On some Elamite signs and sounds

The generally assumed tendency towards simplification of the Elamite script 1 also led to the elimination of polyphony, with the result that only few Achaemenid Elamite signs still had more than one reading. Tum could be read as tu4 (cf. section 2) and ip, 2 be could be read as be and bad. 3 Also the values har and mur of the sign har remained in use, which has led to confusion as to the right readings of words and proper names containing har. This section aims at studying the sign har and some spellings containing it. The oldest El. attestation of har 4 is situated in an inscription of UntasNapirisa (ca. 1260–1235 bc). This text from Tchoga Zanbil (MDP 41 58:5), mentions vhar.sag, “stone head” (of a mace), with har meaning “stone”. Steve 5 believed that har, “stone” was a logogram, as it was, at least in the Achaemenid period, always accompanied by the determinatives as and mes. The discovery of a trilingual inscription on a statue of Darius I (DSab), however, where har-in-na, “made of stone” is mentioned without its determinatives, 6 has proven that har is a pseudologogram. Although Vallat has