Proto-Elamite

Paper presented at the PhD Meeting - Free University, Berlin - June, 6th - 2019 (Prof. D. Bonatz)

It presents a chrono-stratigraphical reassignment of the Susa Soundings: Acropole I (A. Le Brun), Acropole II (J.M. Steve - H. Gasche), Ville Royale I (E. Carter).

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The site of Sofalin lies in the north Central Iranian Plateau in the north of Pishva city about 35 kilometres south-east of Tehran capital city. The excavations at Tepe Sofalin revealed information on the Proto-writing evidence of the controls on economy, art as well as the cultural and religious life of this period. Cultural sequence of the study period was identified during the some excavations seasons and it was revealed that the site was occupied continuously from first phase of the proto-writhing to the Proto-Elamite time. The seal impressions found from this site are documented, introduced and published here for the first time. The most important questions regarding the seal impressions of Sofalin are: which kinds of animal iconography, function and style were used? Have been seals made by local traditions? For the study of seal collections a comparative approach has been used to compare seal impressions found at Sofalin with its contemporary sites of Susa and those from Mesopotamia. The results of study showed that there have been some similarities between Sofalin and Mesopotamian seals impressions. The Proto-Elamite material showed the internal and external relationships for the peoples inhabiting Proto- Elamite societies; so based on the seal impressions comparisons it is evident that the proto-Elamite period can be attributed to have been in the earliest phase of urban development in the late 4th and early third millennium BC.

The rise of Elamite culture and its state formation on the southwestern Iran, beside historical resources, is an archaeologically problem due to the lower discovered evidences during recent years, which restricted them just to the known materials of Susa and few other sites. But stratigraphic excavations at Tepe Senjar on the Northern Kuzistan from 2007-2009 provided information related to this period such as architectural evidence, pottery assemblage, seal and also samples for radiocarbon dating. The evidences found from trenches A and E of this site represented date on the site formation process, chronological framework of Susiana plain, cultural relations to the ancient Susa and other center of the Mesopotamia and Zagros. Excavated finds show that Tepe Senjar has been occupied from the late fifth millennium B.C, and was continued to proto-Elamite (Susa III) as well as Susa IV A. This site was settled again during Susa IV B and was continued successively until the Shimashki, Sukkal Mah and Middle Elamite periods.

(https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/2xb8z/ or Click on "File" to get the link to download the paper) This working paper examines the link between the Linear Elamite script and the Proto-Elamite script, and establishes that these scripts are two states of the same writing system. Furthermore, phonetic values are proposed for signs that are identical, or almost identical, between PE and LE.