* A great part of the Susian inscriptions have been collected by Fr. Lenormant.  An attempt has been made to identify the language in which they are written with the Sumero-accadian, and authorities now generally agree in considering the Arcaemenian inscriptions of the second type as representative of its modern form.  Hommel connects it with Georgian, and includes it in a great linguistic family, which comprises, besides these two idioms, the Hittite, the Cappadocian, the Armenian of the Van inscriptions, and the Cosstean.  Oppert claims to have discovered on a tablet in the British Museum a list of words belonging to one of the idioms (probably Semitic) of Susiana, which differs alike from the Suso-Medic and the Assyrian.

The little that we know of Elamite religion reveals to us a mysterious world, full of strange names and vague forms.  Over their hierarchy there presided a deity who was called Shushinak (the Susian), Dimesh or Samesh, Dagbag, As-siga, Adaene, and possibly Khumba and AEmman, whom the Chaldaens identified with their god Ninip; his statue was concealed in a sanctuary inaccessible to the profane, but it was dragged from thence by Assurbanipal of Nineveh in the VIIth century B.C.* This deity was associated with six others of the first rank, who were divided into two triads—­Shumudu, Lagamaru, Partikira; Ammankasibar, Uduran, and Sapak:  of these names, the least repellent, Ammankasibar, may possibly be the Memnon of the Greeks.  The dwelling of these divinities was near Susa, in the depths of a sacred forest to which the priests and kings alone had access:  their images were brought out on certain days to receive solemn homage, and were afterwards carried back to their shrine accompanied by a devout and reverent multitude.  These deities received a tenth of the spoil after any successful campaign—­the offerings comprising statues of the enemies’ gods, valuable vases, ingots of gold and silver, furniture, and stuffs.  The Elamite armies were well organized, and under a skilful general became irresistible.  In other respects the Elamites closely resembled the Chaldaeans, pursuing the same industries and having the same agricultural and commercial instincts.  In the absence of any bas-reliefs and inscriptions peculiar to this people, we may glean from the monuments of Lagash and Babylon a fair idea of the extent of their civilization in its earliest stages.

* Shushinak is an adjective derived from the name of the town of Susa.  The real name of the god was probably kept secret and rarely uttered.  The names which appear by the side of Shushinak in the text published by H. Rawlinson, as equivalents of the Babylonian Ninip, perhaps represent different deities; we may well ask whether the deity may not be the Khumba, Umma, Umman, who recurs so frequently in the names of men and places, and who has hitherto never been met with alone in any formula or dedicatory tablet.