Neo-Elamite period

El nacimiento de la civilización elarnita para el mundo occidental se produjo a finales del siglo diecinueve. Si bien es verdad que el nombre de Elam ya se conocía por la Biblia, que lo menciona en varios pasajes', no es hasta el año 1874 cuando por primera vez aparece el término
«elamita», acuñado por Sayce2, quien sin embargo lo desechará en favor del término «amardita», siendo Jensen el que lo impondrá efinitivamente casi veinte años después3. Aún habrá que esperar una década hasta el descubrimiento de Susa, llevado a cabo por una expedición francesa al mando de M. Dieulafoy en el año 1884. Una segunda expedición francesa continuó las excavaciones bajo la dirección de J. de Morgan, que dio a conocer la civilización elamita, de un carácter peculiar y distintivo respecto de su vecina de Babilonia; los resultados de éstas y las siguientes excavaciones se darían a conocer en el año 18914. Hacia finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, otros investigadores, entre ellos Weissbach, Scheil, Bork y Hüsing, establecieron los fundamentos de la lengua elamita que, a pesar de todos los intentos, sigue siendo poco conocida, (el elamita es una lengua aglutinante sin paralelo con ninguna otra, como sucede con las restantes lenguas aglutinantes, por ejemplo casita, hurrita, sumerio).

SUMMARY
This thesis shall identify the date origin of the composite bow within Mesopotamia and Elam. and both identify and quantify the design factors which lead to increased performance possible with composite construction. To accomplish this, the thesis begins by summarizing the problems and flaws that currently exist in the field of history as it applies specifically to archery and bow use. With problems identified, the thesis will then introduce the reader to the basics of bow mechanics, thereby laying the basis for physical testing. This in turn will empirically demonstrate flaws in the current iconographical method of bow identification. The thesis will then devise a new method for iconographic identification of composite construction that has greater proven accuracy, based upon proportional length, which will link extant artifacts with both physical test results and iconographic evidence.

The reader shall then be led through a complete reevaluation of iconographical evidence for Mesopotamia and Elam starting at the beginning of the second millennium BCE and working backwards using this new method of iconographic evaluation to determine the point at which composite bow technology first appears in the ancient Near East. The thesis will finish with an overview of the above accomplishments and their potential impact on the study of ancient and military history.

KEY TERMS
Ancient History, Military History, Archery, Bow, Composite, Experimental Archaeology, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Elam, Arrow

List of figures ix List of tables xvii List of contributors xviii Suddenly, to the south, appeared the tell of Susa, an arti cial hill with ravines rising like a mass in the distance. The sky was dark, lled with heavy, black, clouds; but a beam of light, just one, passing through the clouds, struck the ruins of the capital of Elam, making them shine like a star against a background of lead. It was a happy omen, and in spite of my complete detachment from superstition I could not help thinking of the future. Mémoires de Jacques de Morgan 1857-1924 () T he word civilization takes us back, etymologically speaking, to a phase in the development of human society that was characterized by the domestication of plants and animals, and in many places a related phenomenon of settlement (Latin cīvis from proto-Indo-European ḱey-, "to lie down, settle, home, family") and, ultimately, the emergence of complex societies. Along the Nile river valley and on the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia and southwest Iran, these new lifeways generated a "big bang" in human interaction which in turn stimulated the development of social structures, beliefs, and the cognitive space (and boundaries) that have been largely inherited by modern societies. Among the civilizations to participate in this phenomenon of contact and interchange, Elam has remained one of the most obscure. The vital and dynamic Elamite civilization inhabited a territory extending from the lowlands of Khuzestan in southwest Iran into the highlands of Fars further to the east, although as the various chapters in this volume reveal its cultural boundaries and broader sphere of in uence were subject to signi cant uctuation over time. At around BC Sumerian written sources rst alert us to the existence of Elam, which is referred to using the sign NIM, meaning "high, elevated". Akkadian language would later render NIM as Elamtu, possibly related to akkadian elûm "high, upper" but most likely deriving from the Elamite word ha(l)tamti, perhaps meaning "gracious lord-land" or simply "high land". The modern name "Elam", like many other places regarded as Biblical lands in the Western tradition, is an adaptation of Biblical Hebrew ('Êlām) from which the Greek (Ailam) is derived.

