Archaeologists in the ancient city of Susa have unearthed a remarkable archive of clay tablets belonging to the Middle Elamite Period. The collection includes secret diplomatic correspondence between the Elamite court and the Hittite Empire, featuring a unique system of shuffled cuneiform signs that appears to be an early form of military cryptography used to protect sensitive political information from enemy spies.
This 'spy archive' sheds new light on the sophisticated geopolitical games of the 13th century BCE. Analysis of the tablets shows that the Elamites were monitoring troop movements across the Zagros Mountains and using coded language to discuss marriage alliances and resource extraction, proving that ancient diplomacy was as much about deception as it was about cooperation.