The Elamite World

Javier Álvarez-Mon, Gian Pietro Basello, Yasmina Wicks, Javier Álvarez-Mon, Gian Pietro Basello, Yasmina Wicks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317329831
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

Amongst the civilizations to participate in the dynamic processes of contact and interchange that gave rise to complex societies in the ancient Near East, Elam has remained one of the most obscure, at times languishing in the background of scholarly inquiry. In recent years, however, an increasing body of academic publications have acknowledged its relevance and suggested that its legacy was more considerable and long-lasting than previously estimated.

The Elamite World assembles a group of 40 international scholars to contribute their expertise to the production of a solid, lavishly illustrated, English language treatment of Elamite civilization. It covers topics such as its physical setting, historical development, languages and people, material culture, art, science, religion and society, as well as the legacy of Elam in the Persian empire and its presence in the modern world.

This comprehensive and ambitious survey seeks for Elam, hardly a household name, a noteworthy place in our shared cultural heritage. It will be both a valuable introductory text for a general audience and a definitive reference source for students and academics.

Part I

Imagining Elam: The history of research and its sources

CHAPTER ONE

Ælam regio

Elam in Western scholarship from the Renaissance to the late 19th century

Daniel T. Potts

Introduction

When Father Jean-Vincent Scheil penned the resonant phrase, ‘Ici commence l’histoire de l’Élam’ in 1900 (Scheil 1900: vii), he was expressing a view which, while understandable, was hardly correct. Western awareness of Elam predated the documentation, excavation and recovery of Elamite inscriptions and monuments in situ by many centuries. This chapter surveys the growth of scholarship on Elam broadly speaking in earlier Western scholarship, focusing on the Bible, Classical sources, the trilingual Achaemenid inscriptions, Akkadian and Sumerian texts, the Books of Maccabees, the Babylonian Talmud and eastern Christian (Nestorian) sources, treated, more or less, according to the development of Western interest in them. The commencement of Jacques de Morgan’s excavations at Susa in 1897–1898 provides a convenient cut-off point for this study.

The Bible

Elam’s appearance in Genesis (10.22) as a son of Sem has been widely discussed (e.g. Basnage 1713: 452; Gürtler 1715: 55; Assemani 1728: 419–420; Lenz 1739: 8; Schmidt 1740: 55; Calmet 1776: 39; Löwisohn 1821: 79–80; Hornung 1827: 33; Kitto 1851: 9–10), although as Theodor Nöldeke noted, the classification in Genesis was based on geographical and political relationships, not linguistic or ethnographic criteria (Nöldeke 1899: 1). The publication of the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate in the late 16th century prompted the appearance of exhaustive concordances (e.g. Santo Caro et al. 1733) and detailed commentaries of those books in which Elam and Shushan feature (e.g. Hardouin 1700: 126–127, Hengstenberg 1848 on Daniel; Patrick 1706: 537, 574, 616, 640, 680, 683, 692, 709, 737–738, 742–745, on Esther and Nehemiah; Nägelsbach 1850: 29–32, 78, 140 on Jeremiah) as well as studies devoted to historical geography (e.g. Wells 1711; Schmidt 1740; Joly 1784; Löwisohn 1821; Hornung 1827). As Elam was a descendant of Sem, Elamite (‘Elamitisch’; Herder 1794: 11) was considered a Semitic language (Kaiser 1840: 1).

Convenient summaries of the Biblical testimony concerning Elam and Shushan were widely disseminated and readily accessible in churches, schools and private homes (e.g. Alexander and Alexander 1830: 18; Allioli 1844: 44–45; Weiland and Ackerman 1845: 6–7; Phillott 1875). Mitchell’s Ancient Geography offered the reader ‘questions, to be answered from the Text and the Atlas’ (Mitchell 1845: v) including, ’1. What is said of Elam? Of Chedorlaomer? What was Elam? 2. What is said of the Elamites by Ezra? By Isaiah? Jeremiah and Ezekiel? Where were Elamites present? 3. What is said of Shushan? What was it once?’ (Mitchell 1845: 192–193).

