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
Diameter. 1.9 cm
Accession Number
VA 14837.006
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).
