"Jiroft Inscription", Oldest Evidence of Written Language

Persian Journal ^ | Jan 12, 2006

[Ciexyz]

The links you've posted in this thread are very interesting, esp. the "ancient scripts" site. I recommend a visit to those interested in the development of ancient languages.

[Ciexyz]

Good for another bump.

[Ptarmigan]

That's what I have read. Elamite is agglutinative from what I have read. Elamite is an language isolate like Ainu, Basque, Sumerian, and Etruscan.

[SunkenCiv]

I found some wikiwackypedia stuff on that, but that's verboten.

Possibly was based in part on this:
http://www.governpub.com/Languages-E/Elamite.php

However, it also mentioned this paper by this guy, and luckily it was online:
http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/elam.pdf

The idea of an affinity apparently originated in 1856, which is around the time when cuneiform was being read. Once cuneiform was cracked as a writing system, almost anything in the writing system could be pronounced. In at least one case, an otherwise unknown language was discovered on a single tablet in the Amarna archive, and translated with the help of context from other tablets in that cache.

Also according to that PDF paper, in its modern form the idea was championed by a scholar in the mid 1970s, and has mostly just sat there since, as no large newly discovered Elamite archive has turned up.

[SunkenCiv]

update:

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The fifth season of excavations of archeological mounds of Konar-Sandal around Jiroft in the Kerman Province has led to the discovery of two more stone inscriptions dating back to the first half of the third millennium B.C.

Three other stone tablets have previously been discovered on the 5,000 year old site.

Professor Piotr Steinkeller of Harvard University in his recent essay on the discovery in the area has called it "Eastern Script", as distinct from Elamite.

The Konar-Sandal archaeological excavation team, consisting of Iranian and foreign experts as well as the head of the team Yusef Majidzadeh, have given the name "Royal" to the newly identified inscriptions.

However some specialists say, since the scripts have not been decoded yet, such a theory is not acceptable.

Inscriptions found earlier in Konar-Sandal's ziggurat suggest Jiroft was the origin of Elamite written language which then spread across the country and reached Susa.

Jiroft is located close to the Halil Rud historical site which, according to abundant evidence, was one of the first places where civilization was established.

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[SunkenCiv]

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