Proto-cuneiform explained

Type:Ideographic
Languages:Unknown, possibly Sumerian
Time:[1]
Children:Cuneiform
Sample:Tableta_con_trillo.png
Caption:Kish Tablet
Direction:Left-to-right
Iso15924:Pcun
Ipa-Note:none

The proto-cuneiform script was a system of proto-writing that emerged in Mesopotamia, 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. 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 were.

History

During the 9th millennium BC, a token-based system came into use in various parts of the ancient Near East. These evolved into marked tokens, and then into marked envelopes now known as clay bullae.[2] [3] [4] [5] It is usually assumed that these were the basis for the development of proto-cuneiform, as well as of the contemporaneous Proto-Elamite writing system: as many as two-thirds of the tokens discovered have been excavated in Susa, the most important city in what would become Elam. These tokens continued to be used, even after the development of proto-cuneiform and Proto-Elamite.[6] [7] [8] [9] [10] A single fragmentary slab at the Uruk site of Hacınebi has been proposed as a numerical tablet.[11]

The earliest tablets found, in the Uruk V period, are of a 'numerical' character. They consist only of lists of numbers associated with 18 known signs (circles, triangles etc), sometimes sealed. It has been suggested that they appeared as early as the Uruk IV period and remained in use until the Uruk IVa period.[12] Generally they are called "numerical tablets" or "impressed tablets". They have been mostly found in Susa (75) and Uruk (58) (small numbers in Jemdat Nasr (2), Chogha Mish (1), Tepe Sialk (10), Tutub (1) and Mari (1)) including some that lack later Proto-Elamite and proto-cuneiform tablets, like Tell Brak (1), Habuba Kabira (3), Tepe Hissar, Godin Tepe (38), Nineveh (1), and Jebel Aruda (13). A few unprovenanced tablets are held in private collections.[13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]

Proto-cuneiform emerged in what is now labeled the Uruk IV period, and its use through the later Uruk III period. The script slowly evolved over time, with signs changing and merging.[19] It was used for the first time in Uruk, later spreading to additional sites such as Jemdet Nasr.[20]

With the advent of the Early Dynastic period, the standard cuneiform script used to write the Sumerian language emerged, though only about 400 tablets have been recovered from this period; these are mainly from Ur, with a few from Uruk.[21] Thus, the 5000 years from the emergence of tokens to full cuneiform writing was about equal to the 5000 years since then.

Language

There is a longstanding debate in the academic community regarding when the Sumerian people arrived in Mesopotamia. Partly spurred by linguistic arguments and evidence, overall it is generally clear that a number of fundamental changes occurred in Mesopotamia—such as the use of the plano-convex brick—at the same time the first definitive evidence of the Sumerian language appeared during the Early Dynastic I period. Proto-cuneiform offers no clear clues as to what spoken language it encoded, leading to much speculation, though Sumerian is often assumed.[22] [23]

Corpus

About 170 similar tablets from Uruk V, Susa, and other Iranian sites like Tepe Sialk, are considered to be pre-Proto-Elamite, though bearing similarities to proto-cuneiform.[24] Sign lists and transliterations are less clear for this category.[25]

Like Proto-Elamite, the system's propagation was relatively limited. The vast majority of the proto-cuneiform texts found, about 4000, have been located in archaic Uruk, though also in secondary contexts within the Eanna district. The tablets fall primarily into two styles: the earlier (building level IV) set featuring more naturalistic figures, written with a pointed stylus, and the later set (building level III) with a more abstract style, made using a blunt stylus. These correspond to the Late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods respectively.[26] [27] Many of the tablets were themselves later used as foundation filler during the construction of the Uruk III Eanna temple complex. It appears that the records were considered to be of transient utility or interest, and were quickly disposed of. The difficult stratigraphy has brought about a change from referring to tablets based on excavation layer to one of calling them script phase IV and III. Similarly to the tablets, clay seals previously used to secure vessels and doors ended up in the fill after being removed.[28] The sites and analysis of sealing has led to suggestions that the tablets originated elsewhere and ended up at Uruk, where they were discarded.[29]

