Elamite Empire: A Visual History

Elam was the civilisation of south-western Iran, centred on Susa and the highlands of Anshan, from about 2700 BC to its destruction by Assyria in 640 BC. Its language was unrelated to any other. Elam alternately fought and traded with Sumer, Akkad and Babylon: it destroyed the Third Dynasty of Ur in 2004 BC, and the Middle Elamite kings Untash-Napirisha and Shutruk-Nakhunte built the ziggurat of Chogha Zanbil and carried Hammurabi's Code and Naram-Sin's stele off to Susa. Neo-Elamite kings fought Assyria until Ashurbanipal sacked Susa in 647; the Persians took over Anshan and made Susa a capital of their empire.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Elamite Empire. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Elamite territory

Timeline of the Elamite Empire

1. 2,700 BC
   Awan dynastyFirst Elamite dynasty.
2. 2,300 BC
   Sargon conquers Susa
3. 2,004 BC
   Elamites destroy Ur
4. 1,764 BC
   Hammurabi defeats Elam
5. 1,250 BC
   Chogha Zanbil built
6. 1,158 BC
   Shutruk-Nakhunte sacks Babylon
7. 691 BC
   Halule
8. 653 BC
   Ulai; Teumman killed
9. 647 BC
   Ashurbanipal sacks Susa

Old Elam

Susa was a city from about 4000 BC and developed Proto-Elamite writing around 3100 BC. Sargon of Akkad conquered it; the Elamites regained independence and in 2004 BC destroyed Ur, carrying its last king into captivity, a catastrophe lamented in Sumerian poetry. The Sukkalmah dynasty of the early second millennium ruled a large Elamite state that intervened in Mesopotamian wars until Hammurabi defeated it.

Middle Elamite glory

Untash-Napirisha (about 1275-1240) built Chogha Zanbil, the best-preserved ziggurat in the world, at a new city near Susa. Shutruk-Nakhunte invaded Babylonia around 1158, ended the Kassite dynasty and hauled the stele of Naram-Sin, Hammurabi's Code and Marduk's statue to Susa. His son Kutir-Nakhunte took Marduk's statue again; Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon retaliated around 1120, sacking Susa and retrieving Marduk. Elamite art of the period includes the life-size bronze statue of Queen Napir-Asu.

Assyria and the end

Neo-Elamite kings backed Babylonian rebels against Assyria and fought Sennacherib at Halule in 691. Ashurbanipal, exasperated, invaded repeatedly, killed King Teumman at the Ulai in 653 and displayed his head at a banquet, and in 647-646 sacked Susa, desecrated the royal tombs and 'sowed the land with salt'. Elamite kinglets survived a few decades; the Persians, who had settled in Anshan, absorbed the rest, and Elamite became an administrative language of the Achaemenid Empire.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Sumer (4,500 BC to 1,900 BC)
• Akkadian Empire (2,334 BC to 2,154 BC)
• Neo-Sumerian Empire (Ur III) (2,112 BC to 2,004 BC)
• First Babylonian Empire (1,894 BC to 1,595 BC)
• Second Dynasty of Isin (1,157 BC to 1,026 BC)
• Neo-Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 609 BC)
• Median Empire (678 BC to 549 BC)
• Achaemenid Empire (550 BC to 330 BC)
• Neo-Babylonian Empire (626 BC to 539 BC)

Wars of the same era and region

• Greco-Persian Wars (499 BC to 449 BC)

8 surprising things about the Elamite Empire

1. Hammurabi's Code and the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin were both found at Susa, where the Elamites had taken them as loot in 1158 BC.
2. Chogha Zanbil's ziggurat is the largest outside Mesopotamia and was buried under sand until 1935.
3. The Elamite language is a linguistic isolate; a link with Dravidian has been proposed but not proved.
4. The bronze statue of Queen Napir-Asu weighs 1,750 kg and is the largest surviving ancient bronze from the Near East.
5. Ashurbanipal recorded desecrating Elamite royal tombs so that the kings' ghosts would find no rest.
6. Susa was continuously inhabited from about 4200 BC to the thirteenth century AD.
7. The Persian Empire's administrative tablets at Persepolis are written mostly in Elamite.
8. The biblical Book of Daniel is set partly in Susa (Shushan), the Elamite city under Persian rule.

Sources

• Elam Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Elam Wikipedia
• Elam World History Encyclopedia
• D. T. Potts, The Archaeology of Elam (1999) Cambridge University Press

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