Proto-Elamite script
Escritura protoelamita
- Date
- c. 3100 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Susa, Khuzestan, Iran
- Credited to
- Elamite scribes
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Writing system on clay tablets, arising in Susa almost at the same time as the proto-cuneiform of Uruk, used mainly for administrative accounting from Susa to Tepe Yahya and Shahr-e Sukhteh. It is one of the world's oldest writing systems and remains undeciphered.
Whether it is an independent invention or derived from Mesopotamian proto-cuneiform is disputed; its numerical signs are indeed comparable. It remains undeciphered.
What it led to
- accounting administration on the Iranian plateau
- written exchange network between Susa and eastern Iran
- linear Elamite script