A smaller number of tablets were found in Jemdet Nasr (2 Uruk V, 236 Uruk III), Umma, Eshnunna (2 Uruk III), Larsa (23 Uruk III), Khafajah, Kish (5 Uruk III), and Tell Uqair (39 Uruk III).[30] [31] [32] They tend to be less fragmentary and are sometimes found in stratified contexts. Some have made their way into various private and public collections: the provenance for some can be determined from internal clues, but for some the origin city is unknown.[33] [34] For example, in 1988 82 complete well-preserved tablets from the Swiss Erlenmeyer Collection in Basel were auctioned off with most ending up in public collections.[35]

A notable exemplar was found by Langdon during his excavation in the 1920s, often called the "Kish tablet". A plaster-cast of the artifact is presently held in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, with the original at the Baghdad Museum. Its date of origin is unclear.[36]

Some tablets were sealed using a cylindrical seal.[37]

State of decipherment

To decipher an unknown, fully functional writing system, scholars usually need some knowledge of the underlying spoken language, some bilingual texts, and a large corpus. Proto-cuneiform was not accessible in any of these ways, but decipherment was possible because it was not a full writing system, but a specialized notation for economic administration. Its texts were stereotyped and concrete, such as lists of items.[38] [39]

Already in 1928 with the first publication of texts, a numerical sign list had been developed, based on similarity to the signs of Fara, the earliest cuneiform texts which were the immediate successors of Proto-cuneiform. The sexagesimal numerals and area numbers were also essentially the same.[40] The mathematical system of proto-cuneiform and Proto-Elamite was largely deciphered over a few decades beginning in the 1970s.[41] [42] [43] [44] Some details remain obscure, and several generally agreed-upon details remain contested. For example, the (ŠE system E) is thought to be a capacity measure, but this has been challenged because it is only found in the Uruk IV layers, not the later Uruk III, and it lacks the markers of a capacity measure.[45] [46]

Sign Inventory

Currently there are about 2000 known proto-cuneiform signs: about 350 numerical, 1100 individual ideographic, and 600 complex (combinations of individual signs).[47] The non-numerical signs are attested in about 40,000 occurrences. There was a high degree of heterogeneity in sign usage: about 530 signs are only attested once, about 610 two to ten times, 370 attested 11 to 100 times, and about 104 signs attested more than 100 times. Many signs have been identified including those for barley and emmer wheat.[48]

Numbers

The underlying numeric base of the Proto-cuneiform, like later cuneiform, is sexagesimal (base 60).[49] [50] Earlier researchers believed that this system rose out of an earlier decimal (base 10) substratum but that idea has now lost currency.[51]

Different products used different measurement systems, which could change with the context. In a single tablet the (Bisexagesimal System B) could be used for grain rations, (ŠE system Š) for barley, and (ŠE system Š") for emmer wheat. Another was (ŠE system C) for capacity, typically of grain.[52] There were thirteen numerical systems in total (Sexagesimal, Sexagesimal S', Bisexagesimal, Bisexagesimal B*, GAN2, EN, U4, ŠE, ŠE', ŠE", ŠE*, DUGb, DUGc) of which the contemporary Proto-Elamite writing system used only seven, and only half of the sixty proto-cuneiform numerical signs.[53] [54]

Texts

Administrative

The largest group of Proto-cuneiform texts (about 2000 from the Uruk IV period and 3600 from Uruk III) are accounts (economic records).[55] They involve a variety of items including people, livestock, and grain. Confusingly, there are often multiple ways to write things. For example, people can be listed by gender and age (adult, minor, baby); or without gender by a number of age groups (0–1, 3–10 etc.).[56]

Miscellaneous

Another large category (with around a dozen examples in Uruk IV, and approximately 750 in Uruk III)) are called "lexical lists", which appeared during Uruk IV but proliferated in Uruk III.[57] These are lists of items in a given physical category: metals, cities, tools.[58] [59] [60] [61] Examples persisted into Early Dynastic and Old Babylonian times.[62] [63] [64]

