Slides on the origin of writing, tokens, clay envelopes, cuneiform, pictographs, logograms, and other matters related to early forms of writing and inscription.

1. The Origin of Writing

2. Stories and Narrative
Data and Information
What is the function of early writing?

3. Before 2700 B.C.E.…writing is only accounting. To
recall what comes in the temple or the palace, and
what comes out. So-and-so much gold, so-and-so
many sheep, so-and-so many bushels of grain. It’s
only numbers and the thing counted. And then, at
some point, the name of who it belongs to. That’s it.
- Interview with Denise Schmandt-Besserat
“

4. Prewriting: Clay Tokens
• Clay Tokens: the
first bookkeeping
system, 3400 B.C.
• Plain tokens vs.
complex tokens
• Tokens begin to
decline, decrease,
disappear around
3100 to 3000 B.C.

5. Clay Envelopes

6. Bulla-envelope
with 17 plain
tokens inside.
ca. 3700-3200 BC

7. From Bulla to Tablet:
The Birth of Abstract
Numerals

8. Early tablet recording the allocation of beer,
3100-3000 B.C.E

9. Pictographic Writing: c. 4000 BCE

10. Cuneiform
Sumer c. 3000 BCE

11. What is Cuneiform Writing?
At first, images were
drawn with the pointed
end of a reed or wood
stylus
Cuneiform images are
created by impressing
the edge of the stylus
into the clay
Cuneiform, after the Latin term for wedge, cuneus

12. Cuneiform
Not a language
Used by Akkadian, Hittite, Semitic,
and Old Persian languages
Used by Scribes:
Professional class of writers
Developed for accounting,
legal, and administrative
proposes

13. Cuneiform
• No headings or marks
to indicate paragraphs,
direct speech,
questions, or emphasis
• Occasional line across
a column to indicate a
change of speaker or
episode
• Looks as though a
chicken had walked
across clay

14. Sumerian School Tablets

16. The Evolution of the Writing Tablet

17. Evolution of Cuneiform

18. Categories of Signs in Early Writing
• Pictographs: signs
convey meaning
through pictorial
resemblance
• Logograms: signs
represent words
• Phonograms or
syllabograms: signs
represent syllables

19. Sumerian Pictograph

20. Pictographs
Japanese Emoji
“picture” + “character”

21. Logograms: Word Signs
ig = “door”
šu = “hand”
du = “to go”
lu = “person, human”
dingir = “god”
gish = “wood, tree”

22. The Movement to Syllabograms
= “door”
= “hand”
= “to go”
Sumerian
ig
šu
du
Akkadian
daltu
qatu
alaku
ik - šu - du
ikšudu = “they conquered”