Proto-cuneiform writing
Escritura protocuneiforme (tablillas de Uruk IV)
- Date
- c. 3300 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Uruk (Warka), Eanna precinct, Muthanna, Iraq
- Credited to
- Administration of the Uruk temples (Sumer)
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Clay tablets with incised pictograms and numerical signs recording rations, flocks, beer and textiles from the Eanna temple. The first writing system, born of accounting rather than literature; it closes the Chalcolithic and opens history.
The Abydos signs (tomb U-j, Egypt, c. 3250 BCE) are nearly contemporary; Chinese, Mesoamerican and Indus writing are later, independent inventions. This catalogue's 3300 BCE cut-off coincides with Uruk IV.
What it led to
- Unlimited administrative memory: the state can govern across distance and time
- Scribes as a literate class and the school as an institution
- Recording of laws, myths and science: the beginning of written history
- A sexagesimal system and standardised metrology
Built on
- Clay accounting tokensc. 8000 BCE
- Vinča signs (Danubian proto-writing)c. 5700-4000 BCE
- Platform temple (proto-ziggurat)c. 5300 BCE
- City and urbanismc. 3700 BCE
- Clay envelope (bulla) with tokensc. 3500 BCE
- Cylinder sealc. 3500 BCE
- Commodity money (barley and silver standards)c. 3400 BCE
- Bulla with impressions
Made possible
- Cuneiform writingc. 3200 BCE
- Egyptian hieroglyphsc. 3200 BCE
- Sexagesimal number systemc. 3000 BCE
- Ugaritic alphabet (alphabetic cuneiform)c. 1400 BCE
- Sexagesimal system
- Lexical lists and the scribal school
- Egyptian hieroglyphs (by stimulus diffusion)