Proto-cuneiform
The proto-cuneiform script was a system of proto-writing that emerged in Mesopotamia ca. 3350-3200 BC, eventually developing into the early cuneiform script used in the region's Early Dynastic I period.
It arose from the token-based system that had already been in use across the region in preceding millennia. Other precursors of this system include clay bullae containing tokens, and numerical tablets using only numeral signs. Those devices were used in the institutions of Mesopotamia and western Iran during the 4th millennium BC, in order to record administrative operations. The proto-cuneiform subsequently appeared in southern Mesopotamia, during the 34th century BC. This system is documented by around 5,000 clay tablets coming from various sites, dating from ca. 3350 BC to 3000 BC.
This invention is related to the increasingly complex administrative practices, itself a consequence of the formation of more complex social and political entities, considered to be the first cities and states. Those evolutions are especially visible at Uruk, the site where most of the proto-cuneiform texts were found.
Proto-cuneiform is a writing or proto-writing system, based on a set of numerical signs, related to various metrological systems, used according to what was quantified, and logographic signs which for many have a pictographic origin. The texts are essentially administrative in nature. They record movements of goods entering or leaving the stores of the institutions, quantifying them and indicating the people and offices involved in these operations. Other tablets are inventories of signs organized thematically, ancestors of the lexical lists typical of the Mesopotamian literary traditions.
While it is known definitively that later cuneiform was used to write the Sumerian language, it is still uncertain what the underlying language of proto-cuneiform texts was, given that they are not intended to transcribe a language and contain almost no clues about the language spoken by those who wrote them.
History and context
Precursors of writing
Research on the origins of writing in the ancient Near East has identified a set of non-linguistic administrative instruments that it considers to be "precursors" of writing, during so-called "pre-writing" periods ca. 8500-3500 BC, testifying to a broader context of development of information technologies.The oldest by far, possibly as early as the middle to late 9th millennium BC, is a token-based accounting system came into use in various parts of the ancient Near East. However, it is unlikely that all the tokens excavated in prehistoric sites were used in accounting practices, since many of them were excavated outside of administrative contexts, especially children's graves. But at least some of them seem to be accounting devices, in use as soon as Neolithic periods For tokens from the Uruk period, the accounting use and the link with the first written tablets seem obvious. Tokens remain in use during later periods of Near Eastern history, up to the first half of the 1st millennium BC.
The token system was later completed by clay envelopes or bullae, "spherical, hollow, clay balls that contain a certain number of the aforementioned tokens, which were also impressed on the sealed outside surface of the balls." Many of them also have seal impressions and numerical marks on their surfaces. The oldest date back to the middle of the 4th millennium BC, in contexts directly preceding the appearance of writing. Their use is again generally interpreted as accounting, since they must serve to accompany the transfer of goods: by breaking the bubble in order to examine its contents, it is verified that no goods were lost during the transfer. They also remained in use for several millennia.
The earliest clay tablets found date from the Uruk V period, ca. 3500-3350 BC, and are of a 'numerical' character, that is to say that they are inscribed with numbers, but do not contain yet any of the logographic signs that are found in the proto-cuneiform system. They were excavated in several sites such as Uruk, Habuba Kabira, Jebel Aruda, Mari, Nineveh, Khafajah, Chogha Mish, Susa, etc. Numerical tablets differ from bullae in that they do not contain tokens, but are flattened pieces of clay on which tokens are printed or numerical signs are inscribed, often accompanied by seal impressions. These same signs are found on clay bullae, making the link between the two difficult to dispute, and it is accepted that the numerical signs derive from the tokens impressed on the bullae-envelopes, at least some numerical signs having been made by impressing tokens in clay. The signs made with styluses are circles or notches of varying thickness and elongation, which indicates that they refer to different number systems, obviously the ancestors of those of the proto-cuneiform system. But they are poorly understood, each site seeming to have its own variants. At Uruk and in western Iran, a few tablets were found containing numerical signs accompanied by one or two ideographic signs. They were labelled by Englund "numero-ideographic" tablets. The pictograms represent discrete objects, therefore products : sheep, jars, fruits, textile products. This would be an evolution of numerical tablets, and the missing link between them and the first written tablets.