Publications

The proto-cuneiform texts from Uruk were published in a series of books (ATU)

And from other sites (MSVO)

Unicode

A Unicode block encoding proto-cuneiform was initially proposed in 2020.[47] but has not yet been formally accepted by the consortium, though character encoding for later forms of cuneiform have been formalized.[65] [66] [67]

See also

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Finegan, Jack . Archaeological History Of The Ancient Middle East . . 2019 . 9780429726385.
  2. Schmandt-Besserat, Denise, "The Envelopes That Bear the First Writing", Technology and Culture, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 357–85, 1980
  3. Schmandt-Besserat, Denise, "Decipherment of the Earliest Tablets", Science, vol. 211, no. 4479, pp. 283–85, 1981
  4. Overmann, Karenleigh A., "The Neolithic Clay Tokens", in The Material Origin of Numbers: Insights from the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Piscataway, NJ, USA: Gorgias Press, pp. 157–178, 2019
  5. https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/articles/cdlj/2023-2
  6. Denise Schmandt-Besserat, "An Archaic Recording System and the Origin of Writing", Syro-Mesopotamian Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1–32, 1977
  7. Denise Schmandt-Besserat, "An Archaic Recording System in the Uruk-Jemdet Nasr Period", American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 83, no. 1, pp. 19–48, (Jan. 1979)
  8. Lieberman, Stephen J., "Of Clay Pebbles, Hollow Clay Balls, and Writing: A Sumerian View", American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 84, no. 3, pp. 339–58, 1980
  9. Schmandt-Besserat, D., "Tokens at Susa", Oriens Antiquus 25(1–2), pp. 93–125, 1986
  10. Bennison-Chapman, Lucy Ebony, "Tools of the Trade: Accounting Tokens as an Alternative to Text in the Cuneiform World", Bulletin of the American Society of Overseas Research 390.1, 2023
  11. http://sarweb.org/media/files/sar_press_uruk_mesopotamia_chapter8.pdf
  12. Schmandt-Besserat, Denise, "Three The Uruk Vase: Sequential Narrative". When Writing Met Art: From Symbol to Story, New York, USA: University of Texas Press, pp. 41-46, 2007
  13. Overmann, Karenleigh A., "Appendix: Data Tables", The Material Origin of Numbers: Insights from the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Piscataway, NJ, USA: Gorgias Press, pp. 245-256, 2019
  14. Schmandt-Besserat, Denise, "The Earliest Precursor of Writing", Scientific American, vol. 238, no. 6, pp. 50–59, 1978
  15. Strommenger, Eva, "The Chronological Division of the Archaic Levels of Uruk-Eanna VI to III/II: Past and Present", American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 84, no. 4, pp. 479–87, 1980
  16. https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/27127/1/hallo%20report.pdf
  17. Oates, Joan and Oates, David, "The Reattribution of Middle Uruk Materials at Brak". Leaving No Stones Unturned: Essays on the Ancient Near East and Egypt in Honor of Donald P. Hansen, edited by Erica Ehrenberg, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 145–154, 2002
  18. R. Dyson, "The relative and absolute chronology of Hissar H and the proto-Elamite of Northern Iran", In: Chronologie du Prochc Orient/Relative chrono-logics and absolute chronology 16,000–4,000 BC. CNRS International Symposium, Lyon France, 24–28 November, 1986, 13AR Internat. Scr. 379, Oxford, pp. 647–677, 1987
  19. Green, M. W., "Archaic Uruk Cuneiform", American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 90, no. 4, pp. 464–66, 1986
  20. Glassner, Jean-Jacques, "Writing in Sumer: The Invention of Cuneiform", Translated by Zainab Bahrani and Marc Van de Mieroop. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003
  21. Lecompte, Camille, "Observations on Diplomatics, Tablet Layout and Cultural Evolution of the Early Third Millennium: The Archaic Texts from Ur", in Materiality of Writing in Early Mesopotamia, edited by Thomas E. Balke and Christina Tsouparopoulou, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 133–164, 2016
