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How Writing Came About
Top 100 Books on Science, American Scientist, 2001 In 1992, the University of Texas Press published Before Writing, Volume From Counting to Cuneiform and Before Writing, Volume A Catalog of Near Eastern Tokens. In these two volumes, Denise Schmandt-Besserat set forth her groundbreaking theory that the cuneiform script invented in the Near East in the late fourth millennium B.C.—the world's oldest known system of writing—derived from an archaic counting device. How Writing Came About draws material from both volumes to present Schmandt-Besserat's theory for a wide public and classroom audience. Based on the analysis and interpretation of a selection of 8,000 tokens or counters from 116 sites in Iran, Iraq, the Levant, and Turkey, it documents the immediate precursor of the cuneiform script.
207 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 6, 2014
When this author first published her thesis it attracted a lot of attention. She argues that the cuneiform writing system developed from a much earlier system of small tokens - geometric shapes like discs, spheres or pyramids - that were used in long-distance trading in the Neolithic period. Thousands of such tokens have been unearthed from sites all over the ancient Near East and beyond.
Through the analysis of tokens set within clay envelopes the book does make a good case for the general thesis that these tokens were used in a trading system.
However, as subsequent researchers and writers have shown, there are some pretty serious problems with the authors contentions. The real problem is making an association between the precise forms of the tokens and the commodities that they are supposed to represent.
A good case is the circular disk incised with a cross - it can be understood as a three dimensional version of the cuneiform sign for sheep (UDU) and that sounds great cause it makes sense - these tokens represent sheep. But then comes the problem: as Paul Zimansky pointed out, there are only 15 such examples and given the millions upon millions of sheep traded in antiquity you have to ask why there aren't ten's of thousands of examples. The theory starts to creak somewhat more when you also learn that there are 60 tokens supposedly for nails and in terms of numbers surprisingly few tokens for cloth and garments which were a major industry in Mesopotamia.
Basically the thesis is impossible to prove as it rests on the assumption that written signs and similar looking tokens correspond to each other with exactitude. This is tantamount to saying that any particular sign means the same thing regardless of its context. Consideration of the humble 'X' should alert the reader to the unsound nature of this assertion - on a map a cross means 'here', in a text it represents a sound, on an exam paper it means 'wrong' and at the end of a letter it refers to a 'kiss' - but they are all exactly the same sign!
The best criticism of the author's theories is found in Glassner's 'The Invention of Cuneiform' pages 63-83. I would recommend that you read this to get an even-handed view of this book and the theory it proposes.
Through the analysis of tokens set within clay envelopes the book does make a good case for the general thesis that these tokens were used in a trading system.
However, as subsequent researchers and writers have shown, there are some pretty serious problems with the authors contentions. The real problem is making an association between the precise forms of the tokens and the commodities that they are supposed to represent.
A good case is the circular disk incised with a cross - it can be understood as a three dimensional version of the cuneiform sign for sheep (UDU) and that sounds great cause it makes sense - these tokens represent sheep. But then comes the problem: as Paul Zimansky pointed out, there are only 15 such examples and given the millions upon millions of sheep traded in antiquity you have to ask why there aren't ten's of thousands of examples. The theory starts to creak somewhat more when you also learn that there are 60 tokens supposedly for nails and in terms of numbers surprisingly few tokens for cloth and garments which were a major industry in Mesopotamia.
Basically the thesis is impossible to prove as it rests on the assumption that written signs and similar looking tokens correspond to each other with exactitude. This is tantamount to saying that any particular sign means the same thing regardless of its context. Consideration of the humble 'X' should alert the reader to the unsound nature of this assertion - on a map a cross means 'here', in a text it represents a sound, on an exam paper it means 'wrong' and at the end of a letter it refers to a 'kiss' - but they are all exactly the same sign!
The best criticism of the author's theories is found in Glassner's 'The Invention of Cuneiform' pages 63-83. I would recommend that you read this to get an even-handed view of this book and the theory it proposes.
September 18, 2022
Great leaps of understanding
Great leaps of understanding occurred while reading this book.
How tokens for record keeping led to impressions in clay which led to markings which led to pictographs which led to writing...and so on...
such a fascinating study. Highly recommended.
I was not aware of how extremely important tokens for record keeping, (which reigned for thousands of years before writing), were to the lead up and invention of writing. Fascinating indeed.
Great leaps of understanding occurred while reading this book.
How tokens for record keeping led to impressions in clay which led to markings which led to pictographs which led to writing...and so on...
such a fascinating study. Highly recommended.
I was not aware of how extremely important tokens for record keeping, (which reigned for thousands of years before writing), were to the lead up and invention of writing. Fascinating indeed.
December 15, 2023
Thank you Gavin White. I defer to the opinion, rating, and comments you offered in your Goodreads' review of January 6, 2014. As a person unfamiliar with the area, I did not see the many problems with Denise Schmandt-Besserat's theory and data. Gavin points me/us to Jean-Jacques Glassner's "The Invention of Cuneiform" (pages 63-83). [The pages are available as preview material on Google Books.] Unfortunately, I read Glassner only after I read Schmandt-Besserat. Glassner's critique is thorough, profound, and convincing. My advice to readers of this review: read Glassner's analysis before you read Schmandt-Besserat, if you read her. Glassner's book has fewer ratings and reviews than Schmandt-Besserat's on Goodreads and Amazon [not many for either]. Unfortunate. Glassner deserved more airtime. She got way too much. Schmandt-Besserat's complex, interesting, popular, but ill-founded theory persists. Too bad.
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May 5, 2012Good book for students and interested persons of ancient art and history.
I recommend it.
I recommend it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews