1. 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

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

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

4. 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: ”
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

5. 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

6. Tokens

7. 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

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

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

10. 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

11. Bullae

12. 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

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

15. 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

16. 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