Proto-Elamite Research Articles

Application of Scanning Electron and Atomic Force Mode Microscopy on inscription from Proto-Elamite period in Tappeh Sofalin

Application of Scanning Electron and Atomic Force Mode Microscopy on inscription from Proto-Elamite period in Tappeh Sofalin

Geochemical analyses result of prehistoric pottery from the site of Tol-e Kamin (Fars, Iran) by pXRF

ABSTRACT A series of pottery samples from the Iranian site Tol-e Kamin, ranging from pre-historical period to the New Elamite, were analyzed in order to study the geochemical variability of the pottery assemblage. A total amount of 168 measurements were obtained using a portable XRF device and were statistically handled. The results could successfully distinguish the geochemical composition of potteries from the chalcolithic to the New Elamite periods in the Kur River Basin. A major shift in the use of different clay sources could be detected since the Proto Elamite period and afterward, in which the carbonated and marl content clays represented by Ca, Ba and Sr shifted to clay sources with a tendency to non-carbonate silty clay Al, Ti, and Fe from a different geological background. The results stress the importance of further provenance studies to address issues of trade and exchange possibilities in southwestern Iran.

Abbas Alizadeh. Ancient Settlement Systems and Cultures in the Ram Hormuz Plain, Southwestern Iran

Tall-e Geser boasts a long stratigraphic sequence from the 5th millennium to the Safavid period, broken only during the 700-800 years following the Proto-Elamite period, and it remains the only excavated site in the strategically important Ram Hormuz region connecting the Mesopotamian plain and Susiana with the Zagros highlands. However, the two seasons of excavation at the site led by Donald E. McCown in 1948/49 under the auspices of the Oriental Institute were never published. For this volu...

Itinerant potters and the transmission of ceramic technologies and styles during the Proto-Elamite period in Iran

An INAA study of a widely used potters' tool, the ceramic ring scraper, demonstrates that the elemental compositions of these tools are very different from the pottery produced at the sites where the tools are found. These results are interpreted to indicate that Proto-Elamite (3400–2900 BC) potters in Southwestern Iran were moving from site to site through large regions rather than living and working in single sites. The presence of such mobile potters suggests that ceramic technologies and styles were spread throughout the Uruk/Proto-Elamite world, at least in part, by the movements of itinerant craft specialists.

Investigating ceramic production during the Proto-Elamite period at Tepe Yahya, southeastern Iran: Results of instrumental neutron activation analysis of periods IVC and IVB ceramics

This article presents results of new instrumental neutron activation analysis of ceramics from Tepe Yahya (southeastern Iran) dating to Periods IVC and IVB and their implications for our understanding of the dynamics of ceramic production and distribution in southeastern Iran during the early Bronze Age period. This analysis was conducted as part of the National Science Foundation funded project Coordinated, Regional Trace-Element Studies at the OSU-RC Archaeometry Lab, focused on a re-evaluation of the Uruk expansion and interregional ceramic exchange in the late fourth millennium BC. Period IVC corresponds to the Proto-Elamite occupation at Tepe Yahya dating to ca. 3000BCE, and Period IVB follows Period IVC in the third millennium BCE after a chronological hiatus.Through this analysis we show that the ceramic assemblage recovered in Period IVC Proto-Elamite occupation resulted from a complex system that included local production as well as intraregional and interregional exchange. We suggest that the community that settled at Tepe Yahya built most of its typical Proto-Elamite ceramic vessels using clays available locally in the valley surrounding the site. Surprisingly, Burnished ware, a ceramic style well-represented at the site but usually more common in northern Iran, was also built using local clays. In the same period, additional, different styles of painted ceramics were present at the site. We suggest that these ceramics were made using clays available elsewhere in Kerman and Seistan-and-Balochistan provinces. Comparisons with compositions of materials from Period IVB revealed that changes occurred in ceramic production during this period.Beyond ceramic production, broader implications are derived from these results for the understanding of the Proto-Elamite Culture, interactions in southeastern Iran around 3000 BCE, and the Proto-Elamite legacy in this area.

Elamite Funerary Clay Heads

The ancient Iranian civilization of Elam developed along the banks of rivers and in the Zagros Mountains, in what are now the provinces of Khuzistan and Fars. Elamite civilization lasted at least two thousand years: If we include the Proto-Elamite period, then it can be said to stretch all the way from the foundation of Susa at around 4200 BCE to the emergence of the Achaemenid Persian period in the sixth century BCE. It arguably ranks with its contemporaries in Mesopotamia and Egypt in importance, although it is far less well understood. Even the name by which we refer to this enigmatic civilization is puzzling. Elam may be derived from Elamite Ha(1)tamti, meaning gracious lord land, or high land.2 It is a combination of highland and lowland traditions, however, that give Elamite culture its unique character.

Prelude to Proto-Elamite Anshan

Les centres de production de ceramique indigene du Fars resistent a l'influence d'Uruk : c'est le cas dans le bassin de la riviere Kur de la ceramique de la phase Lapui, vases rouges sans decor, qui a precede l'apparition de la civilisation Proto-Elamite (phase Banesh). L'A. presente une analyse chronologique de la production de cette ceramique en liaison avec l'habitat du grand village de Lapui (la population sedentaire a decline de -4000 a -3500 av. J.-C.)

Trade and Politics in Proto-Elamite Iran [and Comments and Reply

During the Proto-Elamite period, 3300-2800 B.C., a political and economic hegemony seems to have arisen in the southwestern highlands of Iran. The power of this hegemony was derived from its control over the major trade routes between the Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia; its extent is defined by shared styles in ceramics, art, and architecture and by the use of a distincitive system of writing and recording. Proto-Elamite influence grew rapidly during the last centuries of the 4th millennium B.C. and declined equally rapidly when maritime trade through the Persian Gulf was established several centuries later. This reconstruction is supported by independent evidence-the ratios of imported to exported materials-from Farukhabad, a site outside the Proto-Elamite sphere of influence in lowland western Iran. This paper emphasizes the role that long-distance trade can play in the rise and decline of prehistoric complex societies. Proto-Elamite hegemony was a political and social phenomenon but was based on exploitation of an economic situation. The important factor was not change in mode of production or control over means of production such as arable land or natural resources, but control over trade.

The Proto-Elamite Settlement at Tepe Yaḥyā

The Proto-Elamite Settlement at Tepe Yaḥyā