08/11/2024
NEW Rolling back the origins of writing: new research suggests the world's first writing system has its origins in Mesopotamia's iconic cylinder seals.
An Antiquity deep dive 🤿
Researchers have identified links between cylinder seal motifs (c. 4400-3400 BC) and later proto-cuneiform signs, throwing new light on the first development of writing in this area.
Proto-cuneiform is a sign-based script, first attested in the c. 3350-3000 BC city of Uruk in southern Iraq, which developed into cuneiform: the world’s first writing system. It has long been argued that proto-cuneiform developed from earlier methods of accounting.
As one of the earliest cities in Mesopotamia, Uruk was a centre of immense importance during the fourth millennium BC, spreading its influence across a region stretching from south-west Iran to south-east Türkiye.
Cylinder seals were invented in this area. These cylinders were engraved with designs, then rolled across clay tablets to print their motifs onto them, used for tracking the production, storage, and movement of commodities—mainly agricultural and textile products.
Proto-cuneiform consists of hundreds of iconographic signs—the meaning of more than half of which has not yet been deciphered. Like cylinder seals, it was used to facilitate accounting, but unlike them, it is only attested in southern Iraq.
“The close relationship between ancient sealing and the invention of writing in southwest Asia has long been recognised, but the relationship between specific seal images and sign shapes has hardly been explored”, states co-author Professor Silvia Ferrara from Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna. “Did seal imagery contribute significantly to the invention of signs in the first writing in the region?”
To answer this question, a team of researchers from the University systematically compared cylinder seal motifs with proto-cuneiform signs, aiming to find correlations that could be convincingly shown to not only relate to shape but also to meaning.
“We focused on seal imagery that originated before the invention of writing, while continuing to develop into the proto-literate period”, say co-authors Drs Kathryn Kelley and Mattia Cartolano.
They identified seal motifs, related to the transport of jars and cloth, which transformed into proto-cuneiform signs, showing for the first time that there is a direct continuity between pre-literate seals and the invention of writing.
The researchers also found that similar exchanges of textiles and vessels took place at different cities, probably involving temple institutions, and that both seals and tablets were used to document these exchanges.
This gives important new insights into the evolution of symbol systems and writing. It proves the motifs known from cylinder seals are directly related to the development of writing in southern Iraq and shows how meaning was transferred from pre-literate motifs into script.
Not only does that change our understanding of how writing developed, but it will help scholars decode more proto-cuneiform in future, and conversely allow them to learn more about the meaning of the seal motifs.
“The conceptual leap from pre-writing symbolism to writing is a significant development in human cognitive technologies,” concludes Professor Ferrara. “The invention of writing marks the transition between prehistory and history, and the findings of this study bridge this divide by illustrating how some late prehistoric images were incorporated into one of the earliest invented writing systems”.
Read the original article in Antiquity 🆓
Seals and signs: tracing the origins of writing in ancient South-west Asia - Kathryn Kelley, Mattia Cartolano & Silvia Ferrara.
https://buff.ly/3Yuc0go
INSCRIBE - ERC Project
📷 Franck Raux
