Elam
One of the world's oldest civilizations, in southwestern Iran around Susa, with its own script and culture, flourishing from the third millennium BCE before being absorbed by later Iranian states.
Read in context →At a glance
- Period
- c. 3200–539 BCE
- Capital
- Susa (and Anshan)
- Language
- Elamite (language isolate)
- Key monument
- Chogha Zanbil ziggurat
Detail
Elam was one of the world's oldest civilizations and the earliest on the Iranian plateau, emerging around 3200 BCE in the southwest of modern Iran (Khuzestan and Fars), centered on the city of Susa. The Elamites spoke a language isolate (neither Indo-European nor Semitic) and adapted cuneiform for their writing. Its history is divided into the Old, Middle, and Neo-Elamite periods, reaching its zenith in the Middle Elamite era under kings such as Untash-Napirisha, builder of the Chogha Zanbil ziggurat, and Shutruk-Nahhunte, who carried the Code of Hammurabi and other monuments from Babylon to Susa. Elam was gradually worn down by recurrent warfare with Assyria, most devastatingly the campaign of Ashurbanipal in 646 BCE. It was ultimately absorbed by the rising Median and Persian powers, transmitting much of its administrative culture—including writing and bureaucratic tradition—to the Achaemenids.
Related entities
Sources
- Encyclopædia Iranica, "Elam"
- D. T. Potts, The Archaeology of Elam (Cambridge University Press)
- UNESCO World Heritage, Tchogha Zanbil