Chodorlahomor/Chedorlaomer/Kedor Lahomer (Gen. 14.1–17)

The identity and significance of Chodorlahomor/Chedorlaomer/Kedorlaomer, king of the Elamites – Chodorlahómor rex Aelamitarum – was frequently discussed (e.g. Ferus 1565: 272; Pereira 1596: 141–143; Ribera 1596: 248; Del-Rio 1608: 227–228; Salian 1619: 398, 418; Basnage 1713: 452; Le Maistre de Saci 1723: 386–389; Suhm 1769: 43; Calmet 1776: 40–41; Jahn 1817: 66; Hornung 1827: 35; Tuch 1847: 164ff; Delattre 1879: 78–79; Harper 1889: 250–251). According to Genesis, Chodorlahomor had, together with Amraphel of Sennaar, Arioch of Pontus and Thadal, ‘king of nations’, waged war against a rebellious group of kings, including Bara of Sodom and Bersa of Gomorrah. Sanson’s dissertations (1717) are noteworthy for their exhaustive discussion of both Biblical and Classical testimony on Elam/Elymais, although Chodorlahomor is not mentioned by Greek and Roman writers (Calmet 1714: xlvii). For centuries he was the earliest Elamite king attested in a written source (Galletti 1827: 2–3), and after the decipherment of cuneiform H.C. Rawlinson proposed that Kudur-Mabuk, whom he had identified in a text published in 1861 (H.C. Rawlinson 1861/I: 2, no. III; earlier mentioned in G. Rawlinson 1860: 73, Note LXXIX, 281; cf. Smith 1868: 116), was none other than Chodorlahomor. Rawlinson quickly modified this, however, suggesting ‘that Kudur-mabuk, and Chedor-laomer, though of one family, were distinct persons’ (G. Rawlinson 1862: 205–206). Whereas the entire historicity of Chodorlahomor was rejected by Nöldeke for lack of evidence (Nöldeke 1869: 159), Oppert opened a new perspective when he suggested that the Greek version of the Biblical name (Χοδολλάγομορ) replicated Elamite Kudur-Lagamar (Oppert 1871: 510–511; cf. Oppert 1887: 492), and this was widely accepted (e.g. Lenormant 1877: 538, n. 4; Babelon 1881: 363; Halévy 1887: 321). Eberhard Schrader, a prominent exponent of the use of cuneiform sources to confirm Biblical testimony, suggested that ‘Kedorlaomer’ belonged to an Elamite royal family whose names began with ‘Kudur’ (hence ‘Kudurids’), at least one of whose members had extended its sway as far as Canaan (Schrader 1872: 15–16).

Shushan the palace and Susa

Long before any excavations at Susa, the verse on Elam and Shushan in Daniel (8.2) – ‘And I saw in a vision; and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river Ulai’ – was vigorously discussed. As early as 1173, Benjamin of Tudela correctly identified Shush (i.e. Susa) with Biblical Shushan, largely because of the alleged tomb of Daniel there and the testimony of Shush’s Jewish community. Printed versions of Benjamin’s travel account circulated from 1543 onwards (in Hebrew [1543], English [1625], Latin [1633], Dutch [1666], and French [1735]; Asher 1840: 1–25), yet Anglophone scholars (e.g. Farr 1850: 61; Booth 1902: 132) typically attributed the identification of Shush with Shushan and Susa to Rennell (Rennell 1800: 203, n. †). Later, confusion was introduced when it was suggested that Shushtar was the site of Greek Susa and Biblical Shushan (e.g. Vincent 1797: 416; Griesinger 1815: 40; Hammer-Purgstall 1825: 335). Although some argued strenuously for the identification of Shush with Greek Susa (e.g. Long 1833: 267), Rawlinson complicated matters by positing that ‘in ancient times there were two cities of the name of Súsan, or Susa, in the province of Susiana – the more ancient, which is the Shushan of Scripture, being situated at Súsan on the Kuran [i.e. Karun river, near Malamir], or Eulæus; the other, the Susa of the Greeks, was at Sús [i.e. Shush], near the Kerkhah, or Choaspes’ (H.C. Rawlinson 1839: 85). This confusion became widespread when Rawlinson’s position was adopted by Ritter (Ritter 1840: 309–311) and promulgated in several major atlases of the period (e.g. Spruner von Merz 1850: Map XIII; see the critique in Menke 1862: 546). Rawlinson, however, had never visited Súsan himself and when Layard finally did, he noted ‘scarcely any remains which would indicate the site of a large city… . no mounds of any size, or columns, or even hewn stones and bricks (Layard 1842: 103–104). Rawlinson’s distinction between Susa and Shushan was roundly criticized (Long apudLayard 1842: 104) and eventually disproven by Loftus’ discoveries at Shush (Loftus 1857a: vii; 1857b: 120).

The Book of Tobit

When the King James version of the Bible appeared in 1611, it contained the Book of Tobit in which we read (Tobit II 10), ‘Achiacharus [Ahiqar] did nourish me, until I went into Elymais’ (e.g. Pitman 1822: 615; Lange 1880: 126, 148, 504, 507, 565). According to some scholars, this implied a journey to Susa (Rennell 1800: 403), providing yet another early attestation of the city. The relevant clause appears in the Greek (cf. Meissner 1894: 193) but is absent in the Hebrew, Aramaic (Chaldee) and Vulgate versions, while in the Vetus Itala (Old Latin) it is applied to a different person (Fuller 1888: 193).

