The documents in question are small, roughly formed
tablets of clay very similar to those employed in the early periods of
Babylonian history, but the signs and characters impressed upon them
offer the greatest contrast to the Sumerian and early Babylonian
characters with which we are familiar. Although they cannot be fully
deciphered at present, it is probable that they are tablets of accounts,
the signs upon them consisting of lists of figures and what are
probably ideographs for things. Some of the ideographs, such as that for
"tablet," with which many of the texts begin, are very similar to the
Sumerian or Babylonian signs for the same objects; but the majority are
entirely different and have been formed and developed upon a system of
their own.
[Illustration: 230.jpg CLAY TABLET, FOUND AT SUSA, BEARING AN
INSCRIPTION IN THE EARLY PROTO-ELAMITE CHARACTER.]
The photograph is taken from M. de Morgan's _Delegation en
Perse, Mem._, t. vi, pi. 23.
On these tablets, in fact, we have a new class of cuneiform writing in
an early stage of its development, when the hieroglyphic or pictorial
character of the ideographs was still prominent.
[Illustration: 231.jpg CLAY TABLET, RECENTLY FOUND AT SUSA, BEARING AN
INSCRIPTION IN THE EARLY PROTO-ELAMITE CHARACTER.]
The photograph is reproduced from M.
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