Yeni Asur Devleti'nin Güney Politikası ve Elam-Babil İttifakı Asur Devleti MÖ I. binyılın başlarından itibaren yeniden güç kazanmaya başlaması ve emperyal bir hüviyete bürünmesiyle uzak bölgelere askeri seferler yapabilme kabiliyeti kazanmıştır. Asur Devleti'nin bu faaliyetleri, komşu bölgelerdeki devletleri tedirgin etmiştir. Yeni Asur Dönemi olarak adlandırılan bu süreçte Asur orduları, Mısır'dan Elam'a, Babil'den Anadolu içlerine kadar uzanan geniş bir coğrafyada faaliyet göstermiştir. Bu dönemde, Asurluların hâkimiyetleri altında tutmak istedikleri en önemli bölge Babil ülkesidir. Bölgenin sahip olduğu ekonomik potansiyel, Asurluların bu bölge ile yakından ilgilenmelerine neden olmuştur. Söz konusu bölge Sumer ülkesinin doğusunda bulunan Yeni-Elamlıların da hâkimiyet kurmak istedikleri bir coğrafyaydı. Babil ülkesinin Asur kontrolüne girmesini istemeyen Yeni-Elamlılar, Asur karşıtı tüm isyan girişimlerini desteklemiştir. Yeni-Elamlıların bu politikadaki temel amaçlarından bir diğeri de Asurlular ile sınırdaş olmak istememeleridir. Asurlular ise bölgeye hâkim olabilmek amacıyla hem Babil ülkesine hem de Elam topraklarına pek çok askeri sefer düzenlemelerinin yanı sıra diplomatik ilişkilerde de bulunmuşlardır. Çalışmamızın konusunu oluşturan bu mücadele ve diplomatik ilişkilerin incelenmesinde Asur ve Babil çivi yazılı metinleri ile modern literatür kullanılmıştır. Bazı bölümlerde çivi yazılı metindeki bilgilerden doğrudan, bazı bölümlerde ise dolaylı olarak faydalanılmıştır. Asur, Elam ve Babil eksenindeki siyasi, askeri, kısmen de ekonomik yönlerinin ele alınacağı bu çalışmada elde edilen bilgilerden hareketle, MÖ I. binyılda Asur Devleti'nin hegemonik yayılmasına karşı Elam ve Babil ülkeleri tarafından yürütülen faaliyetler ve Asurluların bu faaliyetlere karşılık aldığı tedbirler ele alınmış ve değerlendirilmiştir.

After entering the second millennium BCE as a military superpower, Elam faded into historical obscurity upon its withdrawal from the broader Near Eastern political scene in 1763 BCE and only reemerged much later as a major player with a sequence of incursions in Mesopotamia beginning in the thirteenth century and culminating in the 1155 BCE fall of the Kassites. During the intervening centuries, neither written nor archaeological sources offer clear signs that Elamite territory had come under the authority of any foreign power. Here the authors propose that a reexamination of evidence from the ancient settlement of Kabnak (modern Haft Tepe), approximately seventeen kilometers southeast of the Elamite lowland capital of Susa, discloses a mid-fifteenth to mid-fourteenth century BCE state-controlled arsenal of war chariots and weaponry that may hold a key to comprehending Elam's apparent continued resistance to outside forces and its rise as a military superpower in the thirteenth century.

Neo-Assyrian military annals list hundreds of Chaldaean and Elamite cities, towns, and natural features by name.  Yet despite this volume of data, historians and archaeologists have matched very few to the current accepted geography of southeast Iraq and southwest Iran.  This paper proposes an alternative to that geography.

In the spring 1963 edition of The British Museum Quarterly, Richard Barnett published a review of acquisitions, which briefly mentioned a small bronze figurine of a seated woman with a rear fish-tail protrusion said to have come from Tang-e Sarvak, approximately 60km from Ramhormoz. This “fish-tailed goddess” was attributed a thirteenth century date, described as having “Babylonian appearance” and, based on the presence of holes through the fish tail and lower section of the skirt, assumed to have been riveted to a box or item of furniture. At this time no comparable objects had been discovered to help shed further light on this unusual fishwoman.  In 2007, however, the chance find of the richly equipped late Neo-Elamite Jubaji tomb revealed the existence of several analogous figurines in bronze and silver. Photographs taken during the excavation indicate that at least one had been deposited in a heap with other metal vessels between the tomb’s two bronze coffins. These new examples showed that each of the fishwomen had once been affixed atop the long handle of a shallow, frying pan-like vessel characterised by concentric rings progressing down towards a protruding omphalos.  This paper will analyse the possible identity of the women represented by these figurines, exploring the significance of their clothing, adornment, gesture and fish tail, as well as the purpose of the vessels to which they were attached, particularly taking into account their occurrence in a funerary context on the bank of the Ala River. A concluding survey of other known fish-women hybrids and “frying pans” will highlight that these vessels were completely unique to Elam and perhaps even specifically associated with the Ramhormoz area.

