Clay tokens and abstract number
Fichas de arcilla y abstracción del número
- Date
- c. 8000-3200 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Uruk and Susa, Mesopotamia (Iraq and Iran)
- Credited to
- Agricultural societies of the Fertile Crescent (research by Denise Schmandt-Besserat)
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
Clay tokens with distinct shapes for each commodity, kept in sealed bullae, evolved into impressed signs and eventually into abstract numerals separated from the object counted. It marks the shift from concrete to abstract number.
The tokens-bullae-tablets sequence is the leading hypothesis on the joint origin of writing and numeration.
What it led to
- cuneiform writing
- abstract numerals
- accounting
- the sexagesimal system
Built on
- tally-mark counting
- agriculture and surpluses
Made possible
- Proto-Elamite scriptc. 3100 BCE
- state administration
- taxes