Studies based mainly on the evidence from Susa and Uruk, especially those of Denise Schmandt-Besserat, have linked all these accounting devices, establishing a filiation from accounting tokens to proto-cuneiform tablets. Although they have been debated and criticized, it became clear that tokens, bullae and numerical tablets represent the precursors of writing in Mesopotamia, and therefore that cuneiform began with numerical signs. According to this widely accepted historical reconstruction, bullae are first used for counting using tokens, then people start printing tokens and signs on them, and then the tokens disappear, the bulla is flattened to become a tablet containing numerical signs. These numerical tablets themselves constitute an intermediate stage between the accounting systems preceding writing and the first proto-cuneiform tablets. This evolutionary chain is probably to be completed by integrating the few "numero-ideographic" tablets which seem to directly precede the appearance of proto-cuneiform.
It has also been suggested that the development of Proto-cuneiform signs was influenced by symbols found on earlier cylinder seals. Stamp seals were not considered. Cylinder seals imagery and proto-cuneifom signs both participate in the same desire to record information, and to imagine a way of representing things, including the abstract and the intangible.
Chronology of proto-cuneiform
Although, by convention, the date of 3200 BC used to be commonly accepted as the date of the invention of proto-cuneiform, recent analyses in the dating of the Uruk levels suggest that it should be dated further back in time. Dating proposals also depend on the definition given to writing. Englund proposes a date around 3350 BC for the appearance of non-numerical signs marking the birth of proto-cuneiform, Nissen around 3300 BC, Glassner an invention of writing during the 34th century BC.The various proto-cuneiform tablets are divided into two main categories, following the classification made in 1936 by A. Falkenstein based on paleographic criteria. They are named according to the general archaeological phases of the Eanna of Uruk to which they correspond. Two phases of proto-cuneiform writing are thus commonly accepted:
- Uruk IV: these are the first evidence of proto-cuneiform writing, dated to the Late Uruk period. The tablets are small, the signs consist of continuous lines, either straight or curved, and are more naturalistic. There is no indication that an earlier stage of this writing existed: the Uruk IV tablets are directly preceded chronologically by the "precursors" seen above, and in all likelihood represent the earliest stage of writing. The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative dates approximately this period from 3350 to 3200 BC.
- Uruk III: These tablets present a more complex profile, testifying to the development of writing and even to a series of reforms: the number of signs in the repertoire increases considerably, the strokes are shorter, the shapes are less rounded and more linear, the style of the signs is more abstract, the format of the tablets becomes more sophisticated, and writing conventions appear. These tablets are contemporary with the archaeological period known as Jemdet Nasr. The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative is using the 3200-3000 BC range for this phase.
Historical context
The invention of proto-cuneiform occurs during the Late Uruk period, ca. 3500-3200 BC. This period is rich in changes, often grouped under the expression "urban revolution" or "state formation." It is a phase characterized by the emergence of more complex political structures than in the past, and of bigger settlements, with an urban or "proto-urban" character. It is also a period of technological innovations and economic developments: the development of irrigated agriculture, the plow, wheeled carts, wool crafts, ceramics with the introduction of the potter's wheel, new architectural processes, etc. According to G. Selz:The invention of proto-cuneiform, seen as the invention of writing, is commonly considered to mark the transition from prehistory to history. This can be tempered by the observation that it is one innovation among others that occurred during the era of the “urban revolution”, but nonetheless one of the most significant. According to Mario Liverani:
Proto-cuneiform obviously reflects this context rich in creativity, and the fact that it is primarily documented in Uruk, the main settlement of the period, is no coincidence. Chronologically, the proto-cuneiform tablets appear near the end of this phenomenon. The oldest are dated in part to the Uruk IV phase, ca. 3350-3200 BC, thus the last part of the Late Uruk period. The most recent, and the majority of them, date from the Uruk III phase, corresponding to the archaeological period known as Jemdet Nasr, ca. 3200-3000 BC. This phase saw a decline in Uruk influence, after significant changes affecting the architecture of the Eanna district of Uruk, site abandonment, and various developments in material culture. All this indicates a period of change, if not structural crisis.
Proto-cuneiform tablets also provide information on the society of their time: they are of little use for the knowing the political organization of the period, but the lists of professions and offices allow to identify a social hierarchy and the presence of figures supervising the economy of the time; they attest to the presence of a developing economic administration, with managers, the first scribes, and specialized offices; administrative documents also provide information on religious worship, notably through the presence of the sign of Inanna, the tutelary goddess of Uruk, in the tablets of this city.