ELAM. - Territory (Akkadian Nim-ma-ki "the high country", Greek Ἐλαμαΐς), 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 (Elamir) therefore inhabited the country situated to the north-west of Sumer and Akkad.
The plain is called Anšan or Aššan, and the region of the hills and mountains Nimma or Elamma, the "high plateau": these names were later applied to the whole region and became confused. Susa, the principal city, was located in the space between the Ulai and the Ididi, eight or ten leagues beyond the first appearance of the hills.
The Elamites were a mixed population. The Semitic element occupies an important place in it, since it succeeded in having its script and its language adopted for inscriptions in different and very long periods, a fact that also occurs through the influence of the neighboring Sumerians and Akkadians, who imposed on E. a sovereignty at times real, at times apparent.
The Anšanite element was predominant in number and reacted naturally against the Semitic Elamite population. With political conditions the language of the documents changes, and one encounters exclusively Anšanite inscriptions. Therefore the cuneiforms of Susa served two different languages: the Semitic Elamite, which approaches Akkadian, and the Anšanite Elamite, which some scholars suppose to be akin to Georgian, the last representative of the group of Alarodian languages.
Religion was based on a crude polytheism. In later times the deities that had anciently been venerated as principal declined.
The long period of history (ca. 3000-640 B.C.) gave rise to a transformation of the script (pictographic, linear, cuneiform), to an evolution of the language (proto-Elamite, Elamite, medieval Anšanite, recent Anšanite), and also to a religious evolution.
In the political history of E. there are sudden shifts, changes of dynasties, foreign occupations of part of the country, or, in times of security and prosperity, thrusts toward the south and south-east. Mesopotamia attracted this people of mountaineers; hence perhaps not by chance did Akkadian express with the same ideogram the idea of elu ("high" and "Elamite") and tamba = "fly". The Elamites were stinging and invasive flies that did not leave the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians in peace.
Already Sargon I (ca. 4360 B.C.) of Akkad (v.), perhaps provoked, made war on E., and conquered it, subjugating its territory. Hammurapi was likewise a victor over the Elamites (ca. 1700 B.C.). Later the fratricidal wars between the two Semitic peoples, Assyria and Babylonia, allowed E. to avenge itself for earlier defeats. Ca. 1200 Sutruk-Nahhunte, king of E., occupies Babylonia, defeats and kills Zababa-šum-iddin king of Babylonia, and with his son Kuttur-Nahhunte destroys or sacks Sippar and a hundred other Babylonian cities, plundering precious objects, even monuments, such as the stele of Sargon and of Narâm-Sin, the code of Hammurapi, etc.; all these precious monuments have been found at Susa, where they had been deported.
An Elamite, libri-biti-apal-ussur (ca. 1000) was the founder of the seventh dynasty, called that of the Kassites, in Babylonia, and dwelt there 6 years on the throne. In the 8th and 7th centuries B.C., while the power of Assyria was at its apogee, E., having allied itself with the weak Babylonia (v.), resisted without triumphing the troops of Sargon II, and suffered a memorable defeat near Kiš at the hands of the army of Sennacherib. The successors of this Assyrian king, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, left in peace neither Babylonia nor E. still allied with her. In 640 the territory of E. was occupied: the capital Susa was besieged, conquered and in part destroyed by Ashurbanipal. The country of E. then disappeared from the number of the great powers.
Until 612 (destruction of Nineveh) E. became an Assyrian province; afterwards 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 recall the country and the people of E. In Gen. 10:22 and in 1 Par. 17 (the sons of Shem are "E., Assur ..."), the Bible attributes a Semitic origin to the Elamite people, which agrees at least in part with profane history. Another historical passage, Gen. 14:1, where it is said that the kings of the East fighting against the Pentapolis of the Dead Sea, defeated by Abraham who hastened to the defense of his nephew Lot, gives the name of a king of E., Choderlahomor (v.). The two elements of the name Kudhr a Lagamor occur frequently in the proper names of the ancient Elamite traditions. However, the name of this king of E. does not yet appear in profane inscriptions. Esd. 4:9 also enumerates the Elamites among the various peoples deported from the eastern regions, who constituted the new Samaritan people. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel raise their voices against E., as against all the other regions then in prominence (cf. Is. 11:11; 21:2; 22:6; Ier. 25:25; 49:34 agg.; Ex. 32:24). A few years before the annihilation of E. the prophet Jeremiah announces it (Ier. 49:34-39); he foretells finally the return of the Elamite prisoners "in the last days."
Bibliography
Giustino Boson