Bu çalışmada, Neo-Elam siyasi tarihi ve Neo-Elam uygarlığı ortaya konulmuştur. Neo-Elam Devleti, Babil ile birlikte sürekli ittifak halinde Neo-Assur Devleti’nin faaliyetlerine karşı koymaya çalışarak MÖ 8. yüzyılın ortalarından MÖ 647/646 yılındaki Susa’nın yıkılmasına kadar Yakın Doğu’da önemli bir güç olarak kalmıştır. Susa’nın yıkılmasından sonra askeri ve siyasi etkinliğini önemli ölçüde kaybeden Neo-Elam Devleti, sanat başta olmak üzere, MÖ 539 yılına kadar sürecek olan bir “rönesans” dönemi yaşamıştır. MÖ 646-539 arası tarih, Elam ile Assur, Babil ve özellikle Pers kültürlerinin yoğun bir şekilde etkileşim halinde olduğu bir dönemdir.
Bu çalışmanın amacı, önemli ölçüde Mezopotamya kaynaklarına bağımlı olarak yazılan Neo-Elam siyasi tarihi ile büyük oranda maddi kültür kalıntılarıyla ortaya koyulan Neo-Elam uygarlığının çerçevesini çizmektir. Çalışmayı ele alırken, Mezopotamya yıllıkları (Neo-Assur ve Neo-Babil yıllıkları) ile Neo-Elam yazıtları, bunların yanında arkeolojik kazı raporları ile bölgedeki arkeologların çalışmaları esas alınmış, ek olarak modern literatür incelenmiştir. Ülkemizde Neo-Elam Devleti özelinde yapılmış çalışma olmamasından dolayı, bu tezin bu eksikliği gidermesi hedeflenmektedir. Çalışma, MÖ 1000-520 tarihlerini kapsamaktadır.

This paper was sent in in July 2019 for the Festschrift for Prof. Clelia Mora.
Due to Coronavirus and other matters, the book was delayed until December 2020, when it was published as M.E. Balza, P. Cotticelli-Kurras, L. d’Alfonso,  M. Giorgieri, F. Giusfredi, A. Rizza. (Eds.), CITTÀ E PAROLE, ARGILLA E PIETRA. STUDI OFFERTI A CLELIA MORA DA ALLIEVI, COLLEGHI E AMICI, (^Biblioteca di Athenaeum 64),, Bari- S. Spirito (Edipuglia),, ISBN 978-88-7228-908-2.
Unfortunately,  the publisher's rules prevent the reproduction of a PDF of the article on the Internet for 24 months The present version represents a copy of the original manuscript. Any request for the PDF to be shipped by e-mail to individual scholars  will be welcome.

Susa Brick Inscriptions of Shilhak-Inshushinak I (Middle-Elamite III, ca. 1150-1120 B.C.) explain about the predecessor kings, Sime-balar-hubbak (Susa Brick 1757 & MDP 5, 41) and Shirukduh (Susa Brick 1762 & MDP 3, 42), who were builder of Inshushinak’s Temple in Susa.

This article investigates the toponym(s) Nagitu. In the Neo-Assyrian sources, the Elamite coastal town is often attested with various postpositions: Nagitu-raqqi, Nagitu-di’bina or Nagitu-of-Elam (ša KUR.ELAM.MA.KI). After an examination of the etymology of the various Nagitu attestations, geographical indications are sought
to help determine the locations of the different Nagitu toponyms. These indications are then compared with the landscape descriptions of the Classical authors and the early Arab geographers in order to draw a picture of the historical geography of the Nagitu triad.

Elamite Karintaš and Avestan Kvirinta: Notes on the Early History of Kerend The toponym Kerend has a long history. This study explores the appearance of Kerend in pre-modern sources, beginning with the toponym Karintaš in the late second millennium BC. Kassite, Elamite and Assyrian rivalry for control over the central western Zagros mountains is discussed and the survival of the name in later antiquity is investigated. A derivative of the name appears in Claudius Ptolemy's Geography and in the Parthian Stations of Isidore of Charax, as well as in the late Antique Cosmographia of the Anonymous Geographer of Ravenna. A homonymous name from the area east of the Caspian Sea is also discussed, as are several unrelated names occurring in other sources (Achaemenid Elamite, Armenian).

