A difficult but interesting problem presents itself for solution at the
outset of our inquiry into the history of this people as revealed by
their lately recovered inscriptions,--the problem of their race and
origin. Found at Susa in Elam, and inscribed by princes bearing purely
Elamite names, we should expect these votive and memorial texts to be
written entirely in the Elamite language. But such is not the case,
for many of them are written in good Semitic Babylonian. While some
are entirely composed in the tongue which we term Elamite or Anzanite,
others, so far as their language and style is concerned, might have been
written by any early Semitic king ruling in Babylonia. Why did early
princes of Susa make this use of the Babylonian tongue?
At first sight it might seem possible to trace a parallel in the use of
the Babylonian language by kings and officials in Egypt and Syria
during the fifteenth century B.C., as revealed in the letters from
Tell el-Amarna. But a moment's thought will show that the cases are not
similar. The Egyptian or Syrian scribe employed Babylonian as a medium
for his official foreign correspondence because Babylonian at that
period was the _lingua franca_ of the East. But the object of the
early Elamite rulers was totally different. Their inscribed bricks and
memorial stelae were not intended for the eyes of foreigners, but for
those of their own descendants.
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