Significance of Tokens as Pre-Writing Symbols
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Numerous scholars have presented evidence indicating that tokens, often made of clay and presented in various significant sizes, markings and shapes, were used to keep accounts of financial and other transactions or accounts of grain, jars of oil, or units of land. These tokens, which appeared in such cultures as that of the Sumerians and other Near Eastern peoples, represented a first step toward the development of a written language as well as a system of numerical record-keeping of a permanent or quasi-permanent nature. As a necessary precursor to the development of a more complex written language tokens emerged as people turned from a life of hunting and gathering to a life and socio-economic system based on agriculture and, later, trade. As tokens and their various shapes, forms and markings became standardized, and as cities were developed, these symbols took on added meaning and importance. Further, as social and economic complexity increased, token accounting and record-keeping systems served as the basis for the development of more complex written language and symbols. The purpose of this report is to identify the significance of tokens, defined as small geometric clay objects (e.g., cylinders, cones, spheres, etc.) found throughout the Near East from about 8000 B.C. until the development of writing. Based upon a qualitative review of relevant literature, this report will demonstrate that these small pieces of clay and ot
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to symbols derived from clay tokens, they also added other symbols that were more pictographic in nature, i.e. they resemble the natural object they represent."
These small clay tokens were made in a variety of geometric shapes, including cones, spheres, disks, cylinders, and tetrahedrons. Some appeared to be miniature models of less than one inch in size of animals or tools. Perforations and various markings were used to future differentiate one type of token (or its specific meaning or value commentary) from another. As Diane Schmandt-Besserat, an expert in this field, has noted, these token represented a major step toward the development of a more complete writing system and may have been instrumental in the development of abstract counting as well.
M. Isabel Panosa noted that even in the era of Cro-Magnon man, there were measurements and pictography (symbols) that were used to record important events or to account for items. However, it would be many millennia before the social and economic conditions necessary to require the complicated administrative register of the first writing systems emerged. In principle, the initial use of writing was for accounting, associated with an economy undergoing expansion that req
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Geary O'Brien, Mesopotamia Based, Near East, Near Eastern, Isabel Panosa, Bernard Jones, Conclusion Clay, Melville Sumerian, , Introduction Purpose, clay tokens, token system, near east, jars oil, data storage, 2004 available, precursor development, clay tablets, 3000 bc, written language, throughout near east, jars oil units, units land tokens, accounts grain jars, oil units land,
Approximate Word count = 1632
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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