ABSTRACT
Spanning the centuries from the fall of the powerful Middle Elamite sutrukid dynasty to the rise of the Achaemenid Persian empire was the Neo-Elamite period, a time of rapid development in southwest Iran characterized by an increasing cultural diversity and political vitality. The reign of Huban-haltas III, a member of the Elamite military elite, was repeatedly interrupted by internal Elamite uprisings and Assyrian military campaigns against Elam. A brief journey around the archaeological vestiges of the Neo-Elamite world now takes us from the lowland plain of Deh Luran onto the large tell of Susa in Susiana and then into the Zagros foothills and onto Malyan in the more isolated highlands to the east. The conception of the Neo-Elamite period as one of decadence and decline has been outmoded by the recent unveiling of a vital and fascinating cultural landscape inherited by the Achaemenid Persians.
