However, this was short lived, and Sennacherib sacked Babylon, destroying the city in 689 BC routing the Babylonians, the Chaldeans of Bit-Yâkin and their Elamite backers in the process.

The earliest reference to the city, as Tiraziš, is on Elamite clay tablets dated to 2000 BC.

The earliest reference to the city is on Elamite clay tablets dated to 2000 BCE, found in June 1970, while digging to make a kiln for a brick factory in the south western corner of the city.

The tablets written in ancient Elamite name a city called Tiraziš.

Susa ( Shush ; Greek: Σοῦσα ; Syriac: Shush ; Old Persian Çūšā -; Biblical Hebrew Shushān ) was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran.

" In Semitic times, Urra was pronounced Un and confounded with uru, " city " as a geographical term, however, it was replaced by Akkadu ( Akkad ), the Semitic form of Agade-written Akkattim in the Elamite inscriptions-the name of the elder Sargon's capital.

To the south of the present city, at Reesheer / Reeshehr, are the remains of an earlier Elamite ( c 3000 BCE ) settlement.

During this time, Susa was under Elamite control, but Mesopotamian states such as Larsa continually tried to retake the city.

Shutruk-Nakhkhunte II, the last Elamite to claim the old title " king of Anshan and Susa ", was murdered by his brother Khallushu, who managed to capture the Assyrian governor of Babylonia Ashur-nadin-shumi and the city Babylon in 694.

The city was therefore renamed Sūq al-Ahwāz, " Market of the Khuz ", a semi-literal translation of the Persian name of this quarter-Ahwāz being the Arabic broken plural of Hûz, taken from the ancient Persian term for the native Elamite peoples, Hūja ( remaining in medieval khūzīg " of the Khuzh " and modern Khuzestān " Khuz State ", as noted by Dehkhoda dictionary.

The ancient Elamite city of Anshan is sometimes believed to have been situated there.

To the north of the city lie the ruins of the ancient city Arrajan, built during the Sassanian period, where important remnants from the Elamite era can be found.

According to 7th-century BC docu ­ ments, he captured the Elamite city of Anshan after being freed from Median supremacy, and expanded his small kingdom.

Some scholars believe Ahvaz and Khuzestan are related to the name Ooksin, a city established during the era of the Elamite civilization, and are the altered forms of the words Ooks, Ookz, Hookz, Huz and Khuz.

He claimed, like his father, descent from Kurigalzu and evidently kept court in Dūr-Kurigalzu itself because tablets found in the burnt ruins of the Tell-el-Abyad quarter which marked the later Elamite destruction of the city, are dated in the first two of his reign.

* Susa, an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran, located in the lower Zagros Mountains

The name appears in Old Persian as C-n-b-n-z-y in Aramaic, Kambuzia in Assyrian, Kambythet in Egyptian, Kam-bu-zi-ia in Assyrian, Kan-bu-zi-ia in Elamite, Kanpuziya.

The Old Persian form is also seen to have been reflected in the Elamite, Akkadian, Aramaic and archaizing drywhwš, and possibly the longer Greek form Dareiaîos.

At the same time it seems to have won recognition from the Elamite conquerors, so that Rim-Sin I, the Elamite king of Larsa, styles himself " shepherd of the land of Nippur.

He was contemporary with the Assyrian kings, Aššur-nirarī V ( 755 – 745 BC ) and Tiglath-Pileser III, the latter under whom he may have become a vassal, and the Elamite kings, Humban-Tahrah I (– 743 BC ) and Humban-Nikaš I ( 742 – 717 BC ).

Many relics have been found in this regard related to the Elamite era and the civilization of Shoush ( Susa ).

Archaeologists have suggested that a close relationship between the Jiroft civilisation and the Elamite civilisation is evidenced by striking similarities in art and culture, as well as by Elamite language writings found in Jiroft — possibly extending the Elamite presence to as early as 7000 BC.