  22. Monaco, Salvatore F., "proto-cuneiform And Sumerians", Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, vol. 87, no. 1/4, pp. 277–82, 2014
  23. Monaco, Salvatore F., "Loan and Interest in the Archaic Texts", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 102, no. 2, pp. 165–178, 2013
  24. Dittman, R., "Seals, Sealings and Tablets. Thoughts on the changing pattern of administrative control from the Late-Uruk to the Proto-Elamite period at Susa", pp. 332–66 in Gamdat Nasr. Period or Regional Style? ed. U. Finkbeiner and R. Röllig. TAVO B/62. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1986
  25. Overmann, Karenleigh A., "Numerical Notations And Writing", in The Material Origin of Numbers: Insights from the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Piscataway, NJ, USA: Gorgias Press, pp. 179–206, 2019
  26. Nissen, Hans J., "The Archaic Texts from Uruk", World Archaeology, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 317–34, 1986
  27. H.J. Nissen, "The Development of Writing and of Glyptic Art", in: U. Finkbeiner – W. Röllig (edd.): Gamdat Nasr — Period or Regional Style? Papers given at a symposium held in Tübingen, November 1983, Wiesbaden, pp. 316–331, 1986
  28. Stratford, Edward, "Archives and the Deformation of Time", Volume 1 A Year of Vengeance, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 316–332, 2017
  29. Charvát, Petr., "Early Texts and Sealings: 'Divine Journeys' in the Uruk IV Period?", Altorientalische Forschungen, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 30–33, 1995
  30. Matthews, Roger J., "Jemdet Nasr: The Site and the Period", The Biblical Archaeologist, vol. 55, no. 4, pp. 196–203, 1992
  31. R. J. Matthews, "Defining the Style of the Period: Jemdet Nasr 1926–28", Iraq, vol. 54, pp. 1–34, 1992
  32. Lloyd, Seton, et al., "Tell Uqair: Excavations by the Iraq Government Directorate of Antiquities in 1940 and 1941", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 131–58, 1943
  33. https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/files-up/publications/englund1991b.pdf
  34. Falkenstein, Adam, "Archaische texte des Iraq-Museums in Baghdad", Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 40/7, pp. 401–410, 1937
  35. https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/files-up/publications/englund2001b.pdf
  36. S. Langdon, "Excavations at Kish Volume 1 Expedition to Mesopotamia", Paul Geuthner, Paris, 1924
  37. Goff, Beatrice L., and Briggs Buchanan, "A Tablet of the Uruk Period in the Goucher College Collection", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 231–35, 1956
  38. https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/study_writng.pdf
  39. https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/articles/cdlj/2006-1.pdf
  40. Langdon, Stephen Herbert, "Pictographic Inscriptions from Jemdet Nasr excavated by the Oxford and Field Museum Expedition", Oxford editions of cuneiform texts 7, Oxford University Press, 1928
  41. Friberg, Jöran, "The Third Millennium Roots of Babylonian Mathematics.1. A Method for the Decipherment, through Mathematical and Metrological Analysis of Proto-Sumerian and Proto-Elamite Semi-pictographic Inscriptions", Göteborg: Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Göteborg, 1978–1979
  42. Friberg, Jöran, "The Early Roots of Mathematics: II. Metrological Relations in a Group of Semi-Pictographic Tablets of the Jemdet Nasr Type, Probably from Uruk Warka, Göteborg, Sweden:Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Götebor, 1979
  43. Friberg, Jöran, "Counting and Accounting in the Proto-Literate Middle East: Examples from Two New Volumes of Proto-cuneiform Texts", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 51, pp. 107–37, 1999
  44. Friberg, Jöran, "Round and Almost Round Numbers in Proto-Literate Metro-Mathematical Field Texts", Archiv Für Orientforschung, vol. 44/45, pp. 1–58, 1997
