The principal mountains of Elam were on the north, called Charbanus aud Cambalidus by Pliny (vi. 27, 31), and belonging to the Parachoathras chain. In the inscriptions they have the general name of “mountains of the east,” which extended into Media, where “the mountain of Nizir,” or “the mountain of the world,” the present mount El wend, was believed to be the spot on which the ark had rested, and the cradle of mankind. There were numerous rivers flowing into either the Tigris or the Persian Gulf. The most important were the Ulai or Eulaeus (Kuran) with its tributary the Pasitigris, the Choasp.es (Kerkhαh), the Coprates (river of Diz called Itite in the inscriptions), the Hedyphon or Hedypnus (Jerrâhi), and the Oroatis (Hiηdyaη), besides the monumental Surappi and Ukni, or “white river,” perhaps to be identified with the Hedyphon and Oroatis, which fell into the sea in the neighbourhood of the Caldai of Bit-Yagina, of Khindar, and of the Gambulai, in the marshy region at the mouth of the Tigris. Shushan or Susa, the capital, now marked by the mounds of Shush, stood near the junction of the Choaspes and Eulaeus (see Sosa); and Badaca, Madaktu in the inscriptions, lay between the Shapur and the river of Diz. Among the other chief cities mentioned in the inscriptions, may be named Naditu, Khaltemas, Din-sar, Bubilu, Bit·imbi, Khidalu, and Nagitu on the sea coast. Here, in fact, lay some of the oldest and wealthiest towns, the sites of which have, however, been removed inland by the silting up of the shore. The monumental Dilvun, for instance, which according to Sargon was an island 30 caspu from the land, is now probably represented by Bunder Dellim.

