Five ancient inscriptions unearthed at Haft-Tappeh

Tehran Times ^ | October 10 2005 | staff writer

[SunkenCiv]

...several seal impressions and clay inscriptions found at Haft-Tappeh contain the name Kabnak, and it is possible that this was the original name of the city. The team has also been tasked with discovering the exact location of Kabnak, where the Elamite king Tepti-ahar built a temple complex in the fifteenth century BC and was buried at the site. Tepti-ahar, the last ruler of the Kidinuid period (1460-1400 BC), known from inscribed bricks and a sale contract from Susa and a text said to be from Malamir (in Lorestan Province), is mentioned on approximately 55 tablets of Haft-Tappeh, bearing the title "king of Susa and Anshan".

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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[blam]

GGG Ping.

[SunkenCiv]

Good idea. ;')

[Ciexyz]

Unfortunately, no photos provided of the broken tablets.

[SunkenCiv]

They're probably small. Cuneiform (which looks mighty hard to read to my eye) is often on pretty small (therefore portable) chunks of clay.

[BlackVeil]

From the article:

The ruins of the ancient city of Haft-Tappeh lie on the plain of Khuzestan close to the ruins of ancient Susa and two kilometers from the Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat. This large Elamite site contains fourteen major visible mounds, the largest rising about 17 meters above the surrounding plain, and its related extensions cover an area about 1500 meters long and 800 meters wide.

The ancient name of the site is still being debated. Some scholars have suggested that it may have been called Tikni, which is described in early documents as a religious center located between Susa and Chogha Zanbil, but no evidence has yet been found in the Haft-Tappeh excavations to support this theory. However, several seal impressions and clay inscriptions found at Haft-Tappeh contain the name Kabnak, and it is possible that this was the original name of the city.

Iran has such a lot of history. These are very ancient ruins, and obviously a highly organised city and society.

[SunkenCiv]

Elam has the deepest (known) roots in Iran. Even had a writing system which is not alas deciphered (too few examples of the text survive. Eventually Elam was beaten so badly that it became no more than a troublesome tributary to other powers (make that tributaries -- a unified Elam never really happened, at least not for long). Like everyone else in the region, Elamites started using cuneiform writing, which has enabled some modern understanding of their language. But again, not much survives as far as anyone knows. A big Elamite archive would help, but I'm not optimistic that one will ever be found.

http://www.lib.umt.edu/guide/lang/emptylah.htm

Ancient Scripts had nothing:

http://www.ancientscripts.com/ws_atoz.html

[SunkenCiv]

Uncracked Ancient Codes
(Lost Languages reviewed)
by William C. West

As longtime literary editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement in London, Andrew Robinson is well able to interpret the arcana of scientific discoveries for the general public. In Lost Languages, he explains the principles of three famous decipherments and applies the insights gained to an understanding of several undeciphered scripts—Linear A, the Etruscan alphabet, the Phaistos disc, and the Meroitic, Proto-Elamite, rongorongo, Zapotec, Isthmian and Indus scripts.

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Lost Languages: The Enigma Of The World's Undeciphered Scripts by Andrew Robinson

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[SunkenCiv]

as I said in the message above, cuneiform tablets tend to be a bit small:

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[SunkenCiv]

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