Elam and Susiana in the works of the classical authors

The publication of Latin translations of Strabo’s Geography and Herodotus’s Histories in 1469 and 1474, respectively, made a vast amount of data on ancient southwestern Iran accessible in Europe from an early date. The totality of Classical testimony on the Persian empire, including Susa, Susiana and the adjacent highlands, had been synthesized by the late 16th century (Brisson 1590). Thereafter, countless studies appeared in which these sources were analyzed (e.g. de Laet 1633: 123ff.; Ferrari 1657; Cellarius 1703; Longuerue 1732: 9ff.; 1784: 26–27; Caylus 1764: 119; Hoeck 1818: 89–97). So familiar were the Biblical and Classical allusions to Susa’s fine drinking water that the poet Milton included a reference to it in Paradise Regained (Bk. III, verse 288; ‘Susa by Choaspes, amber stream/ The drink of none but kings’), published in 1671 (cf. Todd 1809: 177–179). Sixty-five years later the same inspiration prompted Elizabeth Singer Rowe (1674–1737), to write, ‘Where fam’d Coaspes laves/ Rich Elam’s borders with his sacred waves’ in The History of Joseph, Book 5, l. 1 (Rowe 1744).

Amongst the great Enlightenment geographers who treated the sources on Elymais, and whose works were widely read and translated, particular mention should be made of Bourguignon d’Anville (e.g. d’Anville 1791: 484–486) and Konrad Mannert (Mannert 1797: 486). School atlases and geographical surveys with detailed information on Susiana, Elymais, Kissia and related regions in the area of ancient Elam abounded (Arrowsmith 1832: 230; Laurent 1840: 280–281; Ritter 1840). Some of these provided detailed concordances of toponyms and hydronyms (e.g. Anonymous 1837; Ideler 1841; Müller 1849), while others were more synthetic (e.g. Menke 1862; Nöldeke 1874; von Gutschmid 1888). Nor should we forget that European cartographers began publishing maps and historical atlases showing territories of the Persian Empire with the toponyms attested in Classical sources from an early date (e.g. Moullart – Sanson 1721; Santini 1779; Spruner von Merz 1850; Kiepert 1854).

The achaemenid trilingual inscriptions

The identification of one of the languages – the second – in the Achaemenid trilingual inscriptions as Elamite was preceded by a long period of speculation and analysis. Although several 17th and early 18th century visitors to Persepolis (e.g. Samuel Flower, Jean Chardin, Cornelis de Bruijn) made and published hand copies of individual cuneiform signs and inscriptions, none of these was accurate enough to form a basis for serious study. Consequently, some scholars thought the cuneiform inscriptions engraved on the buildings at Persepolis were not true writing but magic signs (Cuper 1743: 222, 229; Zoëga 1797: 552, n. 5), or a playful form of decoration (Hyde 1700: 1729; Witte 1799: 83; cf. Sylvestre de Sacy 1793: 3). Such scepticism vanished after Carsten Niebuhr, who worked at Persepolis in March, 1765, published the first accurate copies of a long series of Persepolis texts, noting that the Persepolitan texts were written in three distinct ‘alphabets’ (‘drey ganz verschiedenen Alphabeten’; Niebuhr 1778: 158). Although Niebuhr’s threefold classification was rejected by some (e.g. Wahl 1784: 619), it soon gained acceptance by serious students of cuneiform (e.g. Tychsen 1798: 47; Münter 1802: 83). The three variants were referred to by Münter as A, B and C (Münter 1802: 84) and by Grotefend as first, second and third (‘erste, zweyte und dritte Schriftart’, as reported by Tychsen 1802: 1482; cf. Sylvestre de Sacy 1803: 457; Grotefend 1805: 944). Grotefend was the first to observe that, when trilingual inscriptions flanked a window, the first and least complex variant was always at the top; the second variant, of intermediate complexity (Niebuhr’s texts C, E, K, D, F and L; Ménant 1885: 77 discussed F as an example of the type), was at the left; and the third, most complex variant was at the bottom or right (Grotefend 1805: 936; cf. Bellino 1820: 172; Ouseley 1821: 257; Rich 1839: 252; Ménant 1885: 82).

Scholars then turned to the identity of the languages represented by these three writing systems. Münter suggested that they were Zend (Avestan), Pahlavi and Parsi (Persian), written alphabetically, syllabically and ideographically (Münter 1802: 74, 84), while Lichtenstein identified them as Median or Zend, Pahlavi and Babylonian, (Lichtenstein 1803: 72, 89, 103) and Grotefend suggested they were Zend, Pahlavi and an unidentified Persian dialect (‘Persischen Mundart’; Grotefend 1805: 936). Later he called them all ‘altpersisch’, though not necessarily Zend, Pahlavi and Parsi (Grotefend 1...