We use writing in our daily lives, whether in writing emails, essays, or Christmas cards for distant relatives. Have you ever wondered where writing started?
We can trace the origins of written communication back to ancient Mesopotamia in the fertile crescent. The first texts found date back to 5300 BP and were created for commercial use.
TOKENS
Believe it or not, the first discovered communications were actually not texts at all but instead physical objects!
They were hollow balls of clay (bullae), and inside would be little buttons or cones, sometimes even discs. Bullae were completely closed off, filled with tokens in a one-to-one ratio with the objects sent or stored with them.
On the outside of the bullae would be an engraved drawing of what type of object or animal it was counting as well as a signature from the sender. To smash the ball, you would have to break the outer symbols, so writing on the outside was a way of ensuring the goods would get to their receiver.
It also created an issuance in the commercial industry, sort of like a receipt of a transaction. When the goods were sent over and received, the receiver could smash the clay ball and verify that the number of goods they received matched up with the number counted inside the clay ball.
It is also thought that through this system that our early concept of numerical value came into existance!
CLAY TABLET WRITING
It was realized at some point that writing the number of goods was just as efficient, if not more than representing the number through tokens.
This was the start of Clay tablet writing. As time passed, pictographic depictions in the form of sketches started to make way for more complex writing and communication. Things other than commodities were depicted in writing, where the drawings closely resembled their meanings, called logograms. However, they later became more complex in the form of ideograms. Adding symbols together could create new meanings. Later these symbols became syllables for other words and ideas.
For example: In this picture, we can see a dog’s head and a slash. Together we can understand that it reads “no dogs.” This is similar to how Sumerian texts are pieced together.
Finally, Sumerian writing evolved into its most recognizable form: Cuneiform. Cuneiform was written by etching symbols into clay tablets using a reed. Later, due to convenience and easier viewability, it evolved into imprinting the reed in slicing patterns.
Cuneiform kept track of many things, such as trade, business, events, mythology, politics, and other important information. Without it, we may not have been able to have a look into the history of Mesopotamia itself.
Although cuneiform is no longer in use, its impacts on writing remain. Perhaps without these origins, writing would not have evolved into how it is today!
SOURCES
Mark, J. J. (2022, September 30). Cunéiforme. Encyclopédie de l’Histoire du Monde. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.worldhistory.org/trans/fr/1-105/cuneiforme/
Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, October 3). Cuneiform. Wikipedia. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform
Clark, D. (2018, January 13). Record keeping and the origins of writing in Mesopotamia. Semiramis. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from http://semiramis-speaks.com/record-keeping-and-the-origins-of-writing-in-mesopotamia/
YouTube. (2020, April 28). La Naissance de l’ecriture (1/4) : Déchiffrer Le Cunéiforme. YouTube. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg8vuTOuNDc
Denise Schmandt-Besserat. Denise SchmandtBesserat. (n.d.). Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://sites.utexas.edu/dsb/tokens/tokens/
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