Kingdoms of the Eastern Near East

The city states of Sumer formed one of the first great civilisations in human history (see feature link). This Near Eastern civilisation emerged a little way ahead of that of Africa's ancient Egypt, and up to a millennium before that of the Indus Valley culture.

Early civilisation here emerged during the Pottery Neolithic, with its Neolithic Farmer practices being spread far and wide. Southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and the western edge of Iran) was subjected to permanent settlement and, by the late fourth millennium BC, Sumer was divided into approximately a dozen city states, by which time other regions were emerging as population centres in their own right, notably on Sumer's eastern flank.

Elam was one of the oldest named regions in history, being located in one of the oldest civilised areas in the world (see feature link). With a small but important selection of city states at its core it also provided history with one of its longest-surviving states, or at least a series of states which, for outsiders, can barely be distinguished apart from one another.

For a good deal of its early independent history - and certainly prior to the launch of the Achaemenid empire - Elam was much more a land of city states along the same lines as Sumer, and far less a unified state which implacably opposed Sumer. The land of Elam was situated in south-western Iran, on the east (left) bank of the Tigris and opposite modern Kuwait, Iraq's city of Basrah, and the northern part of the Persian Gulf. This area approximately covers the modern Khuzestan and Ilam provinces, the latter of which inherits the former kingdom's name.

Even though it neighboured Sumer, it took some time to assimilate Sumer's groundbreaking social, agricultural, and administrative inventions. Elam's first city state kingdom arose by around 2700 BC, but little is known of its origins. Although geographically similar to southern Mesopotamia and not at all distant, Elam was located on an alluvial plain below the Zagros mountains rather than in the sandy dustbowl of Sumer which mainly clung to life along the two main rivers (its own alluvial plain).

Travel between the two regions could be difficult due to a string of large marshes which lay in the way. The nearest access route was in the Zagros foothills to circle the marshes, something which armies from both sides would later do with increasing frequency. The city of Der and the Diyala river basin to the north-east of today's Baghdad were favoured access points for armies. This difficult access also meant difficulties in communication, which probably helps to explain at least part of Elam's comparatively late climb towards civilisation. Only in the third millennium BC did the two regions begin to share closer relations.

Culturally, Elam achieved less than its advanced neighbours, and imported much of what it needed, including writing from Sumer and architecture from the later city and empire of Babylon. From the few surviving records, it seems the Elamite language bore no relation to any others, whether Semitic, Sumerian or Indo-European, forming part of a pre-Indo-European group called Elamo-Dravidian which reached into India. It was a linguistic isolate which was later replaced by the Farsi of the Parsua.

Elamite records are also extremely sparse in recording local events, and large areas of its history are almost totally unknown except through Sumerian records. It is generally known in classical writings as Susiana, from the city state of Susa which usually (in much later years) formed its capital. Alexander the Great certainly used it as such.

The form of the kingdom's name, 'Elam' is generally taken to mean meaning 'highland'. It is Akkadian (and this survives via Akkadian to reach Hebrew). In the original Elamite form it seems to have been Haltamtu or Haltamti, although this was not written down until the eighteenth century BC. It could have been inherited from the Akkadian version and was simply accepted through centuries of familiarity, although a reverse argument also exists which classes it as an Elamite name which was adopted into Akkadian.

As a result of the local process of absorbing Sumer's advances and making them their own, an initial centralisation of power probably took place in the late fifth millennium BC at the site of Chogha Mish. In the early fourth millennium BC a new centre emerged, this time at Susa, located a hundred kilometres to the east of the Tigris. This went on to develop its own monumental architecture and, during the Uruk IV period in that millennium, it thoroughly absorbed Sumer's material culture.

Elam's four major cities during the 'Early Dynastic' period in the early and middle third millennium BC were Awan, Anshan, Simash, and the 'mother city' of Susa which was also the Persian-era capital. Rulers in these cities practised kingship by matrilineal descent, being referred to as 'son of a sister'.

Sometimes those cities had rival kingships, mostly poorly-recorded, and sometimes they seemed to combine into one kingdom or perhaps acted as a loosely-joined coalition. Sometimes they even attacked and/or invaded one another's territories. Potentially also included at various times in various events were smaller (and often entirely obscure) cities or groups which included Aratta, Harshi, Itnigi, Sapum, Shig(i)rish, Zabshali, and Zitanu.

Late 'Early Dynastic' Sumerian rulers, such as the king of Lagash, campaigned against the land of Elam and its various states. This was probably in competition for trade routes which reached overland towards eastern Iran and the Indus Valley civilisation which lay at the eastern extent of this broad trading network. The BMAC civilisation along the Oxus in Central Asia was also part of this network, although its interaction with Elam remains obscure. The descendants of the Jiroft culture to Elam's immediate east quite possibly supplied the foundations of the Marhashi state.

The Old Testament claims the personification of Elam as a son of Shem, ancestor of the Israelites, and founder figure of the region which bears his name. The Elamites, however, bore no relation to Semitic-speakers like the Israelites. They did not disappear with the fall of Elam to a major Assyrian campaign of destruction in the seventh century BC, but instead survived as the Elymaeans.

Near East Kingdoms

Ancient Eastern Near East

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