Proto-Elamite script

The Proto-Elamite script is an Early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use before the introduction of Elamite cuneiform.

There are many similarities between the Proto-Elamite tablets and the contemporaneous Proto-cuneiform tablets of the Uruk IV period in Mesopotamia. Both writing systems are a relatively isolated phenomenon. Singletons aside tablets have been found at only five Proto-Elamite sites. For comparison, Proto-cuneiform tablets have only been found at Uruk, Jemdet Nasr, Khafajah, and Tell Uqair, and the vast majority of each type have been found at Susa and Uruk. The tablet blanks themselves, the inscribing method, even the practice of using the reverse for summation, when needed, are the same. They serve the same basic function which is administrative accounting of goods in a centrally controlled society. From that base, there are also differences, the signs themselves being the most obvious but extending to smaller areas such as the order in which the tablet was inscribed, are clear. Fortunately, there are a number of similarities between the numeric systems of Proto-cuneiform and Proto-Elamite. Proto-Elamite, in addition to the usual sexagesimal and base-120, also uses its own decimal system.

Beginning around the 9th millennium BC, a token based system came into use in various parts of the ancient Near East. These evolved into marked tokens and later marked envelopes, often called clay bullae. It is usually assumed that these were the basis for the development of Proto-Elamite as well as proto-cuneiform (with many of the tokens, about two-thirds, having been found in Susa). Tokens remained in use after the development of proto-cuneiform and Proto-Elamite.

The earliest tablets found in the region are of a "numerical" type, containing only lists of numbers. They are found not only at Susa and Uruk, but in a variety of sites, including those without later Proto-Elamite and proto-cuneiform tablets, like Tell Brak, Habuba Kabira, Tepe Hissar, Godin Tepe and Jebel Aruda.

Linear Elamite is attested much later in the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BCE. It is uncertain whether the Proto-Elamite script was the direct predecessor of Linear Elamite. Both scripts remain largely undeciphered, and a postulated relationship between the two is speculative.

Early on, similarities were noted between Proto-Elamite and the Cretan Linear A script.