Videos: The World's Oldest Civilization, Jiroft in Iran Predates Sumerians and Akkadians
The Jiroft civilization is an early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BC) archaeological location near Jiroft in the Halil River area bordering present-day Sistan and Baluchestan and Kermān Provinces of Iran. There is now emerging evidence that Jiroft civilization existed at least 2,000 years before the start of the Achaemenid Empire — the first Persian Empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 B.C. These dates put the Jiroft culture as https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/who-were-the-mysterious-people-of-ancient-jiroft one of the oldest civilizations in the world. The civilization is also associated with Shahr-e Sukhteh (Burnt City, 3000 BC), Tepe Bampur, Espiedej, Shahdad, Tal-i-Iblis and Tepe Yahya, sits grouped as an "independent Bronze Age civilization with its own architecture and language", intermediate between Elam to the west and the Indus Valley civilization to the east.
An inscription, discovered in a palace, was carved on a brick whose lower left corner only has remained, explained Yusef Majidzadeh, head of the Jiroft excavation team. "The two remaining lines are enough to recognize the Elamite script," he added. "The only ancient inscriptions known to experts before the Jiroft discovery were cuneiform and hieroglyph," said Majidzadeh, adding that "The new-found inscription is formed by geometric shapes and no linguist around the world has been able to decipher it yet." Some Iranian archeologists believe the discovered pictogram-based inscription is the most ancient script found so far, predating these others, and that the Elamite written language originated in Jiroft, where the writing system developed first and was then spread across the country.
Majidzadeh has attempted to identify the Jiroft sites with the land of Aratta mentioned in Sumerian sources.
In fact, the English word "bronze" is rooted in the ancient Persian words "berenj" and "Pereng" referring to copper and its alloys.
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