Fig. 244.—Cylinder showing giants, lions, and bulls, glazed pottery (Louvre).
Above the proto-Elamite zone the ruins become confused and belong to different periods. It is obvious that the soil of Susa was constantly overturned and pillaged. Happily the beacon light of history now begins to guide our footsteps, and enables us to classify chronologically those remains, which are discovered in disorder. The written texts, which are increasingly numerous, from this time are divided into two main classes; the first written in a Semitic dialect, the second in the Anzanite language. This shows that in the country of Elam at that remote period an ethnic dualism existed, which corresponds with the double name for the capital of Anzan and Susa—a dualism which certain sculptured representations of the human figure also exhibit from the anthropological and ethnological point of view. The Anzanite inscriptions are still only partly decipherable, notwithstanding the insight shown by Dr. Scheil in commencing a study of them.
As to the inscriptions in the Elamite language, over a thousand have been brought to the Louvre. They are on slabs of stone, on blocks which have served as sockets for doors, and yet more are inscribed with a stylus on bricks.
These have been deciphered by Dr. Scheil; they give the names of the kings by whose commands the buildings were erected, in which they were employed. With the help of these clues, and guided by some more explicit texts and by the information about Susa already afforded us in the inscriptions of Chaldæa and Assyria, it has been possible to establish the first landmarks of the history of that powerful Elamite empire, whose complete annals will shortly provide a new chapter of the history of the Ancient World.
After the mythical period, in which such kings as Humbaba and Kudur appear, whose names so far only occur in legendary poems and stories, the earliest historical texts introduce us to the princes of Elam as vassals of the Mesopotamian suzerains. Of these the first is called Ur-iti-Adad, vassal successively of the two kings of Agade, Sargani-sar-ali, and Naram-Sin, about B.C. 3750. One of his successors, Karibu-Sa-Susinak, patesi of Susa, sakkanak of Elam, boasts of having built the temple of the god Sugu “the ancient,” and of having constructed the canal of Sidur; he is a vassal of Dungi, king of Ur, and of Gudea, patesi of Sirpurla.
To the rule of the patesis at Elam succeeded that of the Sukkal-mah. This was occasioned by a change in the suzerainty, which from being Chaldæan now became Elamite.
About B.C. 2280 the king of Susa, Kudur-Nakhunta, effected the conquest of Mesopotamia and decorated his capital with the spoils of the towns of Chaldæa; notable among these was the statue of the goddess Nana, which he caused to be transported from Uruk (Erech) to Susa.
Long after, Hammurabi, king of Babylon, delivered Chaldæa from the domination of Elam, and one of his successors, Kuri-galsu, even succeeded in entering Susa as a conqueror. But later again the Susians gained their revenge; they took Babylon by assault, and carried away the statue of Bel.