  45. Bartash, Vitali, "Approaching the topic", in Establishing Value: Weight Measures in Early Mesopotamia, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 1–15, 2019
  46. Vaiman, Aizik A., "Protosumerische Mass- und Zählsysteme", Baghdader Mitteilungen 20, pp. 114–120, 1989
  47. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20193-proto-cuneiform.pdf
  48. Woods, Christopher, "Contingency Tables and Economic Forecasting in the Earliest Texts from Mesopotamia", Texts and Contexts: The Circulation and Transmission of Cuneiform Texts in Social Space, edited by Paul Delnero and Jacob Lauinger, Berlin, München, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 121–142, 2015
  49. Friberg, Jöran, "The Early Roots of Babylonian Mathematics: II. Metrological Relations in a Group of Semi-Pictographic Tablets of the Jemdet Nasr Type, Probably from Uruk-Warka", Research Report, 1979-15; University of Göteborg, Department of Mathematics, Chalmers, 1978–79
  50. Friberg, Jöran, "Three Thousand Years of Sexagesimal Numbers in Mesopotamian Mathematical Texts", Archive for History of Exact Sciences, vol. 73, no. 2, pp. 183–216, 2019
  51. Powell, Marvin A. Jr., "Sumerian Area Measures and the Alleged Decimal Substratum", vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 165–221, 1972
  52. https://cdli.ucla.edu/pubs/cdlb/2003/cdlb2003_004.html
  53. https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/files-up/publications/englund2004a.pdf
  54. Dahl, Jacob L., "The Proto-Elamite writing system", in The Elamite World, pp. 383–396, 2018
  55. Wagensonner, Klaus, "Early Lexical Lists and Their Impact on Economic Records: An Attempt of Correlation Between Two Seemingly Different Kinds of Data-Sets", Organization, Representation, and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Würzburg 20–25 Jul, edited by Gernot Wilhelm, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 805–818, 2022
  56. Bartash, Vitali, "Children in Institutional Households of Late Uruk Period Mesopotamia", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 105, no. 2, pp. 131–138, 2015
  57. https://hal.science/hal-04264785/document
  58. Civil, Miguel, "Remarks on AD-GI₄ (a.k.a. "Archaic Word List C" or "Tribute")", Journal of Cuneiform Studies 65, pp. 13–67, 2013
  59. Krispijn, Theo J.H., "The Early Mesopotamian Lexical Lists and the Dawn of Linguistics", Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux 32, pp. 12–22, 1992
  60. Englund, Robert K., "Texts from the Late Uruk period", In Pascal Attinger and Markus Wäfler, eds. Mesopotamien. Späturuk-Zeit und Frühdynastische Zeit. Annäherungen 1. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 160/1, Pp. 15–233. Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 1998
  61. Veldhuis, Niek C., "How did they Learn Cuneiform? 'Tribute/Word List C' as an Elementary Exercise", in Piotr Michalowski and Niek Veldhuis, eds. Approaches to Sumerian Literature. Studies in Homour of Stip (H.L.J. Vanstiphout). Cuneiform Monographs 35. Pp. 181–200. Leiden: Brill/STYX, 2006
  62. Ross, Jennifer C., "Lost: The Missing Lexical Lists of the Archaic Period", Strings and Threads: A Celebration of the Work of Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, edited by Wolfgang Heimpel and Gabriella Szabo, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 231–242, 2022
  63. Green, M. W., "A Note on an Archaic Period Geographical List from Warka", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 293–94, 1977
  64. Camille Lecompte, and Giacomo Benati, "Nonadministrative Documents from Archaic Ur and from Early Dynastic I–II Mesopotamia: A New Textual and Archaeological Analysis", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 69, pp. 3–31, 2017
  65. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2021/21184-proto-cuneiform.pdf
  66. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2022/22239-proto-cuneiform.pdf
  67. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2023/23190-proto-cuneiform.pdf

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