Cuneiform Writing System Analysis

Writing originally was invented independently in three separate countries including the cuneiform writing system in Mesopotamia which was first introduced at around 3200 BC in southern Mesopotamia (Houston, 3). To be specific, the system was created during the Uruk period, which “is characterized by strong urbanization and increased societal complexity” (Houston, 4). During this period, there was an increase in the population, advanced irrigation of land and cultural growth (Beaulieu, Unit 2). “The temples played an important role in exchange of goods, necessitated by the division of labor that accompanied urbanization. It is in this context that record keeping developed into writing” (Houston, 4). The cuneiform writing system was created as
For this reason, a system of counting sheep, cattle, and grains such as cereal was necessary to keep this trade functioning (Grigorenko et al, 3). This system consists of tokens, with each token representing a unit of goods. Tokens were fairly easy to make and the resources required were abundant in Mesopotamia. Such resources include water from the two river canals that run through central Mesopotamia, the Euphrates and Tigris, combined with mud that resulted in moist material known as clay. Clay is known to be easily modeled when moist and if left in the sun to dry, it tends to become a relatively permanent, hard, and solid material (Grigorenko et al, 3-4). These tokens also came in different geometric shapes and sizes including “cones, spheres, cylinders, ovoids, disks and tetrahedrons” (Grigorenko et al, 3). The success of this system was due to the rather compelling geometric shapes that were easily recognized by the merchants, and the simple manufacture of tokens from the abundant resources that was already accessible to the people of Mesopotamia. In fact, this system was quickly adapted by nearby cities, and gradually progressed in shape, variety and representation during the fourth millennium with each token defining specific sex, age, and type of species that was involved in the trade (Glassner, 64). This was evident when archeologist recovered more than 250 diversely shaped tokens in Uruk (Grigorenko et al, 6). Additionally, in the fourth millennium, “the city state administration became concerned with storing accounts of tokens featuring debts, probably unpaid taxes” (Grigorenko et al, 6). To solve this problem, Envelopes were created from the same materials and methods as the tokens, but in a rather