Alle frontiere dell'assiriologia: la decifrazione dell'elamita lineare e le sue conseguenze

Linear Elamite is a script attested in southern Iran in the third millennium BC and the first two centuries of the second millennium BC. First discovered in Susa in 1903 on some inscribed artifacts of King Puzur-Sušinak’s period (2nd half of the 22nd century BC), Linear Elamite had long remained undeciphered. Someone even denied that it was a true writing system. We now know that Linear Elamite is not only a consistent, efficient, and fully developed writing system; it is also surprisingly modern, being purely phonographic. This character distinguishes it from all other coeval scripts and paves the way for us to better understand the language of these texts, Elamite. The latter was the main language spoken in ancient Iran before the advent of the Persians. However, Elamite is one of the lesser-known languages in Assyriology, partly because of the inadequacy of cuneiform writing (through which it was previously known) to represent its phonology and morphology. The recent decipherment of Linear Elamite opens up new scenarios and perspectives not only in philological and linguistic research but also in the fields of ancient Iran’s history and culture, as well as the universal history of writing. The steps that led to this decipherment and its immediate consequences are briefly outlined here.