M. Pettier does not go so far as to make this claim, but he submits all the evidence that makes its adoption unavoidable: " En examinant les monuments egyptiens de 1'age prehistorique et des premieres dynasties, tout le monde sera frappe des traits de ressemblance nombreux qu'ils presentent avec les trouvailles elamites des couches les plus anciennes. . . . (En Egypt) on retrouve des formes, des sujets, des details de technique qui evoquent aussitot le souvenir des antiquites de Suse: vases de pierre dure et .d'albatre " (p. 82). M. Pettier discusses the problem in its wider bearings (pp. 83-85), and elsewhere (pp. 67 et seq.) sets forth his views on the psychology of originality in invention and of the significance and the manner of cultural diffusion. Though he does not claim that Susa borrowed from Egypt, he is quite clear that the proto-Elamite culture was imported from Susa, and he sets forth the evidence which in fact demonstrates that Egypt must have been the source of its inspiration. On p. 66 he again discusses the antiquity of the proto-Elamite civilization and repeats his remarks about the earliest immigrants into Elam in these words: " Quand ces envahisseurs s'installerent sur les faibles hauteurs, de neuf a dix metres a peine, qui bordaient la riviere (J. de Morgan, Revue d'Assyriologie, 1909, p. 2), ils etaient deja en possession d'une civilization raffinee." They had copper weapons and utensils: their women had mirrors: they had fine clothes, etc.
If it is indeed a fact that Elam was colonized before Sumer, the question naturally suggests itself why the newcomers were not content to exploit the fertile banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, but should have chosen the less attractive and rocky country of Elam for their settlement. The answer to this question has been provided in advance by Mr. W. J. Perry's investigations (Memoirs and Proceedings, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 1915) which explain why civilized immigrants in other parts of the world have chosen certain regions to exploit and neglected apparently more attractive places. The Egyptian immigrants into Elam were undoubtedly prospecting for copper ore. In his book Les Premieres Civilizations de Morgan refers to Elam as one of the two " foyers des inventions metallurgiques " on the ground that copper implements were found in the earliest strata there and the mountains of Elam are " riches en minerals cuivreux " (p. 169). But it was the ore which attracted the foreigners and induced them to settle in Elam.
There is evidence of various kinds to suggest that at or about the time when the Elamite and Sumerian civilizations were founded 'there was a widespread prospecting of the mineral resources of western Asia and the lands around the eastern Mediterranean. The objects of this search were gold and cop- per, lapis lazuli and turquoise, pearls and shells.
We have already seen that the proto-Elamites had lapis lazuli and turquoise and suggested that they must nave gone as far afield as the Caspian to obtain these stones. That they did actually exploit this region is shown by the results of the Pumpelly Expedition (Ralph Pumpelly, Explorations in Turki- slan, Carnegie Institution, 1908) in Russian Turkestan, where painted pottery of proto-Elamite type was found in the neigh- bourhood of certain ancient copper-workings. There can be no doubt that Susian prospectors went to the Caspian area to obtain copper ore, and incidentally got lapis lazuli and turquoise. In the lowest stratum in the northern kurgan at Anau, Pumpelly found hand-made painted pottery, cultivated wheat and barley, turquoise beads, mace-heads, copper and lead, and rectangular houses of sun-dried brick (vol. i., p. 33). At a somewhat higher level he found in addition beads of lapis lazuli and carnelian (p. 42). It was only at a later time (his so-called " Culture 3," found in the southern kurgan at Anau) that pottery turned on the wheel was found: in the same level tin mixed with copper, and evidence of an " intentional alloying with lead " was ob- tained; also figurines of a goddess and a cow. Of the earliest culture Hubert Schmidt tentatively estimates the age as " in the third millennium," the second in the latter half of the second millennium, and the third approximately 1000 B.C.
