Linear Elamite
Writing system from Elam / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Linear Elamite was a writing system used in Elam during the Bronze Age between c. 2300 and 1850 BCE, and known mainly from a few extant monumental inscriptions.[5] It was used contemporaneously with Elamite cuneiform and records the Elamite language.[5] The French archaeologist François Desset [fr] and his colleagues have argued that it is the oldest known purely phonographic writing system,[5] although others, such as the linguist Michael Mäder, have argued that it is partly logographic.[2][3]
Linear Elamite | |
---|---|
Script type | [lower-alpha 1] or logosyllabic[lower-alpha 2] |
Time period | c. 2300–1850 BCE |
Status | Extinct |
Direction | Left-to-right, right-to-left script |
Languages | Elamite |
Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Proto-writing
|
There have been multiple attempts to decipher the script, aided by the discovery of a limited number of multilingual and bigraphic inscriptions. Early efforts by Carl Frank [de] (1912) and Ferdinand Bork (1905, 1924) made limited progress.[6] Later work by Walther Hinz [de] and Piero Meriggi [it; de] furthered the work.[7][8] Starting in 2018, Desset outlined some of his proposed decipherments of the script accomplished with a team of other scholars.[4][9][10] Their proposed near-complete decipherment was published in 2022,[5] being received positively by some researchers[lower-alpha 3] while others[lower-alpha 4] remain sceptical until detailed translations of texts have been published.[11][3]