From Pebble to Wedge: The Evolution of Writing in SW Asia Based on excerpts of A. Bernard Knapp’s, History and Culture of Ancient Western Asia and Egypt

AKS Addressed 30b 30c (economic) 30f 30g

Earliest Record Keeping Upper Paleolithic (30,000-12,000 yrs. ago) Scratches on bone may have been to record lunar time

The Token System Tokens date to as early as the 8th millennium BCE Found from Iran to Khartoum in the Sudan Clay, purposely fire hardened Small: .08-.8” Shapes: spheres, rods, discs, cones, tetrahedrons Each stood for a different commodity or item Many forms are symbolic in nature: unrelated to shape of item that they represent This symbolic nature of the token system is the link to writing

The Token System Used for taking inventory, keeping records of transactions, bartering, accounting for herds or harvests This system stayed relatively stable from the 8th-4th millennium BCE By 3,500 BCE abundance and widespread geographic distribution of tokens in the archaeological record show popular usage all over the Near East and parts of North Africa Would have transcended language barriers

Tokens

Innovations in the Token System 3,500 BCE (Uruk Period 4,000-3,100 BCE) Earliest Cities New centralized economic authorities Appearance of new commodities Use of intermediaries in inter-city trade New demands placed on token system New forms begin to appear in 3,500 BCE Up to 250 different types of tokens

Two Innovations to Accommodate Trade by Intermediaries Perforations on tokens The Bulla

Perforations Used tie tokens together? Bound together for transport? Create a “message” of tokens from “seller” to “buyer” Like a modern invoice

The Bulla Small, spherical clay envelope C. the size of a baseball Hollow: tokens put inside and bulla sealed Recipient had to break open Eventually began to impress with markings from tokens on outside over seal Markings were of the number and general shape of tokens inside These marks are the crucial link between the Token System and writing

Bullae

The Crucial Link Marks on outside of bullae are the crucial link between a three-dimensional token system and two-dimensional writing Anyone familiar with tokens could now “read” the bullae It would soon be apparent that the tokens inside were superfluous since the same information was already on the outside of the bullae Soon a stylus was used to draw the shape of the tokens, instead of the pressing the tokens themselves into the bullae The earliest writing tablets resembled the bullae in size shape and even convexity

From Pictographic/Logographic to Syllabic Writing Earliest cuneiform (Sumerian) had over 2,000 signs By end of Early Dynastic period (c. 2350 BCE) two improvements had been made Number of signs reduced to about 600 Phonetization achieved through the Rebus Principle

Rebus Principle A word or idea is represented by depicting an object whose name suggests the word or idea it is describing The Rebus Principal leads to Phonetization Eye Can Sea Ewe

Phonetization Representation of the sounds that express an idea, rather than a depiction of the idea itself Necessary to express the full range of sounds and ideas encountered in spoken language Accomplished by end of Early Dynastic period