254 I THE WRITTEN RECORD

or from the classical historians, and those of other texts can still be easily misinterpreted. The under­ societies that had been wholly lost to history. standing of Elamite, however, is comparatively poor, The keys to the decipherments were the multi­ for various reasons including the absence of close cog­ lingual inscriptions of the Achaemenid Persian kings: nate languages, the relatively small size and narrow those at , the great complex built by range of the corpus, the small number of bilingual Darius I (522-486 B. c.) and his successors near mod­ texts, and the almost complete absence of ancient na­ ern , and the great rock inscription of Darius at tive lexical and grammatical scholarship. Translations Bisitun in the central Zagros (fig. 55). Travelers who from Elamite commonly involve a large measure of visited the sites and decipherers who worked on fac­ conjecture-although Elamite texts can still be sensi­ similes of the texts were quick to realize that two of the bly interpreted as historical evidence. languages in the inscriptions were not original to Persia. One was recognized as existing on older monu­ mental reliefs from and on bricks and tablets LANGUAGES AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT from , and the decipherers correctly inferred that it was Babylonian. Another was also found in rock The use of both Mesopotamian and "Susian" lan ... inscriptions near in eastern Khuzistan, but es­ guages is emblematic of a general condition in the pecially in texts from Susa that seemed still older, history of Susa. Susa stood at a boundary between two and so one of the several names proposed for the Ian­ ancient realms; it was central to neither, but it partici­ guage that is now called Elamite was, appropriately, pated in both. It was tied to the cities, kingdoms, and "Susian." tribal territories of , Babylonia, and Assyria to Since those nineteenth-century beginnings the the west but also to the populations and Elamite states Babylonian, Assyrian, Sumerian, and Elamite vari­ of the. Iranian highlands to the north and east, and ants of the system have come to be above all to ancient , in modern . The thoroughly understood, but the several languages that cultural and political life of Susa was strongly affected were written in the cuneiform script are understood to by contact and confrontation between these realms. varying degrees. Sumerian and Akkadian are well Eventually, when the Achaemenids came to dominate enough known to be confidently translated-although the formerly Elamite Fars and then to incorporate both the evidence drawn from Sumerian and Akkadian and the region of Susa into their conti-

Figure 55· Rock showing Darius I receiving conquered foreign kings, with inscriptions in , Elamite, and Babylonian. Bisitun, , Achaemenid period, reign of Darius I, ca. 522-486 B.C.