Pettier also summarizes (op. cit., p. 71) the whole discussion: " According to Hubert Schmidt (Revue archeologique, 1910, i.,
p. 307) the most ancient pottery from Anau may be contempo- rary with that of Susa, but he believes it to represent an exten- sion of Elamite art to Turkestan." In a great part of the Trans- caspian region of Turkestan " au dela de 1'Oxus," north of the Pamir plateau between Samarkand and Kashgar, the finding of objects made of metal or pottery analogous to those of Mesopotamia (Pettier, p. 70) affords additional evidence of the diffusion of Elamite, Sumerian and Babylonian culture in very early times.
It is clear then that the search for copper ore, lapis lazuli and turquoise led to the diffusion of proto-Elamite culture far into Turkestan. But the same reasons led to its spread to Armenia, the Caucasus and Asia Minor in the west and at least as far as Baluchistan, and probably India, in the east.
In Armenia and the Caucasus painted Susian-like vases do occur, but only very rarely (Pettier, p. 73). " Cette po'terie du Caucase, dent la date n'est determinee, est sans contredit affiliee par la tradition a la fabrique elamite " (p. 74). In Galatia and Cappadocia painted pottery of the same type is found, which is certainly not of Aegean inspiration (p. 74). Similar pottery is found also in Phrygia and Mysia (p. 76); and M. Pettier sug- gests that between early times and the period of the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. Susian influence percolated into Phrygia from the neighbouring lands. The geographical lines of the spread of this culture seem to have been determined mainly by the distribution of copper and gold. Elamite pottery has been found north of the Black Sea in Scythia (Pettier, p. 74). Without any definite reasons,_ so far as I understand his report, M. Pettier thinks that, although the designs upon the painted pottery of the Thraco-Phrygian area are similar to those of the Susian ware, the inspiration was independent. However, he thinks that Lydia and Caria, Syria and Palestine were in- fluenced both by Elam and Egypt about the middle of the third millennium. Once one admits the motive and considers the times of the respective diffusions of culture, the process and the lines of spread become clear enough. When gold and copper acquired in Egypt for the first time an arbitrary value they were sought for far and wide, not merely in the Eastern Deserts of Egypt and Nubia, but also in Arabia and Elam, in Asia Minor, in the Caucasus and Turkestan. From Egypt there were two main lines of diffusion of culture one E. to Elam and the other N. to Crete 1 and Asia Minor; 2 and from each of these centres secondary lines of radiation were established.
One of the most striking illustrations of the extent of these secondary radiations and of the motives which prompted them is afforded by the remarkable centre of Elamite culture at the little village of Nal (in the Jhalawan district of Kalat state, lat. 274o', long. 66 14') in Baluchistan (J. H. Marshall, "A New Type of Pottery from Baluchistan," Survey of India, Annual Report, 1904-5, Calcutta, 1908, pp. 105 et seq.; for summaries see Revue archeologique, 1909, p. 156, also Pottier, op. cit., p. 72; Noetling, " Ueber eine prahistorische Niederlassung im oberen Zhob-Thal in Baluchistan," Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, 1898, pp. 460-470; also " Ueber prahistorische Niederlassungen in Baluchistan," ibid., 1899, pp. 104-107).
The pottery from Baluchistan is painted with designs clearly analogous to those found at Susa, of the culture of which it is clearly either a contemporary offshoot or a persistent survival. On the evidence supplied by Marshall the latter explanation seemed to be the just one; but Noetling has shown that the Baluchistan pottery occurs in what he calls " Neolithic " sites, and it is quite clear that the Elamite ceramic industry extended as far east possibly in the third millennium. The fact that it was found in association with gold deposits and ancient irriga- tion works completes the proof of the motives and the identity of the introducers of the ancient civilization. The Baluchistan centre of Susian influence possibly represents a stage in the migration of the knowledge of copper (from Egypt, via Susa and Baluchistan) to India, where an early Copper Age culture
'See Diedrich Fimmen, Die Kretisch- Mykenische Kultur (1921).
- A. E. Cowley, The Hittites, The Schweich Lectures for 1918
(1920).
