Clay
circa 3500-3300 BCE
Iraq
Vorderasiatisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Details
Culture/Civilisation
Ancient Mesopotamia
Theme
Writing
Subtheme
From Record Keeping to Writing
Display Location
Coomaraswamy Hall
Findspot
Uruk (modern Warka), Iraq
Measurements
2.5 x Diameter. 1.5 cm
Accession Number
VA 14838.07
Description
The Mesopotamian tokens represented specific commodities (oil, barley, cloth, sheep and fish). The images of oil jar and fish are easily recognisable. The other shapes – like the lines for barley or the cross for a sheep – are more abstract.
Many early scripts mixed “pictographs” (images of the thing represented) and “logographs” (abstract symbol = one spoken word).
