are written in what is commonly known as proto-Elamite and are comparable with those from Babylonia in shape only. The signs retain the linear design and are seemingly to be read as pure ideographs. The numerical system appears to be decimal.[1] A common origin for the two scripts is possible; nevertheless, it is also conceivable that proto-Elamite was independent. Eventually the inhabitants of Elam adopted the Sumerian script and employed it to write their own language. Period by period their signs followed those in current use in Babylonia; judged on this basis, an inscription from the island Bushire, known as Liyan (li-ia-an) to the Elamites, in the Persian Gulf shows that Sumerian script was already in use for Elamite at a period somewhat antecedent to that of Sargon of Agade and hints at a widespread culture, if not empire.[2] Thereafter, particularly in the twelfth century b.c., numerous inscriptions reveal the main essentials of the Elamite language.[3]
To clarify these main essentials, and thereby to make possible a more accurate translation of the
- ↑ For discussion of the proto-Elamite texts see Scheil, loc. cit.; Weidner, AOF, III (1926), 84; Langdon in JRAS, 1925, pp. 169–73.
- ↑ François Lenormant, Choix de textes cunéiformes (Paris, 1873), p. 127, No. 41; cf. Hüsing, Quellen, No. 1.
- ↑ For discussions on Elamite phonetics and grammar see F. Bork, "Elam. B. Sprache," Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte, III (1925), 70–83, with the bibliography there cited; R. Bleichsteiner, "Beiträge zur Kenntnis der elamischen Sprache," Anthropos, XXIII (1928), 167–98; Th. Kluge, "Das Elamische," Le Muséon, XLVI (1933), 111–56; Bork, "Elamische Studien," MAOG, VII, Heft 3 (1933), 3–31.
