Elamite Texts

زبان ایلامی باستان یکی از کهن ترین زبان های جهان است که از آن نبشته های بسیاری به جا مانده است. این زبان کهن برای دهه ها زبانی جدا از دیگر زبان های جهان دانسته شده که نژاد مردمانش نیز ناشناخته و ناایرانی انگاشته شده است. کتاب پیش رو نگاهی دیگر اندیشانه و ژرف به این زبان کهن می اندازد و با انبوهی از گواهی های زبان شناسی که از آن میان گواهی های دستوری و واژگانی است، نشان می دهد که این زبان کهن و مردمان باستانیش را باید خویشاوند و هم زبان با دیگر مردمان آریایی و ایرانی نامید.

This chapter provides a survey of the use and distribution of pre-Achaemenid Elamite language and the characteristics of Achaemenid Elamite cuneiform writing; the use of Elamite in Achaemenid royal inscriptions and the relationships among Elamite and other versions; Achaemenid Elamite administrative records and their multilingual context; Elamite monolingual inscriptions on Achaemenid seals and pre-Achaemenid or early Achaemenid heirloom seals; Elamite texts as sources of Old Iranian lexicon and evidence of dialect variation; and contact among Elamite and other spoken and written languages.

Editions of Persepolis Fortification documents that compile multiple records of fruit, a category (provisionally labeled C1/W) postulated by Henkelman & Stolper Persika 21, p. 169ff.; editions of selected tabular accounts of fruit (Category W) cited in the same article; a hypothesis about connections among C1, C1/W, and W records of fruit in information processing at Persepolis; a hypothesis about underlying practices of fruit production on terms comparable to those of contemporary Babylonia; appendixes on some Elamite words connected with fruit orchards, fruit processing, and wine.

The Elamite civilization appeared on the southwestern Iranian plateau at the end of IVth millennium  BC in Susa, and expanded to the north toward the Bakhtiari Mountains (ancient region of Ayapir, current city Izeh), southwards to the Persian Gulf (ancient Liyan, current city of Bouchir) and the region of Fars (ancient Anšan, current village Maliyan) and eastward to the Tepe Yahya (present Kerman province). Elam lost its authority and political power after the conquest of Assurbanipal by the king of Assyria in 646 BC.

This study is the first to undertake an examination of the role that women played in the Elamite civilization dating back to the third millennium BC. It will develop a reasoned, comprehensive inventory of textual sources that reference women, thus providing new insight on the status of women in early Elamite societies, which had already attained a high level of technological and economic progress at this time. As part of the first urban centers, these societies flourished thanks to the development of exchange networks of objects, materials and ideas between large neighboring cultures, particularly Mesopotamia.