Before Iran: The Lost Empire of Elam

Long before there was a country called Iran. Long before Persia. There was Elam - an empire its neighbors in Mesopotamia tried for two thousand years to wipe off the map. They never managed it.

The capital sat at Susa, in Khuzestan, on a hot flat plain. About three thousand years before anyone drew the modern borders, the Elamites invented writing. From scratch. They traded with the Sumerians. They lost a war to Sargon of Akkad. They outlasted the Babylonians of Hammurabi. They outlasted the Neo-Assyrian armies that came after. A whole rise and fall stretched over two thousand years.

A few kings carry the story of the Elamite Empire. Start with Untash-Napirisha. The 1300s BC. Europe was mostly villages. He raised the great ziggurat at Chogha Zanbil. It still stands. Two centuries pass. Shutruk-Nahhunte rides into Babylon. He steals Hammurabi's law stele. He hauls it home on a cart. He has his own name carved on top. Then comes Assyria. Sennacherib tries by sea and fails. Ashurbanipal tries by land and succeeds. He burns Susa. He salts the fields. He thinks he is done with Elam.

He isn't. The empire we now call Persia begins with Cyrus the Great. Cyrus called himself king of Anshan. Anshan was the old highland half of Elam. Decades later came Darius the Great. He built his winter capital at Susa, not Persepolis. He carved his Behistun inscription into a cliff face. Three languages. Elamite came first. The Achaemenid Persian Empire ran its books in Elamite for centuries. The tablets later turned up at Persepolis. Older Proto-Elamite tablets still nobody can read. Linear Elamite was cracked in 2022. A French team. When Alexander the Great walked into Susa in 331 BC, the city was already four thousand years old. The lost world beneath ancient Iran.

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Sources and attribution:
bit.ly/43jBIqO

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CHAPTERS

00:00 - The Elamite Empire
01:17 - Geography of Elam
01:57 - Ancient City of Susa
03:09 - Proto-Elamite Writing
04:43 - The First War in History
05:33 - Sargon of Akkad
07:20 - Fall of Akkad
08:24 - Sukkalmah Dynasty
10:05 - Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat
11:53 - Middle Elamite Empire Expansion
14:11 - Nebuchadnezzar I
15:07 - Neo-Assyrian Empire
16:30 - The Battle of Halule
18:17 - The Fall of King Teumman
19:33 - Ashurbanipal’s Destruction of Elam
21:24 - Cyrus the Great
23:58 - Elamite Legacy in the Persian Empire
25:53 - Deciphering Linear Elamite Script

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⚠ Disclaimer
This video is meant to inform and to entertain. The history is drawn from academic sources, and reflects mainstream scholarly consensus. Some details remain debated - historians don't always agree. We use AI for some of the on-screen visuals. Treat them as artistic reconstructions, not historical footage

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#ancientiran #lostempires #elam #persianempire #ancienthistory

Видео Before Iran: The Lost Empire of Elam канала Simon | Meditative History