TEHRAN -- The National Museum of Iran (NMI) and the Louvre plan to publish the texts of the Elamite inscriptions in both museums’ collections in a trilingual book.

The decision was made in line with a memorandum of understanding signed by the museums’ officials in November 2004.

“Both museums have begun counting their inscriptions and when the number of the inscriptions reaches an appropriate amount, they will be published in Persian, French, and English,” NMI curator Mohammadreza Kargar told CHN on Monday.

Louvre director Henri Loyrette recently traveled to Iran and met several Iranian officials, including Kargar.

“A number of the inscriptions will be studied by Iranian experts at NMI and some of them by French specialists at the Louvre, which has a proficient group of inscription decipherers who can help Iranian experts in reading the inscriptions,” Kargar explained.

Most of the inscriptions dating back to different periods of the Elamite civilization have been unearthed in Susa, the ancient capital of Elam, which is located in southwestern Iran in the present–day province of Khuzestan.

The oldest Elamite script, known as Proto-Elamite, first appeared in about 2900 BC in Susa. The Proto-Elamite script is thought to have been developed from an early Sumerian script.

Old Elamite was a syllabic script derived from Proto-Elamite and was known to have been used between about 2250 and 2220 BC, although it may have been invented at an earlier date. The Inshushinak inscription, found during an excavation in Susa, had been written in this type of script.

Last year, Iranian archaeologists working in Konar Sandal at the ancient site of Jiroft unearthed a brick with a cuneiform inscription that may be in Proto-Elamite and which is believed to be older than the Inshushinak inscription.