Recent scholarship has begun to unveil the culturally rich and dynamic landscape of southwest Iran during the first half of the first millennium BCE (aka the Neo-Elamite period) and its significance as the incubation ground for the Persian Empire. In Profiling Death. Neo-Elamite Mortuary Practices, Afterlife Beliefs, and Entanglements with Ancestors, Yasmina Wicks continues the investigation of this critical epoch from the perspective of the mortuary record, bringing forth fascinating clues as to the ritual practices, beliefs, social structures and individual identities of Elam’s lowland and highland inhabitants. Enmeshed with its neighbours, yet in many ways culturally distinct, Elam receives its due treatment here as a core component of the ancient Near East.

A research work on analyzing the royal inscriptions in Persepolis panel in order to spot the differences from paleographic point of view of inscriptions and understand the reasons behind the adoption of a type of writing over another. The research has highlighted some interesting elements, in reference to the will of the stonecutters to use a style, much like a personal handwriting, which is different from that of others.

This paper examines a small corpus of distinctive metal “rings” with a flattened shaft and large disc finials, sometimes assumed to be ceremonial in function, whose production appears to be idiosyncratic to metal workshops of southwestern Iran during the Neo-Elamite period (ca. 1000-520). My intention is to offer a brief update to an article on these objects published by Javier Álvarez-Mon in 2011, in particular making known the exemplars found in a rich tomb near Ram Hormuz in 2007 and unavailable to the author at the time of his publication. These recent finds offer some valuable new evidence for the techniques that may have been used by the metal craftsmen to fabricate them. Here I do not attempt to propose any new art historical interpretations; I instead restrict myself to presenting an overview of the corpus, some proposals regarding their manufacture and a review of various hypotheses for their function.

An application run from within a browser in order to display cuneiform signs in a stylized way and to help memorize lists of such signs. The application is described in the Web page pointed at by the given link, and freely available from that page. As of v4.2 a Web interface feature is added.

--- Release notes ---
Version 4.4
- Added an optional mouse_button argument to button_click to enable
  right clicks to be dismissed if necessary (the argument event.button
  should be added in the SVG calling element)
- Reintroduced the flat head style for AE, but tailoring of hw elements
  is still needed
- Removal of hc glyph elements (unused)
- Removal of _dp attribute from the styles variable and creation of
  a #dp attribute in the syllabaries variable
  - Added a trick in draw_glyph_in_cell in order to set the curr_syll
    global variable for cparse
- Changed LIP3 to LIB3
- AE syllabary modifications
  - Modified shape for AL, LA, ANŠE
  - Added NUMUN (=NU.MAN), xH, LU, ŠÀ (LÌB), SÌP, DUB, KAŠ,
    KAM, KUT (=ŠIL), PAP, SIR, TAG, TU, 3, SAL, MAN2 (=SAL), AM, TUR
  - Added Bisutun (DB or DBa) variants for: BA, BAR, HAR, HU, IR, IŠ, TUK

Version 4.3
- Added polyphony capability to process_custom_list_string()
- Half-restitutions: take into account the possibility for a glyph name
  to encompass * (for variants)
- New  ME variants for EKI 48: with v2p for TAH and TA, with c3 for SU,
  with embedded AN for AH, for BE, EN, HA, MI, TUM4, UŠ...
- Slightly modified the shape of ME, ID, MAR
- Introduced a way to specify the use of variants in rendering a string
  of glyphs (display_glyph_string) via a header like 'Variant:SU*1,TA*1;'
  which instructs to use the SU*1 and TA*1 variants of resp. SU and TA 
- Introduced a way for draw_glyph_string_in_html to draw its results inside
  any DOM element, not just document.body
- Modified justification to yield automatic centering for one-glyph lines

Version 4.2
- New ME glyphs
  - TAN=KAL, BAR, GIR3*1 (variant for GÌR), HAŠ=ŠIL, DIN, KIB, 10
  - All signs of EKI 48, 48ab are now covered
- The Web interface is now official: a text can be displayed as an
  image in an HTML page (svg, img, canvas) and saved in graphic format
  for further use like publishing. Example pages are provided.
- Introduced processing of restitutions
  - Additional optional CSS style definitions in styles[n]: plain,
    restituted, half-restituted; initialization of the the current
    CSS style and specific treatment of brackets in the input string
- Processing of polyphony was extended: taking the diacritics into
  consideration (conversion of acute and grave into indices), some
  CVC syllabograms, KA4, PU, TÁ...
- Introduced refined vignette processing: the vignette showing the glyph
  in another syllabary for comparison may now be configured to be displayed
  in any currently implemented syllabary (ME, NE, AE)

