An analysis of the Location Process of Elamite Reliefs from a Landscape Perspective

Abstract

Ancient peoples, both in the prehistoric period and in the historical period in which writing and script appeared, have always tried to create meaningful motifs on various works in order to communicate their concepts, from among which reliefs are considered the most prominent. Meanwhile, the Elamite civilization is the first historical period of Iran, which established an independent and powerful government in southwestern Iran before the arrival of the Aryans, and also created large reliefs on the mountains and rocks to show their ideological and political concepts. Hence, analysis of each of these motifs can provide researchers with valuable information. However, what is important in this research, carried out using a descriptive-analytical method, is to examine the parameters of selecting the type of place or space to create such reliefs. So far, most researchers have only analyzed the content of the motifs and unfortunately have not dealt with the meaning-oriented state of their space or location, which is one of the main reasons for creating these reliefs. Since place or space acts as a sign and helps to convey meaning, the space and place where the reliefs are created can be a bridge between the environment and human beings to communicate as many concepts as possible. Therefore, one of the achievements of this research, which is based on a landscape perspective, is the analysis of the meaning-oriented design and location process of the Elamite reliefs both subjectively and objectively.