title
Hatamti
Artist/Designer
Sina Fakour
Date
2022
type of writing system
Syllabary
Based on
Linear Elamite
At the close of the third millennium BCE, Linear Elamite was one of the scripts used in Elam (present-day Iran). Its discovery dates back to the early 20th century where inscriptions—comprising both simple and intricate geometric signs—were uncovered on various materials, including clay, stone, and metal. It was successfully deciphered by François Desset between 2017 and 2020. Remarkably, Linear Elamite stands as the oldest known phonetic writing system, demonstrating that phonetization was in use since the early stages of writing. During a two-year research program at Atelier National de Recherche Typographique, Sina Fakour designed Hatamti, an inclusive typographic set for Linear Elamite. With approximately 300 glyphs, this work enables the digital transmission, reproduction, and preservationof the writing system. Throughout this process, Fakour also investigated the visual characteristics stemming from the use of engraving tools and developed a methodology applicable to similar ancient scripts.
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Clay tablets carved by the artist.
Artwork courtesy of Sina Fakour. All rights reserved.
abjad
abugida
acrophony
acrostic
alphabet
alphasyllabary
asemic writing
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boustrophedon
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cipher
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conscript
cryptography
encode
experimental
grapheme
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hieroglyphics
imaginarium
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logosyllabary
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optophonetic
phoneme
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pictograph
quasi
re-worlding
script
syllabary
syllable
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speculative
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writing system