The civilization of southern Elam was of very great antiquity. The Aecadai or “Highlanders,” who founded the cities and civilization of primaeval Clraldea, descended from its mountains, carrying with them the picture-writing which afterwards developed into the cuneiform syllabary. An examination of the syllabary shows us that the only animals with which they were acquainted were the ass, the ox, the sheep, the gazelle, the antelope, the bear, the wild bull, the dove, the snake, the fly, the flea, the moth, the bee, and different species of fish,—horses, called the “animals of the east,” being a subsequent importation. Neither the palm nor the vine were known before their emigration into Babylonia; indeed, Strabo states that the vine was first introduced into Susiana by the Macedonians. The different tribes of the country were constantly invading Babylonia, and from time to time imposed their dominion upon it. About 2280 b.c. (according to the date furnished by Assur-bani-pal), the Elamite king Cudur-nankhundi carried away the image of the goddess Nana from Babylonia to Shushan, and in Gen. xiv. we find Chedorlaomer or Cudur-lagamar suzerain of the Babylonian princes. Cπdur-mabug, the son of Simti-Silkhak, king of Yamutbal, founded a dynasty in Chaldea, which lasted for two generations, his son Rim-Agu or Eri-Acu (Arioch) of L·arsa being afterwards conquered by Khammuragas. Khammuragas himself was a Cassite, and the dynasty he founded at Babylon, which he made for the first time the capital of the country, continued for several centuries, and was only overthrown at last by the Assyrian monarch, Tiglath-Adar, in 1270 r·.c. Another Cassite dynasty had ruled Babylonia at a very much earlier time, and one of its kings, Agu-kak-rimi, had restored the great temple of Bel at Babylon. Elamite raids recommenced within a few years after the overthrow of the second Cassite dynasty, Elamites from time to time appear as kings of Babylonia, and about 1200 b.c. the whole country was ravaged and desolated by the Elamite Cudur-nankhundi II. Revenge for this, however, was shortly afterwards taken by the Babylonian Nebuchadrezzar. Subsequently, we find Elam and Babylon in alliance against the growing power of Assyria, and in the 8th and 7th centuries b.c., when Babylonia was alternately under the sway of the Assyrian princes and of Chaldean and other adventurers ft om the districts on the Persian Gulf, Elam played a large part in its political history. Tiglath-Pileser II., in 745 b.c., first overran the sea-coast as far as the Ukni, and in 721 Sargon met Khumba·nigas the elamite in battle at Duran, and drove him across the Assyrian frontier. After the establishment of the Assyrian empire in the west and north, the reduction of Babylonia to a dependent province became a necessity, and this involved the weakening and final conquest of the powerful kingdom of Elam itself. The struggle lasted through the reigns of four Assyrian kings, Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Assur-bani-pal, and the overthrow of Elam was eventually effected only by the help of internal discord and civil war. In 710, Sutπιk-nankhundi was driven from Yatbur and Rasi, on the Babylonian frontier, and his Babylonian ally Merodach-baladan left to his fate. In 704 the Elamites and Babylonians were defeated at Cis by Sennacherib, and in the following year the Cassi in the northeast were reduced to submission. In 697 b.c., the fleet of Sennacherib pursued Merodach-Baladan and his followers to Nagitu and Khilman, at the mouth of the Eulaeus, where the Elamites had given them shelter; the emigrants and their Susian allies were scattered, and the towns burned. Meanwhile, Cudur-nankhundi, the Elamite monarch, had marched into Babylonia; he was driven back, however, by Sennacherib, 34 of his cities were destroyed, and he himself fled from Madaktu to Khaidala. Three months after he died, and his brother and successor, Urnman-minan, at once began to collect allies from all sides, and to prepare for resistance. The terrible defeat at Khalule in 692, however, broke the power of Elam, and made Babylonia an Assyrian province. Uιnmau-aldas I. remained on friendly terms with Esarhaddon, but his murder by his two brothers, Urtaki and Teumman, caused the war-party to recover its ascendency, and Urtaki made an unsuccessful raid into Babylonia. On his death, his brother Teumman succeeded, in virtue of the law by which the crown passed to the brother and not to the sons of the deceased monarch, and almost immediately provoked a quarrel with Assur-bani-pal by demanding the surrender of his nephews, who had taken refuge at the Assyrian court. The Assyrians followed the Elamite army to Shushan, where a battle was fought on the Eulaeus, in which the Elamites were defeated, Teumman was captured and slain, and Umman-igas, the son of Urtaki, made king, his younger brother Tammaritu being assigned the district of Khidalu. Umman-igas afterwards assisted in the revolt of Babylonia, but Tammaritu raised a rebellion against him, defeated him in battle, cut ofl his head, and seized the crown. Tammaritu marched to Babylonia; while there, his officer Indabigas, made himself king at Shushan, and drove Tammaritu to the coast, where he fled to Assur-bani-pal. Indabigas was himself defeated and killed by a new pretender, Umman-aldas IL, who was opposed, however, by three other rivals, two of whom maintained themselves in the mountains until the Assyrian conquest of the country, when Tammaritu was first restored and then imprisoned, Elam being wasted with fire an<l sword. The return of Umman-aldas led to a fresh Assyrian invasion; the Elamite king fled from Madaktu to Dur-undasi, Shushan and other cities were taken, and the Elamites utterly routed on the banks of the Itite. The whole country was reduced to a desert, Shushan was plundered and razed to the ground, 32 statues of its kings “of silver, gold, bronze, and alabaster” being carried off, and Susiana was nfade an Assyrian province in 640 b.c. The language of the Hebrew prophets seems to imply that Elam recovered its independence, but was again conquered by Nebuchadrezzar; on the fall of the Babyloniali empire it passed to Persia, the Susian king Abradatas, mentioned in Xenophon’s romance of the Cyropoedia (vi.), being probably unhistorical. Darius formed it into a satrapy, with a tribute of 300 talents (Hdt. iii. 91). Shushan or Susa was rebuilt, and became the capital of the empire. Twice at least, however, the Susianians attempted to revolt in the early part of the reign of Darius, under Assina or Atrines, the son of Uιnbadara, andMartiya, the son of Issainsakrà, who called himself Immanes; but they gradually came to be completely Aryanized, and their old agglutinative dialects were in course of time supplanted by the Aryan Persian from the southeast.

Among the Elamite divinities may be mentioned Lagamar or Lagamal, and Armannu, the secret title of Sus⅛ak, “the god of Shushan,” who was believed to go every year to Dilvun. His oracle stood just outside the city, and his image was held too sacred to be seen by the eyes of a mortal.

See Loftus, Chaldea and Susiana, 1857; Oppert in the Transactions of the oriental Congress, 1854, and Records of the Past, vii. 79, 1877; and Sayce on the “Cuneiform Inscriptions of Elam aud iledia'' in the Transactions of the Society oj Biblical Archaeology, iii. 2, 1874. (A. IΓ S)