This interesting discovery consists of a number of clay tablets inscribed in the proto-Elamite system of writing, a system which was probably the only one in use in the country during the period before the Semitic invasion. The documents in question are small, roughly formed tablets of clay very similar to those employed in the early periods of Babylonian history, but the signs and characters impressed upon them offer the greatest contrast to the Sumerian and early Babylonian characters with which we are familiar. Although they cannot be fully deciphered at present, it is probable that they are tablets of accounts, the signs upon them consisting of lists of figures and what are probably ideographs for things. Some of the ideographs, such as that for “tablet,” with which many of the texts begin, are very similar to the Sumerian or Babylonian signs for the same objects; but the majority are entirely different and have been formed and developed upon a system of their own. [Illustration: 230.jpg CLAY TABLET, FOUND AT SUSA, BEARING AN INSCRIPTION IN THE EARLY PROTO-ELAMITE CHARACTER.] The photograph is taken from M. de Morgan’s _Délégation en Perse, Mém._, t. vi, pi. 23. On these tablets, in fact, we have a new class of cuneiform writing in an early stage of its development, when the hieroglyphic or pictorial character of the ideographs was still prominent. [Illustration: 231.jpg CLAY TABLET, RECENTLY FOUND AT SUSA, BEARING AN INSCRIPTION IN THE EARLY PROTO-ELAMITE CHARACTER.] The photograph is reproduced from M. de Morgan’s _Délégation en Perse, Mém._, t. vi, pi. 22. Although the meaning of the majority of these ideographs has not yet been identified, Père Scheil, who has edited the texts, has succeeded in making out the system of numeration. He has identified the signs for unity, 10, 100, and 1,000, and for certain fractions, and the signs for these figures are quite different from those employed by the Sumerians. [Illustration: 231a.jpg Fractions] The system, too, is different, for it is a decimal, and not a sexagesimal, system of numeration. That in its origin this form of writing had some connection with that employed and, so far as we know, invented by the ancient Sumerians is possible.[1] But it shows small trace of Sumerian influence, and the disparity in the two systems of numeration is a clear indication that, at any rate, it broke off and was isolated from the latter at a very early period. Having once been adopted by the early Elamites, it continued to be used by them for long periods with but small change or modification. Employed far from the centre of Sumerian civilization, its development was slow, and it seems to have remained in its ideographic state, while the system employed by the Sumerians, and adopted by the Semitic Babylonians, was developed along syllabic lines.