• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Origin Of Written Language Revealed In 5,500-Year-Old Mesopotamian Artifacts

November 5, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

When did humans start “putting pen to paper” and expressing their thoughts through a series of complex symbols? An important piece of the puzzle might have just been identified in the form of ancient artifacts from Mesopotamia.

An ancient city called Uruk emerged as one of the earliest sites of urbanization in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE, exerting its influence across a vast portion of the Tigris-Euphrates river region from present-day Iran to Turkey. Among its many pioneering feats, the city was an important hub of culture, witnessing the development of an early predecessor of written language known today as proto-cuneiform script.

Advertisement

Before this, another system of symbols was used in the city. Pictographic signs were applied to clay tablets using an engraved cylinder seal that was rolled across the medium, leaving its imprint like an embossed rolling pin on soft dough.

Around 3500 BCE, cylinder seals were used to account for the production, storage, and transport of various consumer goods, such as food supplies and textiles – basically, an ancient form of accounting and record-keeping.

Researchers have previously identified hundreds of the pictographic signs used in proto-cuneiform, although more than half remain undeciphered to this day. 

While it’s often been assumed that the cylinder seals gave rise to the invention of writing in this part of Asia, the exact nature of the relationship hasn’t been fully understood.

Diagrams of proto-cuneiform signs and their precursors from pre-literate seals.

Diagrams of proto-cuneiform signs and their precursors from pre-literate seals.

Image credit: Courtesy of CDLI – Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative

In a new study, researchers at the University of Bologna in Italy believe they have come closer to explaining the gulf between the pictographic symbols of cylinder seals and proto-cuneiform. They systematically compared the illustrative designs on the cylinders to the proto-language and identified several direct links.

“We focused on seal imagery that originated before the invention of writing, while continuing to develop into the proto-literate period. This approach allowed us to identify a series of designs related to the transport of textiles and pottery, which later evolved into corresponding proto-cuneiform signs,” Kathryn Kelley and Mattia Cartolano, both researchers at the University of Bologna and co-authors of the study, said in a statement. 

“Our findings demonstrate that the designs engraved on cylinder seals are directly connected to the development of proto-cuneiform in southern Iraq. They also show how the meaning originally associated with these designs was integrated into a writing system,” explained Silvia Ferrara, lead researcher and professor in the Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies at the University of Bologna.

Possible meanings of the proto-cuneiform signs.

Possible meanings of the proto-cuneiform signs.

Image credit: Courtesy of CDLI – Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative; Kelley et al, Antiquity 2024 (CC BY-NC-ND)

In sum, the symbols of the cylinder seal were a direct ancestor of proto-cuneiform signs, which then evolved into cuneiform, the oldest known form of written language.

Advertisement

By uncovering more of this relationship, the researchers believe they have illuminated part of the story behind a fundamental component of human culture; the transition from humble symbols used to track the trade of goods to written languages used to create religious texts and beautiful works of literature. 

“The conceptual leap from pre-writing symbolism to writing is a significant development in human cognitive technologies. 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,” added Ferrara. 

The study is published in the journal Antiquity.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. China Evergrande shares slide 6% in early trade
  2. Indonesia’s new carbon tax signals higher power costs amid calls for clarity
  3. Hangxiety: Why Might You Feel Anxious After Drinking Alcohol?
  4. Volcanoes On Venus Might Still Be Erupting In Widely Spread Locations

Source Link: Origin Of Written Language Revealed In 5,500-Year-Old Mesopotamian Artifacts

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • A Spinning Island Lake In Argentina Looms Out Of The Swamps Like An Eyeball
  • Mammals Have Evolved Into Ant Eaters 12 Times Since The Dinosaurs Went Extinct
  • Thieving Pulsar Spinning 592 Times A Second Reveals New Understanding Of Where Its X-Rays Come From
  • The Rise And Fall (And Lamentable Rise) Of The “Alpha Male” Myth
  • IFLScience The Big Questions: How Do Black Holes Shape The Universe?
  • North America’s Smallest Turtle Is The Cutest Thing You’ll Find In A Bog
  • “Unambiguous Signal” To Curb Emissions Now: Long-Lost Aerial Photos Reveal Evolution Of Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapse
  • 8 Children Have Been Born With 3 Biological Parents Each After Mitochondrial Transfer
  • First Known Observations Of Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry In Special Particle Decay
  • In 1973, NASA Sent Two Spiders Into Space To See If They Can Spin Webs – And They Learnt A Lot
  • Meet The Many Species Of Freaky Looking “Assassin Spiders” That Only Eat Other Spiders
  • Your Dog’s TV Preferences Might Reveal Their Personality
  • Some Human Gut Bacteria Can Absorb Harmful Toxic “Forever Chemicals” So They Can Be Pooped Out
  • You Could Float Through 10 Countries Before The World’s Most International River Spat You Out
  • Enormous Coronal Hole And Beast-Like Crawling Prominences Dazzle On The Active Sun
  • Dramatic Drone Footage Of Iceland’s Latest Volcanic Eruption Shows An Epic Scene From Hell
  • A Shrimp That Lives In A Tree? Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains Are Home To Some Seriously Strange Wildlife
  • Is NASA’s Claim That Saturn Could Float On Water Really True?
  • Pangea Proxima: This Is What Planet Earth May Look Like 250 Million Years In The Future
  • The Story Of Dogxim, The Fox-Dog Hybrid That Shouldn’t Have Existed
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version