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The Neo-Elamite period (ca. 1000-520 BCE), spanning the centuries from the end of the Middle Elamite Shutrukid dynasty to the rise of the Persian Empire, long remained one of the most poorly known intervals in Elam’s history. It was only in the early 1980s with the delineation of a Neo-Elamite ceramic sequence at Susa by French archaeologist Pierre de Miroschedji that archaeological material of this period could be more reliably identified and studied. In subsequent decades, scholars have gradually proceeded to unveil a rich picture of first millennium Elam and its material culture. One element of this picture that has remained conspicuously absent, however, is the reconstruction of mortuary practices. The irony of this situation becomes palpable when one realises that a large proportion of Elamite archaeological material admired today through sterile glass museum cases had once been buried with the Elamite dead; deliberately selected, with all its embodied meaning, for the funerary ritual. This thesis presents the first in-depth study of mortuary practices for any period of Elamite history, exploiting as fully as possible the preliminary reports and recently published archives of Roland de Mecquenem who recovered many thousands of burials during his tenure as head of excavations at Susa from 1912 to 1939. While scholars have tended to disregard these early discoveries due to the poor recovery and recording methods employed, generally conceiving only the art historical significance of the objects, I hope that my own work amply demonstrates that it is still possible, and indeed necessary, to exploit these resources in order to reconstruct Elamite mortuary ritual and belief. The data from Susa, studied in conjunction with the small sample of published burials from other Neo-Elamite sites and fleshed out by additional evidence from texts and other aspects of the material record, starts to bring this intriguing facet of Elamite society back to life.

Like other bronze objects from Elam the bronze plaque found in the so-called Treasury at Persepolis is a unique discovery. Persepolis bronze plaque (PBP) is inscribed on both sides with a long Elamite text. PBP lay on the floor with the obverse face up, so the reverse, protected by the floor, suffered less damage. The main connection between PBP and the Persepolis Fortification tablets is provided by PF 352 . Huban-ahpi is well attested in the tablets from the Acropole of Susa. A general connection between PBP and the Acropole tablets is provided by the palaeography. An apparently anomalous occurrence of GAM can be dated without doubt to the Achaemenid period, in the Elamite text of the short inscription CMc in Palace P at Pasargadae. The use of GAM is not limited to Neo-Elamite documents and one should emphasize that it cannot be used as a distinctive feature for dating purposes. Keywords:Acropole tablets; GAM; Persepolis bronze plaque (PBP); Persepolis fortification tablets; Susa

This paper underlines the important archaeological evidence unearthed from four seasons of excavation at Tol-e Bondu, located at Rostam-Du, Noorabad city, Fars province. The most significant information acquired from this excavation is the discovery of a temple from the 16th layer, exactly similar to the one from the middle phase of the Elamite culture. This paper discusses the structures and other features showing similarity between the two regions. Studying the history of the Elamites via relief and inscriptions in Mesopotamia leads us to the belief that performing religious ceremonies played an important role in the civilization and culture of Elam.

This article investigates the multiple orthographies of the theophoric element Hu(m)ban in Elamite onomastics, attested in the Sumerian, Akkadian, Elamite and Achaemenid text corpus. By studying the impact of phonological evolutions on scribal practice, often based on cross-linguistic evidence, one aims to obtain a better understanding of the context in which these variations on the theophoric element Hu(m)ban were used.