The archaeological excavation of ancient Elam has recovered remnants from rise to fall of a Persian civilization, reflecting how music and playing instruments (musicianship) were popular back in the day. Such remnants have mostly been portrayed on pieces of rock and pottery. A series of pictograms have depicted musical instruments. The majority of depicted string instruments are harps and tanburs. Wrapped in the Elamite culture, these instruments were passed on to the next civilizations, experiencing transformation over time. This descriptive-analytical research attempted to explore the string instruments in ancient Elam, thereby to review the historical roots of Iranian string instruments during that era. This paper first provided an overview of music in ancient Elam. Then, several pictograms depicting string instruments were examined to determine their diversity and significance. The results indicated that harp and tanbur were the most frequent and diverse string instruments depicted on paintings of ancient Elam.
