page_title: Proto-Elamite
section_title: Proto-Elamite script
hierarchical_section_title: Proto-Elamite / Proto-Elamite script
caption_attribution_description: English: Development of writing
context_page_description: The Proto-Elamite period, also known as Susa III, is the time from ca. 3100 BC to 2700 BC in the area of Elam. In archaeological terms this corresponds to the late Banesh period, and it is recognized as the oldest civilization in Iran.
  The Proto-Elamite script is an Early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use before the introduction of Elamite cuneiform.
context_section_description: It is uncertain whether the Proto-Elamite script was the direct predecessor of Linear Elamite. Both scripts remain largely undeciphered, and it is mere speculation to postulate a relationship between the two.
  A few Proto-Elamite signs seem either to be loans from the slightly older proto-cuneiform (Late Uruk) tablets of Mesopotamia, or perhaps more likely, to share a common origin. Whereas proto-cuneiform is written in visual hierarchies, Proto-Elamite is written in an in-line style: numerical signs follow the objects they count; some non-numerical signs are 'images' of the objects they represent, although the majority are entirely abstract.
  Proto-Elamite was used for a brief period around 3000 BC (Jemdet Nasr period in Mesopotamia), whereas Linear Elamite is attested for a similarly brief period in the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC.
  Proponents of an Elamo-Dravidian relationship have looked for similarities between the Proto-Elamite script and the Indus script.
caption: Standard reconstruction of the development of writing, and position of Proto-Elamite.[10][11] There is a possibility that the Egyptian script was invented independently from the Mesopotamian script.[12]
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