Version 4.1
- New features
  - New behaviours upon adding to the exercise list in case the displayed
    list is already the exarcise list
    - Click on the grid: proposes removal of the glyph from the exercise list
    - Click on the list number: alerts that it is useless
- New syllabary based on inscriptions at Persepolis (DPa, DPf, DPh, XPa)
  and also on DSz which has a quite different style and so required
  normalisation in the style of Persepolis
- Take new line character into account in display_glyph_string
- Web interface
  - Removed style argument from create_glyph_table and draw_glyph
  - Function create_glyph_table may draw multiple syllabaries thanks
    to a new argument
  - New function draw_glyph_string: draws a string of glyph in a
    banner_panel object of the calling HTML page. Uses the general
    display_glyph_string functions so requires some global variables
    to be initialized.

Version 4.0
- New features
  - Multi-syllabary feature
  - Hanni's syllabary (EKI 75) added as a predefined syllabary
  - Web functions added in order to draw an HTML table of glyphs

Version 3.2
- Modified the design of DA, TIR
- Glyphs added: SIN, ÌR, PAG (=HU), RIŠ, SUNKI, TAL (=RI)
- The syllabary of the Stele is full except for some very unfrequent
  signs which are hardly visible on the illustrations
- Some examples added
- New features
  - Add a whole list to the exercise list
  - Processing of polyphony of the type Vs/Vz
- Corrected the height of the highlight rectangle in menu items
- Unified input method for custom list
- Display styles: modified 'c' element for style 'realistic',
  introduced 'realistic bold' (best suited for the banner panel)

Version v3.1
- Presentation web page corrected and updated
- Corrected AM, LI, SAL, ŠA, YA glyphs
- Glyphs added from EKI 47
- Custom list
  - Can be specified by a mixture of keys and @-matches
  - Added a check for erroneous spec
- New feature: the exercise list
- New feature: possibility to display hint phrases in relation with the currently displayed sign (so far limited to the exercise list)
- The banner panel is not limited to one line any more
- More informative error glyphs (implied changing cparse() interface)
- Use of dot as a separator in inputs is no more possible (interferences with the interpretation of some determinatives)

Version v3.0
- Redesigned menu panel
- Added the "previous glyph list" command
- Better homograph treatment (one reference glyph, any number of homographs), special case of AH/IH/UH
- Added processing of simple polyphony cases of VC glyphs in the  input for glyph string display (e.g. v.šil-ha-ak, be-ti-ip, v.šu-ut-ru-uk)
- Description comment updated to take novel features into account
- No more info display when toggling a radio button
- Added banner panel width limit

Version v2.3
- Added glyphs: LU, DA (hapax in XCII)
- Avoid two consecutive glyphs being identical in random mode
- Hidden radio button to delete the current list (activate
through "Enter a glyph string" and then "#")
- Split the value display object in two parts (for homographs
and special comments)
- Revised display lists
- Added processing of v, h, d determinatives in glyph string input

Version v2.2
- New button to create custom glyph display lists
- Reordering of the buttons
- Radio button effect
- New radio button for fixing the information panel visible
- Backward browsing possible in random mode
- Added info_trim function

Version v2.1:
- New button for browsing the glyph lists backwards
- Presentation enhancements

Version v2:
- A new more realistic rendering style
- Around 80 different glyphs
- Some previous errors corrected
- A new command for entering a string of syllabograms to be displayed

When Iraq was founded in the early twentieth century, Iran became a neighbor on its western border with a country that was considered the inheritor of the Mesopotamian civilizations. The civilizations that were the neighbors of the civilizations located on Iranian plateau already thousands of years ago. This reneighborhood led to a relationship between the two countries that had been forgotten for millennia after the establishment of the Achaemenids. The question posed in this article, is whether the relations between the two countries in the contemporary period and the relations between the two lands in the pre-Achaemenid (7th century BC) are similar. This result has been obtained through library resources and analytical-comparative method that despite deep cultural and commercial ties, the relationship between the two countries has been fighting and competitive with border and territorial disputes in both periods. Part of border and territorial disputes was rooted in the conflict of Geopolitical constraints and the other part was due to territorial expansionist tendencies. Regional rivalries and aggressive intentions have led rulers in both eras to try to control relations in a variety of similar ways, including alliances with rival opponents, increased military power, and temporary peace agreements.