An accounting tablet from Susa III of the acropolis written using the Proto-Elamite script.
The clay tablets from Susa II and III utilize only a limited subset of the various types of sexagesimal numbering systems found at Uruk. Susian scribes also made use of a purely decimal system absent from the Uruk tablets, and their method of organizing information on the tablet is different.1Potts 1999, 61 ff. As noted previously, the identical pottery and small objects recovered from Susa II-III and Uruk V-IV suggests that Susa was essentially a colony of Uruk during the Uruk period; it must nevertheless be admitted that Susa maintained a distinct scribal tradition that was only partially influenced by Uruk.
The earliest tablets from Susa lack “proto-cuneiform” signs such as were used to write the name “Kush-im” or to designate different types of commodities. They appear, therefore, to belong to a very archaic period of writing. These tablets were found in Strata 18 and 17 on the tell (Acropole I) at Susa. These levels correspond to the Susa II period.
These examples represent an early stage of writing in Elam (Susa II), comprised exclusively of numeric notations. Apparently very little effort was made to organize the information on the tablets.
More advanced accounting tablets were found in Stratum 16 on the tell. Known as Proto-Elamite, they belong to the Susa III period. Although it is generally assumed that the culture that produced these tablets was Elamite, the language of the tablets is unknown and there is a very big gap of approximately 700 years between them and the oldest Elamite texts.
Usually designated as “Proto-Elamite” these tablets represents a more advanced stage of writing that arose during the Susa III period. These tablets were often impressed with a cylinder seal, such as the seal impression on the right, which shows a kneeling bull in a boat flanked by two columns. The columns likely represent the entrance of a temple. The meaning of the fish positioned beneath the boat is uncertain (although see “Frying Pan”).
Writing disappears from Iran after the Proto-Elamite period and does not appear again until the end of the Early Bronze Age. When it does appear, approximately seven hundred years later, it comes by way of borrowing the cuneiform script from Mesopotamia. It is a mystery why the Elamites (if that is what they were!) did not develop their own version of the cuneiform script, like the Sumerians did, since they had, by all appearances, a good start with Proto-Elamite.
Linear Elamite
We ought to mention one final Elamite script which made a brief appearance towards the end of the Early Bronze period. Known as “Linear Elamite,” it is not altogether clear where this script came from or if it was a development of Proto-Elamite since there is a considerable time gap between them. Its use was limited to short inscriptions.
This inscription was produced during the reign of Puzur-Inshushinak (c. 2000 BC, short chronology) using the as yet undeciphered linear Elamite script.
Hooker, C. B. F.
“Cuneiform,” in Reading the Past: Ancient Writing from Cuneiform to the Alphabet.
New York: Barnes and Noble, 1990.
Potts, D. T.
The Archaeology of Elam : Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.