An ancient Iranian mystery has finally been solved, according to a French archaeologist who reports successfully cracking the code to an enigmatic, undeciphered writing system.
Known as Linear Elamite, the 4000-year-old script—once considered impossible to decode—has now been unlocked by François Desset, in an achievement that has drawn comparisons to Jean-François Champollion’s famous deciphering of the enigmatic Rosetta Stone.
Desset, a 43-year-old archaeological researcher based at the University of Liege in Belgium, says the remarkable ancient script is the only truly “local” writing system from the country’s early history, which is currently embattled. Others that have been used there over the millennia—from cuneiform to the Arabic and Greek alphabets—all have Western origins.
The Enigma of Linear Elamite
Originally discovered more than a century ago during archaeological reconnaissance at the Iranian Susa site, Desset’s first encounters with the ancient script occurred two decades ago, while working in the country’s southern region.
There, he and other archaeologists participated in discoveries very much like something out of an Indiana Jones film—the uncovering of ancient tablets covered in an enigmatic, undeciphered language.
Linear Elamite comprises 77 individual characters, including geometric patterns and various other shapes, making it distinct among ancient writing systems.
The scripts are attributed by scholars to the 4th millennium Elam civilization, a Bronze Age state for which Susa once served as capital. It was there that, in 1903, French missionaries first uncovered the peculiar script on ancient tablets, which remained the sole examples of what came to be known as Linear Elamite for many decades.
Unlocking an Ancient “Lost” Script
Even with new examples in their possession, Desset and his colleagues had no more success in deciphering the curious ancient language than others had before them.
That is, until he learned of the existence of previous discoveries that included a collection of ancient vases, some of which were covered in this mysterious writing system. Traveling to London, Desset visited what is known as the Mahboubian collection, which borrows its title from the exiled Iranian family of the same name.
The assortment, described as “one of the most impressive private collections of ancient Iranian art” in the world and spanning an extensive period of the country’s history, also contains several examples of Linear Elamite, ten of which Desset was able to access for study.
According to Desset, a breakthrough began to near as he clued in on certain “proper names” in the ancient script, which described names of locations and individuals, including royalty.
“The key to deciphering a script,” Desset told France 24, is in “names of places, gods, [and] kings.”
Such had been the case for his 19th-century predecessor, Champollion, whose historic breakthrough in deciphering hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone was preceded by the successful identification of symbols associated with the names of the rulers Ptolemy and Cleopatra.
For Desset, his “Ptolemy” turned out to be an ancient Iranian ruler named Shilhaha.
The Shilhaha Key
An ancient Elamite who ruled during the 20th century BC, Shilhaha is recognized as the founder of the Sukkalmah Dynasty. From his examination of a particular four-symbol sequence, Desset noticed that the last two symbols were identical—just like modern spellings of the same name, which feature a similar repetition.
Soon, this tiny crack in the edifice of the longstanding mystery began to widen, and now Desset has been hard at work expanding his knowledge of Linear Elamite to as many as 45 inscriptions.
Additionally, Desset says he hopes to take his studies even further back in Iranian history, to some of the earliest known written languages, including proto-Elamite.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.