Proto-Elamite: The Script of a Society Locked in Clay Tablets
At Susa, in what is now southwestern Iran, archaeologists found more than 1,400 small clay tablets dated to roughly 3100–2900 BCE. The signs on them are known as Proto-Elamite. They appear at the moment when the first large cities of Mesopotamia were beginning to use writing to manage grain, livestock, and labor. Susa was not an isolated village. It was a center of Elam, positioned between Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, and trade routes leading farther east.
At Susa, in what is now southwestern Iran, archaeologists found more than 1,400 small clay tablets dated to roughly 3100–2900 BCE. The signs on them are known as Proto-Elamite. They appear at the moment when the first large cities of Mesopotamia were beginning to use writing to manage grain, livestock, and labor. Susa was not an isolated village. It was a center of Elam, positioned between Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, and trade routes leading farther east.
At Susa, in what is now southwestern Iran, archaeologists found more than 1,400 small clay tablets dated to roughly 3100–2900 BCE. The signs on them are known as Proto-Elamite. They appear at the moment when the first large cities of Mesopotamia were beginning to use writing to manage grain, livestock, and labor. Susa was not an isolated village. It was a center of Elam, positioned between Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, and trade routes leading farther east.
At Susa, in what is now southwestern Iran, archaeologists found more than 1,400 small clay tablets dated to roughly 3100–2900 BCE. The signs on them are known as Proto-Elamite. They appear at the moment when the first large cities of Mesopotamia were beginning to use writing to manage grain, livestock, and labor. Susa was not an isolated village. It was a center of Elam, positioned between Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, and trade routes leading farther east.
At Susa, in what is now southwestern Iran, archaeologists found more than 1,400 small clay tablets dated to roughly 3100–2900 BCE. The signs on them are known as Proto-Elamite. They appear at the moment when the first large cities of Mesopotamia were beginning to use writing to manage grain, livestock, and labor. Susa was not an isolated village. It was a center of Elam, positioned between Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, and trade routes leading farther east.
At Susa, in what is now southwestern Iran, archaeologists found more than 1,400 small clay tablets dated to roughly 3100–2900 BCE. The signs on them are known as Proto-Elamite. They appear at the moment when the first large cities of Mesopotamia were beginning to use writing to manage grain, livestock, and labor. Susa was not an isolated village. It was a center of Elam, positioned between Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, and trade routes leading farther east.