ELAM. - Territory (Akkadian Nim-ma-ké) “the high land,” Gr. ‘Elamzêkê), bordering to the south on the Persian Gulf, to the west on Chaldea, to the north on Assyria and Media, and to the east on Persia. The Elamites (Elam) thus inhabited the country situated to the northwest of Sumer and Akkad.
The plain is called Anšan or Asšan “the region of the hill,” the mountains Nimma or Elamma, the highland; these names were later applied to the entire region and became confused. Susa, the principal city, was located in the space between the Uli and the Iddi, eight or ten leagues beyond the first appearances of the hills.
The Elamites were a mixed people. The Semitic element occupied an important place, since it succeeded in having its writing and language adopted for inscriptions in different and lengthy periods, a fact also produced by the influence of the neighboring Sumerians and Akkadians, who imposed on Elam a sovereignty that was at times real, at times apparent.
The Anshanite element was predominant in numbers and naturally reacted against the Semitic Elamite population. With the political conditions, the language of the documents changes, and one encounters exclusively Anshanite inscriptions. Therefore, the cuneiform inscriptions of Susa served two different languages: the Semitic Elamite, which approaches Akkadian, and the Anshanite Elamite, which some scholars suppose to be related to Georgian, the last representative of the Alarodic language group.
Religion was based on a crude polytheism. In later times the deities that had once been venerated as principal ones fell into decline.
The long period of history (ca. 3000–640 B.C.) gave rise to a transformation of writing (pictorial, linear, cuneiform), an evolution of language (Proto-Elamite, Elamite, Medieval Anshanite, Recent Anshanite), and also a religious evolution.
In the political history of Elam, there were fluctuations, changes of dynasty, foreign occupations of part of the country, and, in times of security and prosperity, pushes toward the south and southeast. Mesopotamia attracted this mountain people; therefore, perhaps not by chance, Akkadian expressed with the same ideogram the idea of elu (“high” and “Elamite”) as “mumhu” = “moved.” The Elamites were stinging and invasive gadflies who did not leave the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians in peace.
Already Sargon I (ca. 2360 B.C.) of Akkad (v.), perhaps provoked, waged war on Elam and conquered its territory. Hammurapi was also a victor over the Elamites (ca. 1700 B.C.). Later, the fratricidal wars between the two Semitic peoples, Assyria and Babylonia, allowed Elam to avenge earlier defeats. Around 1200 B.C., Sutruk-Nahhunte, king of Elam, occupied Babylonia, defeated and killed Zababa-šum-iddin, king of Babylon, and with his son Kutur-Nahhunte destroyed or sacked Sippar and a hundred other Babylonian cities, plundering precious objects, even monuments, such as the stele of Sargon and of Narām-Sîn, the Code of Hammurapi, etc.; all these precious monuments were found at Susa, whither they had been deported.
An Elamite, Mûr-biti-apal-usur (ca. 1000 B.C.), was the founder of the seventh dynasty, called the Kassite, in Babylonia and reigned there for six years. In the 8th and 7th centuries B.C., while the power of Assyria was at its apogee, Elam, allied with weak Babylonia (v.), resisted without triumphing the troops of Sargon II, but suffered a memorable defeat near Kish at the hands of Sennacherib’s army. The successors of this Assyrian king, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipar, did not leave in peace either Babylonia or Elam, still allied with II. In 640 B.C. the territory of Elam was occupied: its capital Susa was besieged, conquered, and partly destroyed by Ashurbanipal. Elam then disappeared from the number of the great powers of the East.
Until 612 B.C. (the destruction of Nineveh) Elam became an Assyrian province; then it was subject to the Medes, the Persians, the Seleucids, and in the 3rd century B.C. to the Arsacids.
ELAM IN THE BIBLE. - Some biblical books mention the land and people of Elam. In Gen. 10:22 and 1 Chron. 1:17 (the sons of Shem are “Elam, Asshur...”), the Bible attributes a Semitic origin to the Elamite people, which at least partly accords with profane history. Another historical passage in Gen. 14:1, where it speaks of four kings of the East fighting against the Pentapolis of the Dead Sea and defeated by Abraham coming to the aid of his nephew Lot, gives the name of a king of Elam, Chedorlaomer (v.). The two elements of the name Kudur = Lagamar occur frequently in the proper names of ancient Elamite traditions. However, the name of this king of Elam does not yet appear in profane inscriptions. Ezra 4:9 also numbers the Elamites among the various peoples deported from the eastern regions who formed the new Samaritan people. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel raise their voices against Elam, as against all the other regions then in vogue (cf. Isa. 11:1; 21:2; 22:6; Jer. 25:25; 49:34ff.; Ezek. 32:24). A few years before the annihilation of Elam, the prophet Jeremiah foretells it (Jer. 49:34–39): he finally predicts the return of the Elamite captives “in the last days.”