists of c. 20,000 tablets and fragments. The majority belong to the Achaemenid era, and contain primarily economic records.
The Elamite language (c. 3000 BCE to 400 BCE) is the now-extinct language spoken by Elamites, who inhabited the regions of Khuzistān and Fārs in Southern Iran. It has long been an enigma for scholars due to the scarcity of resources for its research and the irregularities found in the language. It seems to have no relation to its neighboring Semitic and Indo-European languages. Scholars fiercely argue over several hypotheses about its origin, but have no definite theory.
Elamite cuneiform comes in two variants, the first, derived from Akkadian, was used during the 3rd to 2nd millennia BCE, and a simplified form used during the 1st millennium BCE. The main difference between the two variants is the reduction of glyphs used in the simplified version. At any one time, there would only be around 130 cuneiform signs in use. Throughout the script’s history, only 206 different signs were used in total.
The earliest known Elamite cuneiform text is a treaty between Akkaddians and the Elamites that dates back to 2200 BCE. However, some believe it might have been in use since 2500 BCE The tablets are poorly preserved so only limited parts can be read but it is understood that the text is a treaty between the Akkad king Nāramsîn and Elamite ruler Hita. Frequent references like "Nāramsîn's friend is my friend, Nāramsîn's enemy is my enemy" indicate so.
The most famous and the ones that ultimately lead to its decipherment are the Elamite scriptures found in the trilingual inscriptions of monuments commissioned by the Achaemenid Persian kings. The inscriptions, similar to that of the Rosetta Stone's, were written in three different writing systems. The first was Old Persian, which was deciphered in 1802 by Georg Friedrich Grotefend. The second, Babylonian cuneiform, was deciphered shortly after the Old Persian text. Because Elamite is unlike its neighboring Semitic languages, the script's decipherment was delayed until the 1840s. Even today, lack of sources and comparative materials hinder further research of Elamite.
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