Neo-Elamite Susa: levels, a sack and what remains

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

What the sources say

Iranica's section on the Neo-Elamite period opens with the statement that at the end of the 2nd millennium BCE Susa rapidly lost its position of importance, and that excavations at Susa nevertheless provide some data on the period. A sounding in Ville Royale II ("Royal City II") produced eight levels dating from the second half of the 2nd through the first half of the 1st millennium. Pierre de Miroschedji (1981) dated levels 9-8 to Neo-Elamite I (about 1000-725/700 BCE) and levels 7-6 to Neo-Elamite II (about 725/700-520 BCE). Little imported pottery and few small objects are known from these excavations. Source 1.

The Assyrian sack

The Met's timeline records under about 646 BCE that "the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal sacks Susa, ending Elamite supremacy". The Iranica article as read does not mention this sack. It writes that Neo-Elamite traditions in domestic pottery, metallurgy and glyptic (the art of seals) continued in use in Khuzestan until at least about 520 BCE, when Darius I took Susa, and that under Darius the entire city was rebuilt. Sources 2, 1.

Before and after the sack

What remained before the Assyrian sack cannot be answered level by level from these pages. Neo-Elamite II, about 725/700-520 BCE, spans the sack of about 646, so levels 7-6 may contain material from before and after it, and the article as read does not say which. Levels 9-8, assigned to Neo-Elamite I, belong by the dates given to the time before the sack. The end of the period is not uniform either: the Met closes the Neo-Elamite period about 539 BCE, Iranica's Neo-Elamite II ends about 520, and for Iranica the Elamite traditions lasted at least until Darius, after Ashurbanipal's sack. Sources 1, 2.

Two Assyrian destructions, two sites

Chogha Zanbil, the subject of another page on this site, was destroyed by the same king about 640 BCE, according to UNESCO. The two events concern different sites and come from different sources, about 646 for Susa in the Met's timeline and about 640 for Chogha Zanbil at UNESCO; the pages read do not connect them, and this article does not merge them. Sources 2, 3.

Scope of reading: the Encyclopaedia Iranica article "Elam ii. The archaeology of Elam" and the Met timeline page for Iran, 1000 BCE-1 CE, were read on 24 October 2026; the UNESCO page on Chogha Zanbil was read for the comparison. Miroschedji's study and the Susa excavation reports were not read, so this page gives no description of the levels, their buildings or their finds.