Susa and Kabnak: royal building in the Middle Elamite period

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

Susa: building and booty

In the Met's timeline, under about 1190-1100 BCE, "the Shutrukid dynasty renews major building activity at Susa", and military forays capture important Mesopotamian monuments as war booty, including the stele of the Akkadian king Naram-Sin and the law code of Hammurabi. The same entry states that the Elamites defeated the Kassite rulers of Babylonia around 1157 BCE. The next entry, 1125-1104 BCE, records that Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon invaded Elam, plundering the countryside and destroying Susa. Source 1.

What survives at Susa

According to Encyclopaedia Iranica, the architectural remains of Susa from this period are poorly known, owing to the methods of the early excavators, but the major preserved remains date from the Shutrukid dynasty, which it dates about 1210-1100 BCE; these rulers rebuilt the structures on the Acropole, using glazed bricks. Iranica dates the dynasty itself, while the Met dates its entry on the dynasty's building at Susa from about 1190: the difference at the start is about two decades, and neither page explains it. Sources 2, 1.

Kabnak: a royal funerary complex

According to Iranica, at Kabnak (Haft Tepe), in the Susiana plain 25 km southeast of Susa, stand a funerary temple and associated vaulted baked-brick underground tombs. One fragmentary inscribed stele, found in the temple courtyard near the largest of the tombs, indicates that the complex was part of a funerary cult center "maintained by, if not built for, King Tepti-ahar in the 16th century B.C.E." Painted clay funerary heads first appeared at Kabnak in Middle Elamite I contexts and continued in use throughout the period. Source 2.

The 16th century: inside the period or before it?

Iranica begins the Middle Elamite period about 1600 BCE and dates Middle Elamite I to 1600-1350 BCE; the Met's timeline begins it about 1500 BCE and lists an Old Elamite period, about 2700-1500 BCE, before it. Kabnak's 16th century is therefore Middle Elamite I for Iranica, but it precedes the start of the period on the Met's timeline and the range of this site's period page (about 1500-1000 BCE). The article is placed on the Middle Elamite page because its source assigns Kabnak to that period; on the Met's scale, the Kabnak evidence is earlier than the page. Sources 2, 1.

What royal building can and cannot show

These are two kinds of evidence. At Susa, a dynasty rebuilds a city and keeps there monuments taken from Mesopotamia: their place at Susa tells where they were brought, not where they were made. At Kabnak, a king's funerary cult rests on a single fragmentary stele, and the source's wording, "if not built for", leaves open whether Tepti-ahar built the complex or only maintained it. At Susa itself, the early excavation methods limit what can be said about the buildings of the period. Sources 1, 2.

Scope of reading: the Met timeline page for Iran, 2000-1000 BCE, and the Encyclopaedia Iranica article "Elam ii. The archaeology of Elam" were read on 24 October 2026. The excavation reports of Susa and Kabnak and the text of the Tepti-ahar stele were not read, so this page gives no plans, levels or reading of the inscription.