The origins of writing remain a great mystery and give rise to one of the great scientific debates. When did we move from pictographic representations of reality to abstract symbols and how did this materialize in the appearance of the first letters? A team of researchers from the University of Bologna has just provided a valuable clue by discovering the relationship between images printed by ancient cylinder seals in Mesopotamia and certain signs of protocuneiform writing.
In a study published this Tuesday in the journal Antiquityand led by Silvia Ferrara, A series of correlations are highlighted between the drawings engraved on these cylinders, which date back around six thousand years, and some of the signs of protocuneiform writing that appeared in the city of Uruk, located in what is now southern Iraq, circa 3000 BC. c.
“The conceptual leap from pre-writing symbolism to writing constitutes a significant advance in human cognitive technologies,” says Ferrara. “The invention of writing marks the transition from prehistory to history, and the results of this study fill this gap by illustrating how certain late prehistoric images were incorporated into one of the first invented writing systems. ”
Uruk, one of the first cities to emerge in Mesopotamia, was an extremely important center during the 4th millennium BC. C. In this region, cylinder seals were created, usually made of stone and engraved with a series of designs which were rolled onto clay tablets, leaving a stamped impression of the design, which were used as part of a system an accountant. A little later, protocuneiform writing appeared, a form of archaic writing composed of hundreds of pictographic signs, more than half of which remain undeciphered.
Looking for correlations
“The close relationship between ancient seals and the invention of writing in Southwest Asia has long been recognized, but the relationship between specific seal images and sign forms has barely been explored,” says Ferrara . “That was our initial question: Did the imagery of seals contribute significantly to the invention of signs in the region’s early writings?
To find an answer, researchers systematically compared cylinder designs with protocuneiform signs, looking for correlations that might reveal direct relationships in both graphic form and meaning.
“We focused on images of seals that arose before the invention of writing, but continued to develop during the proto-literary period,” add Kathryn Kelley and Mattia Cartolano, both researchers at the University of Bologna and co-authors of the study. “This approach allowed us to identify a series of designs related to the transport of textiles and ceramics, which then evolved into the corresponding protocuneiform signs.”
“Our findings demonstrate that the designs engraved on the cylinder seals are directly linked to the development of protocuneiform writing in southern Iraq.”
Silvia Ferrara
— University of Bologna
This is why the authors conclude that this discovery reveals, for the first time, a direct link between the cylindrical seal system and the invention of writing, offering new perspectives for studying the evolution of symbolic systems and writing. “Our findings demonstrate that the designs engraved on the cylinder seals are directly linked to the development of proto-cuneiform writing in southern Iraq,” defends Silvia Ferrara. “They also show how the meaning initially associated with these drawings was integrated into a writing system.”
Comparison with petroglyphs
Antonio Benítez Burraco, professor of linguistics and specialist in the origin of language, considers that the results are consistent with what was known about the origin of cuneiform writing, which appears, for example, on objects used for count and is based on representations of heads. of cattle which were then engraved on clay with the meaning of “cow”.
It would be interesting to see what similarities exist between the petroglyphs and the symbols used on the seals, as they are still evolving.
Antonio Benitez Burraco
— Professor of linguistics and specialist in the origin of language
“These stamps are certainly more abstract,” he explains to elDiario.es. “At first glance, it would seem more logical to expect symbols to be more concrete at first and become more abstract over time. It could be argued that, for this reason, seals could postdate (as a form of writing) the more pictographic signs. However, older abstract graphic representations exist everywhere, such as petroglyphs.
“I think it would be interesting to see what similarities exist between the petroglyphs and the symbols used on the seals, because perhaps these symbols are an evolution of the petroglyphs or similar representations,” says Benítez Burraco. “These petroglyphs are of great interest because they are very similar across the planet, which likely means their designs are perceptually/cognitively appealing to humans.”