Two Elamite dynasties said to have exercised brief control over parts of Sumer in very early times include Awan and Hamazi ; and likewise, several of the stronger Sumerian rulers, such as Eannatum of Lagash and Lugal-anne-mundu of Adab, are recorded as temporarily dominating Elam.

There appear to have been alliances of Elam and Babylonia against the powerful Assyrians ; the Babylonian king Mar-biti-apla-ushur ( 984 – 979 ) was of Elamite origin, and Elamites are recorded to have fought unsuccessfully with the Babylonian king Marduk-balassu-iqbi against the Assyrian forces under Shamshi-Adad V ( 823 – 811 ).

Assyria delayed in sending aid to Babylon, this could have been caused for two reasons: either the soothing messages of Elamite ambassadors or Ashurbanipal might simply not have been present at that time.

Speculations regarding the original homeland have centered on the Indus Valley Civilization or on Elam ( whose Elamite language was spoken in the hills to the east of the ancient Sumerian civilization with whom the Indus Valley Civilization traded and shared domesticated species ) in an Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis, but results have not been convincing.

Some peculiarities of spelling have been interpreted as suggesting that there was a contrast between two series of stops (/ p /, / t /, / k / vs / b /, / d /, / g /), but in general such a distinction is not consistently indicated by written Elamite as we know it.

As for the vowels, Elamite had at least / a /, / i /, and / u /, and may also have had an / e /, which is, however, not generally expressed unambiguously.

Critics of the historicity of the book of Esther proposed that the name may have originated from a conjectured Elamite goddess whom they called " Mashti.

The Indian texts name the Sishunaga and Kakavarna kings of Magadha who have no trace in the Patna area but in the Magan area Elamite kings named In-Susinak and Kak-siwe-Tempti etc.

However their successor, Ibbi-Sin, seems to have spent his reign engaged in a losing struggle to maintain control over Anshan, ultimately resulting in the Elamite sack of Ur in 2004 BC, at which time the statue of Nanna, and Ibbi-Sin himself, were captured and removed to Anshan.

However, it was not a completely new settlement: archaeologists have found remains from the Parthian and Elamite ages.

Pinikir was an Elamite mother-goddess who some scholars have identified with the goddess Kirrisi or Kiririsha.

But ethno-linguistic characteristics of the region must be studied against the long and turbulent history of the province, with its own local language khuzi, which may have been of Elamite origin and which gradually disappeared in the early medieval period.

In 1901, Egyptologist Gustave Jéquier, a member of an expedition headed by Jacques de Morgan, found the stele containing the Code of Hammurabi in what is now Khūzestān, Iran ( ancient Susa, Elam ), where it had been taken as plunder by the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte in the 12th century BC.

He fought and defeated the Elamites and drove them from Babylonian territory, sacking the Elamite capital Susa, and recovering the sacred statue of Marduk that had been carried off from Babylon.

He had funded the restoration of the Jewish temple which had originally been decreed by Cyrus the Great, presented favour towards Greek cults which can be seen in his letter to Gadatas, and supported Elamite priests.

Elamite royalty in the final century preceding the Achaemenids was fragmented among different small kingdoms, the united Elamite nation having been destroyed and colonised by the Assyrians.

Since it has not yet been deciphered, it is not known whether the language it represents is Elamite or another language.

In ancient times it had been known as Samangan, having been established during the Sassanid period, although an Elamite tomb has been found as well.

The Elamite language was not related to any Iranian languages, but may have been part of a larger group known as Elamo-Dravidian.

While the Elamite language has been suggested as a likely candidate underlying the Proto-Elamite inscriptions, there is no positive evidence of this.

Slabs of clay have been found from the Achaemenid period written in the Elamite language concerning episodes of the Gilgamesh epic.

The other one is the top part of the Code of Hammurabi which was actually discovered in Elamite Susa where it had been brought as booty ( see image ).